Killing Unnamed Children in Afghanistan

by Jacob G. Hornberger

When I read this Washington Post article about the two-year-old child that U.S. forces just killed in Afghanistan, I wondered what the child's name was. Nowhere was it to be found in the article. Maybe the Post hadn't acquired the name. Or maybe it just doesn't matter. It's just one more death among the countless Afghan deaths at the hands of U.S. forces during the past 12 years.

The commander of U.S. and coalition forces in Afghanistan, Marine Corps Gen. Joseph F. Dunford Jr., issued an apology for killing the child. I wonder if he cited the child?s name in his apology. In any event, no doubt Dunford is hoping that the apology will help the U.S. government secure permission from Afghan President Hamid Karzai to keep U.S. forces in Afghanistan past 2014.

The child's death was justified by the same rationale that has been used to justify the deaths of countless other Afghan people since the U.S. invasion 12 years ago: what U.S. officials call "collateral damage." U.S. officials said that they were targeting a "mid-level Taliban commander who had been involved in attacks" on coalition troops and "organizing and facilitating lethal aid to insurgents in the area." The two-year old just happened to be at the wrong place at the wrong time.

For 12 years, the U.S. government has had carte blanche to kill as many people as it wanted in Afghanistan. Whenever U.S. forces have dropped bombs and fired missiles at suspected "terrorists," "militants," or "insurgents," there has been no second-guessing on the part of U.S. officials, no matter how many non-terrorists, non-militants, and non-insurgents have been killed in the process. Oh sure, apologies are oftentimes rendered and nominal payments of money are made to aggrieved families, but nothing has stopped the onslaught of death for 12 long years.

If they haven't killed all the bad guys by now and if they haven't trained the Afghan government to stand on its own, then it's time to just declare the entire venture a failure and bring all the troops home now.

Let's face it. That two-year-old didn't have to die. If U.S. forces had already exited Afghanistan, then U.S. forces wouldn't have been there to fire the missile that killed that kid.

Of course, U.S. officials would respond that then they wouldn't have been able to kill that militant -- the one who is "organizing and facilitating lethal aid to insurgents in the area."

Well, let's ask ourselves why that Afghan is a militant and why he's engaged in that activity. It's not because he was involved in the 9/11 attacks or planning on coming to get us here in the United States. It's because that militant is trying to rid his country of a foreign occupier -- and a brutal foreign occupier at that, one that fires missiles at people in reckless disregard of whether there are two-year-old children in the vicinity.

Long ago, the U.S. occupation of Afghanistan devolved into a war that targets people who are resisting the foreign occupation of their country and a war to prop up a corrupt, illegal pro-U.S. regime, one whose president requires bags full of cash to be regularly delivered to him by the CIA.

What about the possibility of the Taliban's regaining control of the government? Who cares? What difference would it make? Even those who cite the ballyhooed terms "terrorism" and "national security" don't get very far with those justifications anymore. After all, let's not forget that if Karzai says no more occupation, U.S. forces are exiting the country regardless of who raises those ballyhooed terms. If ?national security? was really at stake (whatever that term means), would U.S. officials really be exiting the country just because Karzai wanted them to?

Moreover, let's face it: If terrorists want to attack the United States, they don't need a friendly government in Afghanistan to do it. They can always find friendly governments elsewhere in the Middle East, such as Saudi Arabia, or simply some nice hotel room in Pakistan, Yemen, or even Berlin or London. Moreover, let?s not forget that the reason there is anti-American terrorism in the first place is owing to the U.S. national-security state?s interventionism in Afghanistan, the Middle East, and elsewhere in the region. Stopping the interventionism equals stopping the terrorism.

For 12 long years, Americans have been subjected to a constant deluge of death of foreigners at the hands of the U.S. national-security state. Death has become an everyday part of our lives. It seeps into our pores. It's ingrained into our minds. Death has become so ordinary that most people don't even wonder what the names of those who have been killed were or what kinds of lives they were living when they got killed.

