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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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Then let me spell it out for you: I called you a murderer.
Are we clear now?
You can think I’m wrong, but that’s no reason to stop thinking dear sir. Perhaps you should go into a corner and grow some more pubic hairs before arguing as your comments are like those of a teenage boy who reads way to much rather that living life. George and I were debating... however you sir are unworthy of licking the shit off of my combat boots.
Once you are in the middle of a survival situation - you have to react - i get that - i wish none of you were at risk and never volunteered - without people on the ground the MIC cant make money and without a profit there would be no war or machine to make war
"without people on the ground the MIC cant make money"
That is a weakness in the business model. One of the MIC's solutions is drones, for land, sea, and air operations. Naturally the MIC is all over it like ants on honey.
you fuckin bozo's with your insincere "sir" shit and love of combat boots are fuckin pathetic.
what kind of man takes pride in killing people he never met in nations he never went to before going there to kill the people? you're a pawn...a stupid animal.
you got used like a whore but you're just too stupid to see it.
Murder is part of our nature, which is why you are so freaked out about it.
Given the chance, Im sure you'd give the OK to have me or Mikey offed, but not the courage to do it yourself.
you tell us it is part of our nature then refuse to believe, consistent with history, that an empire like america is a regular perpetrator in resourced countries. At least be consistent.
To whom exactly is this "our" supposed to be referring? Do you have a mouse in your pocket?
Speak for yourself, psychopath.
Would you not kill to protect your survival stash when the hoards come for it? Is the will to survive, and the urge to kill if necessary in order to survive, not part of our nature? Some of us are trying to subtly point out the paradox here. Perhaps we shouldn't be so subtle. If you refuse to kill the hoards who are stealing your survival stash, then you are ensuring your own death. You are choosing to kill yourself instead of killing them.
The uninformed comments on this thread are coming from the belief that it is possible for humans to avoid killing. That is a false belief. If/when they come for you, if you choose to not defend yourself by killing them, then you are choosing to kill yourself. You cannot escape the choice to kill. In the end, it is only a matter of who you choose to kill.
To say that you face no such choice is to demonstrate how uninformed you are. You don't face that choice of who to kill (them or you) only because you are allowing your government to make that choice for you - and they are choosing to kill those advancing on your survival stash, long before they get into your face. If the government suddenly disappeared, it would not be long before those after your survival stash would be so close you could see the whites of their eyes (or yellow of their eyes, in the case of jaundice). You may live long enough to see this actually come to pass, if our government fails.
We are all engaged in mortal combat. Some of us just don't see that because our government is doing our dirty work for us. Go back to Robin Hood's Sherwood Forest and see how far you could walk with a bag of gold in each hand without someone relieving you of them. You either kill them, or you let them kill you. It is not more complicated than that. And human nature has not changed since the time of Sherwood Forest.
You don't even know the real history of "Robin Hood." Resisting tyrannical government and returning the people's property is the real history. It wasn't about a bunch of thugs as you suggest.
My "stash" is not at risk because of a farmer half way across the world either. It is at risk from my government however. Life as I live it is not at risk by those farmers, but it is definitely at risk from my own government.
"Freedom" isn't being defended by murdering people across the world, and the only "freedom" being defended is that of multi-national corporations. It is their freedom to secure resources that's being protected. When people say those who fight today are corporate mercenaries, they are 100% correct.
Zealots have been programmed to fear fascism from Islam, but they fail to see their own fascist government's exponential growth at the same time. How fucking blind can a people be?
My point was about being in "Sherwood Forest" as a euphemism for any location where others are only too willing to relieve you of what is yours. It wasn't about the Robin Hood myth.
Stupid huh? My first Bachelors degree was in Philosophy...specialized in Logic and Ethics. Your arguments are simply vitriole with no substance. Can you quote from the Just War doctrine or use some type of intellectual framework for us to debate? I studied in depth many reasons and the logical framework for war. Your arguments are at best around the level of my four year old when he is arguing for a cookie. How about Kant's categorical imperative....or some such Philosophical 'logical' framework as it is hard to debate such childish vitriole. When you can beat my multiple graduate degrees and my life experiences that includes delivering babies (fire department)...and the horror of having children die in your hands that you were desperately trying to save...including traveling to a dozen countries in the past several years....most for pleasure and to learn new cultures...then you can debate me. I have entertained you long enough...go back to your room in your parents house and play your XBox. ZH is for adults that can debate logically and cogently. Bye.
