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U.S. Army Starts Targeting Children
Image by Anthony Freda: www.AnthonyFreda.com.
Obama and the American military label all young men – between the ages of say 15 and 35 - who happen to be in battle zones as suspected insurgents who they can target and kill.
Under the Bush administration, children were tortured.
Now, the U.S. military is starting to target children for assassination in battle zones. As the Nation reports:
In a despicable article in Military Times, the US military says that children are legitimate targets in the war in Afghanistan because sometimes the Taliban and other insurgents use kids.
In the original incident, which I cited in October, The New York Times reported it this way:
The…case of three children allegedly killed in a coalition strike was reported by local officials in Helmand Province’s Nawa district. The officials said that the children were killed in a NATO strike on Sunday afternoon as they were gathering dung to burn as fuel, a common practice in the desert reaches of southern Afghanistan where there are few trees.
***
The Marja governor said that NATO forces watched as improvised explosive devices were being planted, and targeted the insurgents planting them. “As a result two I.E.D. planters were killed and the shrapnel killed the three children who were wandering nearby,” he said. Other reports said that three insurgents had been killed.
A spokesman for the international forces, Maj. Adam Wojack, said that the coalition forces were aware of the allegations and that the episode was being investigated. “I.S.A.F. did conduct a precision airstrike on three insurgents in Nawa district, and the strike killed all three insurgents,” he said.
“None of our reporting shows any civilian casualties or any children.”
But on December 3 Gannett, which owns Military Times, ran an article headlined: “Some Afghan Kids Aren’t Bystanders.” It said:
When Marines in Helmand province sized up shadowy figures that appeared to be emplacing an improvised explosive device, it looked like a straightforward mission. They got clearance for an airstrike, a Marine official said, and took out the targets.
It wasn’t that simple, however. Three individuals hit were 12, 10 and 8 years old, leading the International Security Assistance Force in Kabul to say it may have “accidentally killed three innocent Afghan civilians.”
But a Marine official here raised questions about whether the children were “innocent.” Before calling for the M142 High Mobility Artillery Rocket System mission in mid-October, Marines observed the children digging a hole in a dirt road in Nawa district, the official said, and the Taliban may have recruited the children to carry out the mission.
Shockingly, the article quotes a senior officer saying that the military isn’t just out to bomb “military age males,” anymore, but kids, too:
“It kind of opens our aperture,” said Army Lt. Col. Marion “Ced” Carrington, whose unit, 1st Battalion, 508th Parachute Infantry Regiment, was assisting the Afghan police. “In addition to looking for military-age males, it’s looking for children with potential hostile intent.”
War crimes? It would appear so.
But the U.S. government exempts its own acts from the definition of terrorism, even as it labels others as terrorists for doing the exact same things.
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"steal oil second". So how come the oil contracts in Iraq have been wrapped up by Russians and French companies and not American ones. And China has been wrapping up the minerals contracts in Afghanistan, riding on the coattails of the US.
Your thesis presumably is that the US is engaged in warfare to altruistically benefit a bunch of parasite states.
bazza -- you really are a shit head.
so now tell us how banks are soverign. tell us how the term BRICS is not a Goldman Sachs meme used to lead people to believe in soverignity while the transfer of wealth is monitored/controlled by CUNTS who decide what interest rates are and who's mo ey is good or bad.
this is about easy money for those who have all of the money and believe they should get more and have to do nothing for it - many dumbfukinnaggerslaves wanna call these parasites jews - but they are just disconnected souls who know nothing of empathy, love and connection.
significance to them is getting naggers like you to believe it is "over there" and turning you into one of them.
where do you think Tyler Durden and the opportunity meet came from?
nice to meet you
'George war is hell" So how bout we get the fuck out and quit giving the banksters & MIC our blood sweat & children. I'm for supermax max iron dome from hell and frack the fuck out of our own land, @ least we'd be killing ourselves.
My father was a kid when the American soldiers landed in Normandy. What he told me is that at the time American soldiers distributed chocolates to the kids there. In the school every kid wanted to play the Americans and none wanted to play the Germans. He is still fond of America because he does not know....sad.
I'm pretty sure the French weren't trying to kill Americans at that time. It makes a difference.