It just doesn't matter. All that matters is that the national-security state is "keeping us safe" by killing a never-ending stream of people. I wonder how many Americans ever consider the possibility that it is this constant barrage of death and destruction at the hands of U.S. forces that is generating the very militancy, insurgency, and terrorism that U.S. forces continue targeting.

It's obvious that the U.S. Empire wants to continue occupying Afghanistan indefinitely into the future, knowing full well that that will ensure the endless cycle of death and destruction. My hope is that Karzai stands fast, as did the Iraqis, and kicks the American forces out of the country, preferably now rather than later. It would be the greatest gift that Karzai could give his country, the United States, and the world. At the very least, it would mean that there would be no more deaths of two-year-old unnamed children at the hands of U.S. forces, no more deaths of Afghans who are doing nothing more than trying to rid their country of a foreign occupier, and no more deaths of U.S. soldiers who kill and die for nothing.
_
Jacob G. Hornberger is founder and president of The Future of Freedom Foundation. He was born and raised in Laredo, Texas, and received his B.A. in economics from Virginia Military Institute and his law degree from the University of Texas. He was a trial attorney for twelve years in Texas. He also was an adjunct professor at the University of Dallas, where he taught law and economics. In 1987, Mr. Hornberger left the practice of law to become director of programs at the Foundation for Economic Education. He has advanced freedom and free markets on talk-radio stations all across the country as well as on Fox News' Neil Cavuto and Greta van Susteren shows and he appeared as a regular commentator on Judge Andrew Napolitano's show Freedom Watch. View these interviews at LewRockwell.com and from Full Context. Send him email.

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Killing Without Consequences: "Counter-Insurgency" Warfare in Greenfield, California

by William Norman Grigg

After eluding the police for more than a week, Alejandro Gonzalez surrendered in San Jose on January 10, 2011. The 22-year-old was the suspect in a non-fatal shooting that had taken place on New Year?s Day at a local bar called the Mucky Duck.

As should be expected, the police had done nothing useful to solve that crime. Their only contribution to the case was to stage a lethal SWAT raid against a man who had been nowhere near the bar when the shooting took place, and had nothing to do with it.

Four days after the Mucky Duck shooting ? in which three people suffered non-life-threatening injuries -- a multi-agency SWAT team invaded the home of 31-year-old Rogelio Serrato, Jr. Serrato, who was known as Roger to friends and family, was not a suspect in the shooting.

The search warrant issued for Serrato?s house should have been executed by a small group of deputies. Although police contended that Serrato was ?connected? in some way to Gonzalez, there was no reason to suspect that he was harboring the fugitive.

Serrato did have outstanding misdemeanor warrants, however, and apparently this was considered sufficient justification for sending in two dozen paramilitary drag queens who arrived in an armored convoy that included a Bearcat combat vehicle.

For about an hour, the invaders broadcast surrender demands via a ?thunder-hailer? megaphone. One young female left the house and was taken into custody. Serrato ? who, it is believed, was intoxicated and perhaps unconscious ? didn?t comply.

A three-member ?break and rake? team approached the house, shattered a window, and threw in a flash-bang grenade, which lodged itself between two highly flammable polyurethane sofas that were next to an artificial Christmas tree. One of the sofas immediately ignited. The fire quickly propagated itself through the house, generating a dense black cloud of highly toxic smoke.

Roused by either the sound of the grenade or the subsequent fire, Serrato began screaming and trying to leave the house. The sight of the unarmed man, clad only in his underwear, threw a scare into Sergeant Joseph Banuelos, who had supervised the ?break and rake? team.

?Suspect!? shrieked Banuelos. Rather than rushing into the home to arrest the suspect, the intrepid sergeant ? acting in the interests of that holiest of all considerations, ?officer safety? ? ordered his team to retreat to the Bearcat vehicle. The SWAT team then trained its weapons on the house, which effectively prevented the victim from escaping from the burning building.