How about NOT being a Stupid pawn for the elite!
-a six year old now this stuff...but YOU make it sound like youre CLEVER?
faaaaKKK...
Let me guess: You are also a trained cardiovascular surgeon, you dabble in astrophysics, you have circumnavigated the globe ALONE in your 65 foot sail boat, you can fight like Bruce Lee, you're hung like John Holmes, can dance like Fred Astaire and you are currently dating several supermodels. In short...you ARE The Most Interesting Man In The World (when you're not busy killing brown babies)
Does that about cover it Rambo?
The ex-Royal Navy PTI who taught me to sail decades ago did two circumnavigations in the "far before GPS / SOLAS" era. One "right-to-left, one "left -to-right", both solo, both in the same 28 foot Maxi 84 single-master.
For us a 65" Scanmar / Halberg-Rassy / Albin / Maxi would be THE Dream home. Add in Aries self steering, Motor-sailer configuration and a twin-mast design and we'd be as happy as pigs in s**t.
Maybe in our next re-incarnation perhaps??
perhaps you can apply some logic to the puzzle of amrkns volunteering to occupy other people's countries, using such genocidal weaponry as depleted uranium whilst droning whole families - "women and children" - and then innocently wondering why "little girls" are told to run at them with explosive backpacks.
occupation. it starts in the minds.
"My first Bachelors degree was in Philosophy...specialized in Logic and Ethics."
I just about fell off my chair laughing when I read that. I guess he finds some philosophical "logic" in blindly following orders to kill. I'll bet the bloods and the crips also have a lot of members with "Philosophy" degrees.
I've mentioned this before, but this phenomenon reminds me of a very specific area in criminal law usually incestual physical rape of a child within the family. The truth is so utterly counter human and ugly, the otherwise intelligent adult refuses to believe the evidence right before their eyes and blames the victim or considers them a liar. Its a self defeating form of self preservation that always fails in the end and spreads the harm much farther.
.
this is where the denial is obvious - when it is in defense of an institution over the individual, in other words, the sacred "family" vs. the child. and the family, in the past, was/is defined by the patriarch, who has been accorded many privileges historically, most of them derived from FatherSkyGod religions.
as one familiar with "the laws" I'm sure you'll also remember when there was no such thing as "marital rape" and the patriarch was free to beat both wife and children as ownership privileges.
the institution of marriage has much back-story - there are real examples of great families, and parenting - but to pretend it's all "Father Knows Best" is to believe in DisneyLand.
+1, of course.
Considering what you participated in doing to their country and people, don't you think they are justified in hating you until the end of time?
Yes, we've heard. Support the troops, not the regieme meme. Hey G, that guy, Oliver Stone, he would like to talk to you about a film or something.
Lack of identity is a bad sign, you know. Debased and such.
This is why 9/11 was funny...
Wasn,t the loose in the first Golfwar,around 500.000 Iraki children,justyfied by Madeline Alb.
300 millions,minus the 0000,1 %,have to ask the question:
What the hell is it we are a part of!!We are paying this murdering madness,we are the quilty!
Or did you get use to it,i think so!!
They're pissed because they hadn't a chance to make bacchi boys out of them yet. The most noble enterprise of their delightful culture.
Tylers, what is this shit? Is this guy one of your fucking brother in laws, or what?
Makes me wish Evil Contrails were REAL. Contrails to END THE PAIN.
idiot hippies.
They're pissed because
No, no. They just hate your freedom
Hey genius: this INCREASES THE RISK FROM TERRORISM. Which side are you on: People who want to DECREASE the terrorist risk to the USA, or war profiteers and such?