War is hell. The millitary's job is to kill enemies and blow shit up.
War is a racket and the soldiers are never given enough information to know (or not) that the other guys actually deserve to die. They are given propoganda and orders, which ain't enough.
The question posters should be asking is not whether an army solider is or isn't justified shooting at kids the question they should be asking why the fuck were troops put into this mess in the first place for them to be EVEN ASKING (i.e. is it moral to shoot-up a kid) THIS QUESTION IN THE FIRST PLACE?!!!
Exactly. The Armed Forces are a blunt instrument designed to destroy things. And should only be used in rare limited circumstances. Long term actions in someone else's homeland - Occupation and COIN - are most always doomed to fail. And that pragmatic reality doesn't even get into the ethical justification of the action(s).
KKKK, actually, the question is what our ROE should be in the face of illegitimate combattants under the Geneva and the Hague Conventions.
because, there are certain allowable and summary actions that are permitted.
- Ned
What about the Palestinians who strapped bombs to kids?
when the kids blew up, GW would say "America was targeting them". - Ned
I hate all terrorists.
Sending 12 year old children into battle is standard procedure for the Muzzies. Khomeni gave them a plastic key to heaven and sent them out as mine detectors during the Iran - Iraq war. The Palestinians used them as suicide bombers. The Huzzies in Lebanon locate their missle launchers and ammo storage in schools. But that is OK with Geo Wash as these are harmles Muslims who are peaceful and couldn't harm anyone. He likes it even better because they are known advocates of goat screwing and pedophilia.
Let me ask you oh obfuscating wretch how many Afghans where involved with 9/11? None. So by what right have armed non-Afghans got occupy their country regardless how backward you may think they are? Furthermore 'hostile intent' can cover anything from throwing a rock at a tank driver who has a casual disregard for his fruit cart. But you to much of a bigot to make sense so this post is more aimed at the fools who voted your post up.
Let me ask you how many Muslims (bar patsies) were involved with 911? Ask Alan Sabrosky, ex U.S. Marine, what he thinks. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Sabrosky
Exactly, and not a single US bomb has fallen on Saudi Arabia. I'm tired of us being butt boy to the sheiks.
On a Crusade, I see?
GW: the thing about (our, no, well, I withdraw that, I'd say US military standards, and I say not your) standards about the validity of a combatant under the Hague or the Geneva conventions is not the age, it is the action.
I claim that it is not our, because it excludes you.
You have no real experience {let alone in combat}
Combatants are in combat. Illegal combatants are not signified by any distinguishing remarks. The kids are placed into harms way. Their masters are doing this with full intention. Their intent is to manipulate useful idiots.
Don't cha' know.
- Ned
Is this really something new? My world war 2 veteran father went to his grave regretting killing innocent children in Okinawa. I have friends in the gulf wars and afghanistan who were ordered to shoot children as they were insurgents. War is Hell. We are targeting the wrong people. The global banking and oil cartel should be our targets. someone should kill their children.
Sure, if you want to get peaceful people mad enough to resort to violence, then killing their children is a step in the correct direction; totally EVIL, but it will accomplish the goal.
It is just like in the 5 years leading up to the start of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, it has been reported that the US was sending in cruise missiles to blow up civilian targets. They would send in the first cruise missile, then when people came out to help the wounded they would hit the same target with a second cruise missile. Pure evil. Terror designed to create an enemy out of peaceful people.
If my children were victimized, and don't forget children were targeted in Italy as part of Operation Gladio - thank you CIA and NATO - there is no limit to the vengeance I would seek against the perpetrators.
So yeah, it my case the conversion would be 100% efficient and complete.
And Bowser says, methinks you are confusing the US with the Muslim terrorists who have often use secondary detonations to kill responders to the primary detonation.
When Al Qaeda, Syrians or others target people attending funerals of those killed – or those attempting to rescue people who have been injured by – previous attacks, we rightfully label it terrorism. But the U.S. government does exactly the same thing, without any criticism by government apologists.
There are good people and there are bad people. There are good actions and there are bad actions. If you simply accept that there is no evil and all actions are relative, one can understand your comment.