Significantly, the use of a flash-bang grenade as a ?scare tactic? was part of the raid?s tactical plan, rather than an improvised measure. Deputy Mark Sievers and Detective Al Martinez, who were part of the ?break and rake? team, had previously ignited fires with flash-bang grenades, so they were aware of the potential fire risk involved in using that device. That the raid posed a potentially fatal fire danger is further demonstrated by the fact that the Greenfield Fire Department had been notified of the planned raid and was on standby.

The Fire Department responded quickly once fire enveloped Serrato?s home ? but the SWAT team held them at bay for nearly a half-hour while the screaming victim was trapped inside. By the time the firefighters could enter the home, Serrato was dead.

Just a few days ago, Monterey County agreed to a $2.6 million settlement with Serrato?s family, which was paid by the county?s insurance carrier and absolves the sheriff?s office of legal responsibility. Speaking the language of institutional self-exculpation with remarkable fluency, County Attorney Charles McKee insisted that Serrato was to blame for his own death and that the officers should be ?commended for trying to resolve a very tense situation.?

It?s often said that police are the country?s most dangerous street gang. One significant distinction between police and their private sector counterparts is that street gangs don?t expect to receive commendations when they kill innocent people.

It would be a wonderful thing if people could develop the intellectual equivalent of a computer utility that would remove uniforms, badges, and titles from news accounts of fatal police raids. Subtracting the indicia of ?authority? would enhance the ability of people to see the truth about acts of aggressive violence, and recognize them as crimes irrespective of the claimed identity of those who commit them.

The killing of Roger Serrato was an act of murder through depraved indifference. The assailants had no justification to attack his home; they knew that their plan of attack posed the risk of a catastrophic fire; once that fire began, the assailants took no action to rescue the victim, and impeded the efforts of others to do so.

The SWAT raid was a specimen of police overkill born of opportunism: What?s the use of having a SWAT team unless it can be deployed to arrest people with outstanding misdemeanor warrants?

It?s possible, perhaps even likely, that police officials chose to attack Serrato?s home simply because his location -- unlike that of the actual suspect, Alejandro Gonzalez -- was known. If the police had actually investigated the Mucky Duck shooting, rather than seizing on it as a chance to preen on camera in paramilitary attire, they would have learned that Gonzalez was not a threat to the public.

A lawsuit filed by Todd Graham, one of the shooting victims claims that before he went to his car to get his gun, Gonzalez had seen several of his friends abused by a group of bouncers who had ?escalated? a minor altercation into a life-threatening situation. At one point, a friend of Gonzalez named Mark Rosso, was thrown to the ground and pinned down by a bouncer and a bartender while another bouncer identified as ?T.K.? beat and kicked him.

In pre-trial testimony, Monterey police detective Michael Bruno admitted that witnesses had described that assault to him. Witnesses also claimed that Gonzalez went to his car and grabbed a gun while his friend was being beaten.

Graham, a bystander who was leaving the bar when the shooting began, insists that Gonzalez?s decision to get his gun was made ?in response to the actions of the bouncers.? Graham and two of the bouncers were the only ones who were shot.

As Judge Pamela Butler acknowledged in Gonzalez?s pre-trial hearing, the shooting was at least in part motivated by the desire to defend his friend, who was pleading for help and most likely in fear for his life. However, Judge Butler, a former gang prosecutor, insisted that Gonzalez?s alleged affiliation with the Norteno street gang meant that the shooting was ?gang-related.?

This gave prosecutor Cristina Johnson a rationale for charging Gonzalez with ten felonies. The charges included not three, but four counts of attempted murder: One for the shooting of Graham, the innocent bystander; two for the bouncers who were attacking Rosso; and one more for the bartender who was helping to hold the victim down. While the bartender wasn?t shot, Johnson insisted that he be treated as a victim because he was in the ?kill zone.?