George, you're either a dim-witted tool or a duplicitous predator of dim-witted tools, I've yet to make up my mind. There are muslim extremists in Afghanistan. You know, blowing up buddah statues and corn holing little boys that they made dress like girls. They fucked around and we got smacked on 9-11. Then they got lightly punished. As far as i'm concerned, the cobalt jackets should have come out and the last of them would be falling apart like rotten tomatoes this next month. Hey, it's a goddam desert anyways.
That goes for the ones ullulating and handing out candies that day, too. That's how you win wars. All in. Not some vegan camp out with a sideshow of rapes and feet sniffing at a vacant corner in sight of where the hygenically gifted make a living. Not by carrying a paper mache head around, calling young men and women with a sense of purpose that they're baby killers.
I cringe when I see articles by you. Then the echo chamber fires up and it's The Parade of the Horribles with all your posters. Some of the shit... SHIT you dream up could be put to good use by Pournelle. No, scratch that, he uses real science. You fuckers are like Steam Punk come to life. Did you pull on your mom's hairy tit, nursing as she watched Bukaroo Banzai? Dude, even Peter Weller himself is into a solid science now, archeology. This fucking Majick the Chess Club Gathering group you pull in makes the LGF crew look reasonable.
The only way you can entreat Sub IQ mysonigistic 7th century barbarians (who willingly and with full knowledge use children to plant weapons) to peace is to beat the living shit out of them regularly. The bitch kitty is it's cheaper and quicker to just eradicate them. The ancients knew, we've merely forgotten. That is all, end of rant.
You are seriously sick!!
We have no sensible purpose for being in Afghanistan. We have the power to prevent any of them from entering our country and threatening us.
If they want to be 7th century barbarians that is none of our business.
I agree, I don't know why GW is allowed to post.
Been to any Gulf Coast beaches lately GW?
trolled the gulf floor? Used your scientific expertise to analyze the evidence?
eaten any gulf coast seafood?
The anti GW trolls are out in force today... defending the killing of children no less. Fuck off .gov trolls.
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. . .
Unfortunately LFMayor, there are far more Muslim extremists today in Afghanistan and Iraq and Libia and Yemen and Egypt than prior to our interventions in those areas. It is strange isn't it, that this government's stated goal is to limit or eliminate Muslim Extremism and yet, it promotes it by its actions, fuels the fires that would have otherwise not burned so hot.
Additionally, it should also be of interest that there are "terrorists" on the U.S. Terrorist Watch List that tend to be labeled that with a certain flexibility when it suits the necessity of this government to do so. This government has, from time to time, shifted various "terrorist groups" on and off the list in order to funnel support to some of these groups when it is convenient. Such double standards do not bode well for the credibility of this governments causes and the political purposes it states as sound and purposeful to secure the interest of the American People, much less their security.
There are numerous members of the Armed Forces who are growing sick of the political undeclared and illegal wars this government engages in to promote its agenda that has little, if anything to do with actual defense of this country. Hell, we couldn't even defend ourselves on 9/11 when every single military and Intel SOP failed and not merely failed but failed miserably! This government fights "wars" in third world countries and can't even win them, Iraq was nothing short of a failure, so will Afghanistan be a failure...failures, like Vietnam, in places we should have never sent our men and women into. If our goal was to capture an imaginary foe that was carefully crafted like Osama bin Laden (a man who had a terminal illness prior to 2000 and was reported deceased as far back as 2001, of course, his ghost has been a most useful propaganda tool for those in this government who seek to render the American People compliant and compacent.) then this government should have simply issued Marques of Reprisal.
Proof of the failures can be seen in the COIN statistics, COIN is essentially the Counterinsugency Program that was implemented about 5 years ago, it has been far from successful and indeed instead of countering the insurgency is has only served to fuel it beyond anything seen prior to its implementation. Such bright ideas, like all such bright ideas, stem from a lack of understanding of the people we are attacking and the nature of an occupation war. Like other occupations, the native population will eventually create such havoc that the occupying army will have little choice but to surrender the cause of their occupation. Afghanistan is of particular interest to anyone with a background in military history and stratergy because the history of Afghanistan is a history filled with the type of insurgent warfare that no occupying army can withstand for very long...it is the warfare of the flea, independent insurgents that can and do blend in to the general population until it is convenient for them to strike and blend in again. The Viet-Cong were also masters of such tactics and yet, for all the massive military might of the United States government we could not win that war anymore than we will be able to win the war in Afghanistan, we will simply leave just like we left Vietnam, but the problem with Afghanistan, unlike Vietnam, is that we will leave it in such a dire condition that all of the fears of this government will be realized there.