The world doesn't work that way. There is good and there is evil. That is an absolute with benchmarks to determine what is good and what is evil.
Your relativist methodology wouldn't work in the stock market. You do not simply buy some stock because others you know have bought it. Do your homework. Find your benchmark and determine the value of your action.
We have an Islamic govt. The pre*ident is a Chicago slumlord and Iranian. The other one is a muslim too.
Guess you have not been paying attention?
Do you watch Tv or Hollywood's crap? If so you have no room to criticze anyone. TV (All of it), Hollywood and the media is The Matrix. You watch it - you support it. So tell us George.
What we allow our government to do abroad, we invite them to do at home.
Remember, "indefinite detention" was once reserved for "the terrorists". Now, everybody is in play. So to will it be with this program.
dress'd rehearsals.
with cheerleaders in uni-form.
You know what... it is about time we sent all these little brown rascals a Christmas Nuke from Santa. Problem solved... next.
This post is not worthy of ZH.
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George, you need to somehow incorporate the term "welfare state" into each and every article you post...just to keep the natives happy. Gotta give them a bone they can chew on. Why should they be concerned with the US targeting children for assassination when they can be entertained blaming ALL the problems of our economy on unions, teachers, welfare recipients, the unemployed and government workers?
Warfare state also, George.
And don't forget "boobies" for the rest of us.
Zealots program their young as soon as they can lock in the binary worldview of their meme of choice. When they learn to kill for the meme they are active combatants. Look around and you'll see many cases of adults teaching children that certain people with identifiable markers are worthless and should be dehumanized. It goes on in every corner of the U.S.
Islam is currently the prime meme on Earth. Pay attention challengers, opportunities to unseat it are dwindling.
Destroying the reproductive cycle is one of the things you must do to impact the meme. The highest value target is the male testes and it gets progressively messier from there. Maybe going after the sperm instead of the progeny will spare some rare moral capital, but ultimately it's a distraction from the primary vector.
you have defined your own meme pretty well
Muck Fuslims.
fuck idiots
I have argued the droning of foreigners with some "libruhls" on political message boards.
It is totally amazing the lack of "give a shit" there is regarding killing. Whether it is an American citizen and his son, or some random "might be a terraist" and the innocents that just happened to be in their company. Totally uncaring are many Americans as long as the fight is over there.
So I ask...what if, say, a Chinese drone started hitting a few Americans, on American soil, that might be, or might NOT be, cyberhacking Chinese interests or otherwise pissing off the Chinese government?
*crickets*
Funny, that boy doesn't look like he's from Afghanistan. More like Boise Idaho. Why are they targeting children from Boise????!!!!!!
We hate them for their spuds.
No self respecting kid from Boise wears shorts.
Or has a bandage on his knee.
Boys are men in Boise
Dad's teach them to fly black helicopters at a young age.
They then go to Canada for their coming of age, the clubbing of baby seals for their 18th birthday.
He's from SF up Uranus Street way going to a party in the Castro.
Folks I hunted IEDs in Afghanistan. We did NOT just shoot at anyone much less kids. Kids and many locals were recruited to DIG the holes. Later on typically, a team would come and implace the IED and setup the triggering mechanism. If a drone was overhead it would watch and then observe who the hole diggers interacted with later...etc. As an IED Hunter, we didnt care much about the diggers....only the folks emplacing them and the makers/builders of the IED's. Unfortunately, folks standing by and watching as people emplace an IED will get killed if a JDAM or Arty round strikes the target. That is war. Innocent civilians always die and it is tragic. No soldiers as a rule will just hose down civilians. When they do....they are quickly prosecuted. People read way to much into what people say unless you know the context. If I see a person and they are attacking me with lethal force or my soldiers I am in command of....they die. Simple law of war no matter what country you are from soldiers will defend themselves. If the diggers were also emplacing an IED....they died thats war. Go after the dumbasses using kids to do that stuff. If you have never been in that country....then you have no clue what its really like there.
Someone declared war? Does congress know about this.
It is in the same pouch as the budget.
Wait to see what happens when the US is in a dollar crisis and ask for help... ouch...
You are in their country you idiot.
"he", sent, not asked, is trying to survive in "their" country....
you can't fault him for that.