The memory of man runneth not to an instance in which a police officer who used deadly force was charged for attempted murder because of the presence of an innocent victim in the ?kill zone.? Where ?qualified immunity? ends in such cases, ?professional courtesy? takes over.

Witness the case of Robert Shawn Richardson and Paul Bradley Rogers, who were convicted of second-degree manslaughter after shooting and killing a five-year-old boy in Noble, Oklahoma six years ago while trying to kill a poisonous snake. Because they received deferred sentences, the officers served no time in prison, and their records have been expunged. Where the ?law? is concerned, the incident never happened, and the victim, Austin Haley, never existed.

?If the roles were reversed and I had shot the gun, it would be much different,? observes Austin?s mother, Renee Haley. ?I would?ve been sent to jail and the sentence would have been done more harshly.?

This is incontestably true. Austin wasn?t a cop; he was one of the ?little people.? The same was true of Roger Serrato.

As Serrato?s grandmother tearfully told a Greenfield City Council meeting, he was not a saint ? but he was a human being who should not have been summarily executed.

In seeking to justify the murderous raid on Serrato?s home, police applied the counter-insurgency template used by the military in Iraq and Afghanistan and applied it to ?gang enforcement.?

In Gonzalez?s pre-trial hearing, Detective Bruno reported that a search of the suspect?s home found ?clothing and other items? indicating that he may have been associated with the Norteno street gang. While he admitted ? under cross-examination ? that the Mucky Duck shooting was at least in part motivated by self-defense, he insisted that it had the effect of enhancing the gang?s image ?by instilling fear in the community.?

That sort of thing never happens when masked Berserkers in military attire lay siege to a residence, of course.

Shortly after his associates murdered Roger Serrato, Greenfield Police Department spokesliar Phil Penko told a local television station that ?whether he was at the Mucky Duck is irrelevant? because ?someone connected to the house? was allegedly there at the time of the shooting.

This is a specimen of what counter-insurgency experts call ?pattern of life? analysis. All that is necessary to justify potentially lethal action against any individual is to create a ?link? or ?connection? between that person and a ?suspected militant? (or, in this case, a suspected ?gang associate?) or an incident involving someone who meets that description.

In Afghanistan, ?connections? of that kind have been used to justify midnight raids by kill teams. In Pakistan, the same analysis is used as the basis for drone strikes. We?re seeing plentiful examples of the former here domestically, and we can expect to see the latter approach rolled out in the ?Homeland? within the next few years.
_
William Norman Grigg publishes the Pro Libertate blog and hosts the Pro Libertate radio program.

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DA Faults Cops in Killing of Danielle Willard: "[She] did not back up her car directly at [the officer], never hit him and never posed a serious threat to either detective"

Deputy Fired for Running Red Light & Killing Teen Reinstated with Back Pay

Chris | InformationLiberation

Whoever said "crime doesn't pay" never worked for the state.

From The Lacrosse Tribune:

A former La Crosse County Sheriff?s deputy fired after she killed a Holmen teenager in a 2010 crash has won her job back.

In a ruling released Monday, an arbitrator ordered Trisha Stratman be returned to duty with back pay of about 20 months.

Stratman was responding to a call for help at a Holmen bar fight in the early morning of July 18, 2010, when she drove through a red light at more than 90 mph just as 16-year-old Brandon Jennings pulled into the intersection.

Jennings was thrown from his vehicle and died at the scene.

A jury acquitted Stratman on a charge of homicide by negligent operation, but she was fired in 2011 after an internal investigation found she violated department policy.

Must be nice to get rewarded with a paid vacation for killing someone.
_
Chris runs the website InformationLiberation.com, you can read more of his writings here. Follow infolib on twitter here.

