Sirened

Sunday on CBS’s 60 Minutes Pakistan’s President, Hamid Karzai said he demands that the US stop using air strikes on his country. He said that back in August when he came to Washington he asked ‘The Decider’ privately that the US stop bombing his country. But since Bush decided that it would continue, Karzai felt compelled to go to the US media and tell the American people about it.

During the 60 Minutes piece the US military was quite candid about the analysis they use when undertaking air strikes. In fact, I think it was too candid. For high profile targets they can estimate killing up to 29 civilians without asking the president or secretary of defense. But if they estimate they will kill more than 30 they need a permission slip from one of the big wigs.

Of course, the US is a strong backer of Karzai’s government so he may be doing this to pander to his own people while at the same time telling us to continue bombing what we feel are necessary targets. Nonetheless, this is a messy situation. We are certainly not winning the hearts and minds of Afghani’s by killing innocent people and not hitting intended targets. Karzai’s government cannot succeed in the long term if this continues.

Image from this place.

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