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File a civil lawsuit against her and the county Her actions are criminally negligent but of course a judge thats part of the same criminal syndicate as cops in our justice system would let her get her job back. Wow, what a windfall. I'm curious why they would give her the job back. Because of her good judgment and great driving skills? Do they feel so much safer with her patrolling the streets? I think normal people wouldn't even want that job back after killing someone, much less have the nerve to seek back pay for the service. For all too many it seems when they put on the uniform they must first remove all decency and empathy. Does she think she just hit a bug with the windshield? Push the wipers and move on. The life of a common man or his kid just doesn't seem to be worth much these days. We the mundanes,are chattle to our omnipotent LEO band of dilinquent thugs, hail to our heros and champions of peace. Is that crack smiling for her mug shot, how typical. That looks like a departmental photo, not a mugshot. Still, she's a piece of shit bad cop and should be fired. 90mph to get to a bar fight, wow I just can't hardly grasp the importance of this call. If people choose to go to a bar don't they accept some measure of risk? The speed limit and red lights seen reasonable to obey in this Highly dangerous and potentially devastating emergency call to a BAR FIGHT, in the early morning, that might just destroy the whole community unless stopped. On the other hand, this poor kid following the rules of passing through a green light, had no reason to believe those he pays to serve him would eventually KILL him; by an act even my 14 year old, that does not drive yet, knows is a very dangerous and illegal thing to do.
This is grade school driver training 101, you have to be a complete idiot to speed, 90 fing miles per hour, through a RED light. Did anyone check to see if she was drunk, I hope she was, else she might just be the stupidest human on the road. Don't just through the book at her, launch the whole fricking legal code including the shelfs, brackets and screws along with it. 90mph through a RED LIGHT does anyone need more? You try that and daylight will be a distant memory. One set of laws for police officers and another set of laws for everyone else.

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Police Pack Courtroom of Cop Facing Felony Charges for Shooting & Killing Restrained Dog

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Faced with the prospect that a police officer may actually be held accountable for murdering someone's dog, police are out in full force in Commerce City packing the courtroom proceedings of police officer Robert Price, who is facing felony charges for shooting and killing a dog after it was restrained. Meanwhile, protesters who showed up for the hearing were directed to the wrong courtroom!

Via the Denver Post:

BRIGHTON ? An Adams County judge rescheduled an arraignment Tuesday for the Commerce City officer facing felony charges for shooting and killing a dog in November.

The hearing for Robert Price lasted about 5 minutes. His next court appearance is set for 2 p.m. April 15.

Price's name did not appear on court dockets, and initially, protesters who showed up to the hearing were directed to the wrong courtroom. When citizens found the correct room, all seats were occupied by officers who said they came to show support for Price.

Adams County Sheriff deputies escorted Price through back doors so that he could avoid the protesters and media.

Let's hope justice is served for once and this police officer is held accountable for his actions.

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f.... cops.brainwashed,myopic.pigs,with egos to match.

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NYPD Kill Hostage Who Escaped Armed Standoff -- Marks Second Killing Of Hostage by Police In One Week

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Chris | InformationLiberation

Last Friday, police in Minnesota shot and killed a hostage who fled from an armed gunman in a standoff in a motel. Just one week later, this Friday police in New York shot and killed another hostage who fled a standoff with armed robbers at a Bronx Bodega store. Additionally, an NYPD officer responding to the scene crashed into a random SUV driver, the driver was reportedly sitting at a red light when the speeding police officer careened into him.

NBCNY reports the driver "was treated and released, but the NYPD officer remains hospitalized at Lincoln Hospital in critical but stable condition."

In both of these cases, the criminals themselves were captured but escaped physically unharmed, yet their hostages who managed to flee were killed by police.

Via NBCNY:

Reynaldo Cuevas, a 20-year-old employee of a Bronx bodega, was shot and killed outside of the store Friday morning.

By Kat Creag, Brynn Gingrass and Lori Bordonaro, NBCNY.comA Bronx, N.Y., bodega worker may have been mistakenly shot and killed by police responding to a standoff with armed robbers inside the store early Friday morning, according to a law enforcement source and witness accounts.

Police say at least three men entered the bodega at 631 East 168th Street at 2 a.m. Friday and barricaded themselves inside when cops arrived.

A short time later, Reynaldo Cuevas, a 20-year-old bodega employee, exited the store and was shot dead by cops, according to a relative of the slain youth. The victim's cousin Jose Garcia said he witnessed the scene and that Cuevas, a nephew of the store's owner, did not have his hands raised as he left the store and cops opened fire on him.

"I saw the police shoot him," Garcia told NBC 4 New York. "He came up, but he didn't put his hands up. And he tripped or something and when he fell on the floor, they shot him."

A law enforcement source did confirm that Cuevas may have been mistakenly shot by police officers responding to the chaotic scene.

"Basically he was trying to get away from the robber and he was shot, " said Arjelis Duval, who also witnessed the shooting.

Three people are in custody. Drugs and a gun were recovered from the scene, the police source said.

Maria Acevado, a friend of Cuevas', said she remembered his great sense of humor.

"He was funny," she said. " He was nice to us, just hanging with us on the corner."

It's become more apparent by the day armed criminals are less of a threat than the police who are allegedly supposed to protect us. Lysander Spooner observed this to be the case almost 200 years ago, it still rings true today.

UPDATE: Video of the shooting has been released, the cop apparently shot the man point blank.

The AP reports:

Investigators believe the impact of Cuevas running into the officer caused him to fire one round, striking the 20-year-old victim in the left shoulder, police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said at a news conference. Cuevas died later at a hospital.

Though the death appeared to be an accident, the officer was placed on desk duty pending an investigation, a routine practice for all New York Police Department shootings. Officials refused to release the name of the seven-year veteran of the police force.

There was no sign that the shooter and other officers at the scene mishandled the situation, Kelly said.

"The tragedy here of course was that Mr. Cuevas was shot, but I see nothing wrong with the procedure," he said.

The cop should not have had his finger on the trigger if he was not intending to shoot the man, guns do not just misfire without the trigger being pulled. NYPD use special glocks which require a 12 pound trigger pull weight, double the standard 5.5 pounds, the cop either shot the man purposefully or failed to use gun safety 101.

The "tragedy here" is police incompetence and New York's restrictive gun laws which forbid citizens from protecting themselves, leaving them at the mercy of criminals, and the NYPD, but I repeat myself.
_
Chris runs the website InformationLiberation.com, you can read more of his writings here. Follow infolib on twitter here.

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When I grow up, I want to be a cop! "Protect and serve" indeed: They can't even be bothered to pretend anymore. While Mayor Bloomberg calls for more gun controls for the citizens (but not cops), cops continue to kill more people annually in suspiciously "justified" killings than all the *OTHER* murders in the land. In fact, if you remove the killer cop murders that take place, you find that gun deaths go way down to the point of being negligent. Yet, at the same time, the mental midget moron anti-gun people try to tell us if we can just get the guns out of everybody's hands, *EXCEPT* cops, of course, we would be a lot safer. Suspiciously, they use the "gun deaths" statistic (that *INCLUDES* the murders perpetrated by cops) to bolster their argument. How do you spell Prop Uh Gan Duh??? I'll tell you how: Gun Death Statistics.

The fact is that there is a hidden agenda here and that neither the cops or the mental midget anti-gun people give a flying rats ass (thats a bat's ass for you that don't know a lot about wildlife) about anyone's safety. The real agenda is unclear, but, saving lives and keeping us safe isn't it.

They tell us, "Get the guns out of the hands of the people so just cops have the guns and we'll be a lot safer."

Can I say it? Sorry Chris, I'm going to say it:

BULL FUCKING SHIT!!!

I wonder what Bloomberg says about these things? I sure it would be "justified".

We don't need more "gun control" unless "gun control" = "removing guns from the hands of cops". The danger with guns comes from having them in the hands of cops. When guns are around, there seems to be relative safety. When cops are around and guns are around, innocent people die. This tells me that its not the guns that are dangerous, its the cops.

And Bloomberg recently bragged he had the 7th largest army in the world with the NYPD....or otherwise known as the Gang who couldn't shoot straight. Enough with the scare tactics of trying to unarm citizens. We need to protect ourselves from cops now it seems.

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Friends and family will protest deputy killing of innocent Leesburg man

By Erica Rodriguez, Orlando Sentinel

Friends, family and likely some customers of the Leesburg pizza delivery man shot by deputies this week will gather downtown Tavares to demand answers from law enforcement Thursday.

About 1:30 a.m. Sunday, a Lake County Sheriff's deputy shot and killed 26-year-old Andrew Lee Scott after he opened the door to his apartment armed with a gun. Deputies were on the hunt for attempted murder suspect Jonathan Brown, 31, who allegedly severely beat a man and fled the scene on a motorcycle within the same hour. Deputies saw the motorcycle parked in front of Scott's apartment and knocked on his door without announcing themselves expecting to find Brown. A Sheriff's Office spokesman said Scott pointed the gun at the three deputies and one deputy responded with deadly force. Brown was later found in a nearby building and arrested.

Brian Evey, Scott's friend and manager at Hungry Howie's Pizza, said the group wants to know why the deputy shot and killed Scott and more about the deputies' decision that night not to announce their presence.

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At 1:30 in the morning, they are on the hunt?

Only scum would come banging on your door on 1:30am,
or someone in trouble.

Of course he answers the door with protection.

Now they kill ya for protecting yourself.

Protect and Serve the People

Don't open your door at 1:30 am, call Police!

Let intruders break in, Than protect yourself.

i agree with the last poster. Let them kick the door in then, protect yourself. i learned a long time ago that ,if you accidentally draw on a cop,whatever you do, do not lower your weapon because, they will shoot you anyway. If you have a gun you may as well start blazing because, again they aren't going to ask questions until they've shot you. It's very unfortunate but, the police have built this fear with their tactics. The sad part is when people began to do like the cops and shoot first and a few cops die they will only make examples of those people in court instead of changing policy.

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Afghanistan Panjwai Killing of 16: Two Stories Wildly at Variance

by Michael S. Rozeff, LRC Blog

The official U.S. story alleges that a single gunman-soldier lost his mind temporarily, left the base, massacred 16 innocent people, burned some of them, and then returned to base and turned himself in.

A new report could not be more different: "A parliamentary probe team on Thursday said up to 20 American troops were involved in Sunday's killing of 16 civilians in southern Kandahar province." Another report says that the soldiers sexually assaulted women.

In another report that was in The New Yorker, a survivor of the massacre refers to "Americans". Others spoke of "a man."

Michael Yon, a former Green Beret who was embedded as a journalist in Afghanistan for years, saw such a massacre coming. His recent predictions were based on poor morale: "Even our most disciplined troops -- not the few problem troops -- have lost all idealism. They have not lost heart for the fight. Mostly, they just don't care. They fight because they are ordered to fight, but they have eyes wide open. The halfhearted surge and sudden drawdown leave little room for success.

"We face a discipline collapse. The bulk of our force is solid -- then there's a small fraction, probably a sliver of a percent, who might be crushed by the pressure."

He also points out that those killed are Pashtun. Unless these killings are cleared up, the Pashtun may declare Americans as occupiers and turn against them. A similar warning was made by a member of the parliamentary probe team, Hamizai Lali: "If the international community does not play its role in punishing the perpetrators, the Wolesi Jirga would declare foreign troops as occupying forces, like the Russians."

The alleged murderer is Army Staff Sgt. Robert Bales. His lawyer denies that he had been drinking: "Bales' lawyer, Seattle attorney John Henry Browne, disputed reports that a combination of alcohol, stress, and domestic issues caused the suspect to snap. He said the family said they were unaware of any drinking problem. He said that a day before the rampage, Bales -- who was on his fourth tour after three tours in Iraq -- saw a comrade's leg blown off."

The Panjwai massacre will have very serious repercussions on the presence of U.S. forces in Afghanistan. More Americans may turn against this war.

The situation will not be resolved by apologies. Blood money may not suffice. Yon writes "Afghans will seek revenge and they will have it. This will lead to yet greater possibilities of another mass murder from our side. We are considering holding the trial in Afghanistan. Pashtuns don't care about our justice system. They don't even care about the Afghan government; they want blood for blood. We are being drawn into a feud."

What actually happened? An investigation of the crime scene by experienced investigators was clearly called for the moment that the army learned of the killings. How were the victims killed? With what bullets? With what weapons? How were they burned? Was there sexual assault? We have no reports at this time of professional investigation of the crime scene.

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The killing of Awlaki's 16-year-old son

Glenn Greenwald

Two weeks after the U.S. killed American citizen Anwar Awlaki with a drone strike in Yemen ? far from any battlefield and with no due process ? it did the same to his 16-year-old son, Abdulrahman al-Awlaki, ending the teenager?s life on Friday along with his 17-year-old cousin and seven other people. News reports, based on government sources, originally claimed that Awlaki?s son was 21 years old and an Al Qaeda fighter (needless to say, as Terrorist often means: ?anyone killed by the U.S.?), but a birth certificate published by The Washington Post proved that he was born only 16 years ago in Denver. As The New Yorker?s Amy Davidson wrote: ?Looking at his birth certificate, one wonders what those assertions say either about the the quality of the government?s evidence ? or the honesty of its claims ? and about our own capacity for self-deception.? The boy?s grandfather said that he and his cousin were at a barbecue and preparing to eat when the U.S. attacked them by air and ended their lives. There are two points worth making about this:

(1) It is unknown whether the U.S. targeted the teenager or whether he was merely ?collateral damage.? The reason that?s unknown is because the Obama administration refuses to tell us. Said the Post: ?The officials would not discuss the attack in any detail, including who the target was.? So here we have yet again one of the most consequential acts a government can take ? killing one of its own citizens, in this case a teenage boy ? and the government refuses even to talk about what it did, why it did it, what its justification is, what evidence it possesses, or what principles it has embraced in general for such actions. Indeed, it refuses even to admit it did this, since it refuses even to admit that it has a drone program at all and that it is engaged in military action in Yemen. It?s just all shrouded in total secrecy.

Of course, the same thing happened with the killing of Awlaki himself. The Executive Branch decided it has the authority to target U.S. citizens for death without due process, but told nobody (until it was leaked) and refuses to identify the principles that guide these decisions. It then concluded in a secret legal memo that Awlaki specifically could be killed, but refuses to disclose what it ruled or in which principles this ruling was grounded. And although the Obama administration repeatedly accused Awlaki of having an ?operational role? in Terrorist plots, it has ? as Davidson put it ? ?so far kept the evidence for that to itself.?

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Ron Paul: US could target journalists for killing

By Philip Elliott

WASHINGTON?Republican presidential contender Ron Paul on Wednesday suggested that the United States could assassinate journalists the same way it targeted Americans with ties to al-Qaida.

The Texas congressman again criticized President Barack Obama for approving last week's drone strikes in Yemen against a U.S. citizen who was tracked and executed based on secret intelligence that linked him to two failed terrorist attacks against the U.S. An American-born propagandist also died in the bombing. Escalating his criticism, Paul told a National Press Club luncheon that if citizens do not protest the deaths, the country will start adding reporters to its list of threats that must be taken out.

"Can you imagine being put on a list because you're a threat? What's going to happen when they come to the media? What if the media becomes a threat? ... This is the way this works. It's incrementalism," Paul said.

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