Until the People of this country realize that their government has, like many others before it, lied and manipulated information for the purpose of expanding its power then they will continue to swallow everything this government says without question.
I believe it was CIA Director William Casy who said in 1981: "We will know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." It should come as no surprise that is pretty much the case today, the American Public rest in an indolent state of mind, unquestioning, compliant and for the most part filled with so much government propaganda that they don't even know how to ask questions, much less the questions to ask. Your comments are ample proof of that fact.
Iraq was nothing short of a failure ...
The only point of Iraq was to do what dad should have done but didn't. By that standard, Iraq was a success. All else is just by-product.
Should have put a sarcasm icon at the end of my post. I meant it as a sick joke, from the standpoint of the son. I wouldn't be surprised if I learned that was his take on the issue.
I know objectivity can hurt, but it is a virtue. Do you truly think the american empire is any different than any other in history? Do you really think these wars are about something other than the most valuable resource ever developed by mankind? Do you know anything about the history of the middle east, oil, and our repeated interventions in the area? Do you truly think a few men who could not fly cessnas pierced the pentagon and NORAD, the most sophisticated defense system in history? Then performed flying feats that even seasoned military flyers said were impossible? Do you think Mr. Mineta was lying when he testified that the young man kept asking Cheney if "the orders still stand?"
It is all too common that we tend to think of Iraq as mission complete, but that is far from the case. Iraq is a festering sore that will continue to fester until the forces within it erupt, once again, in chaos. Make no mistake, Iraq is a failure.
Iraq is NOT a failure. The Coalition of the Willing recovered Saddam's hoard of gold so it could be returned to the Iraqi people!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IH9YtHQ0910
When I saw the title for this page on ZH, I thought it referred to Western acculturation. Strolling through 'Toys R Us' today, what do I see on display but a complete military BDU (Battle Dress Uniform) complete with gunbelt, plastic knife, plastic grenade, water canteen and machine gun FOR CHILDREN AGES 4 AND UP.
There's a reason why popular culture is being militarized again. The next generation is getting set up for another bankster-financed hostile corporate takeover. Kiss the 'iPad' generation goodbye...
you're right, Iraq is a resounding success story, covered in a fine genocidal DU dust that ensures future generations won't get in the way of resource extractions of every type.
and of course the fabulous wealth generated for all in the militarised economy, ongoing. . .
Iraq, working as intended.
as is ToyzRUS. . . as noticed.
"The ancients knew, we've merely forgotten."
Wait, are you still talkin' 'bout the muzzies here? 'Cuz ya know, 6xx AD ain't zackly ancient...
Don't tell him the Chemtrails, UFOs, NWO or One Party System are real.
Don't even mention HAARP.
Damn.
Don't wanna go there now, do we.... Kinda fit into the same box as Abiotic Oil, Annanuki Reptilians, Child Molesting Pedophile Murders, Propagandized Press, Military, Pharma, Oil and Financial Complexes... Sudden riches of politicians, Constitutionalists being mentally ill and a threat to freedom... Electromagnetic pulses, solar flares, DUMBS, Nibru, Sumerian Texts... Uniform observations of human myth of the Great Flood...
But let's not go there, it'll start too many crazy fuckers commenting on the shit.
You just had to there with the Sumerian Texts didn't you...
You just had to there with the Sumerian Texts ...
I didn't know the Sumerians could text.
THANK GAWD................. I WAS THINKING I MIGHT HAVE TO GO BACK TO COMEDY CENTRAL.
THANK YOU RICHARD P. THIS THREAD WAS GETTING SO DROLE.
Haven't you read about the thousands of iClayTablets that archeologists have dug up over the years?
I'm sorry. I know we'd promised to never talk about "them" in public.... My bad...
I was thinking more of Ai, or Carthage.
From my perspective, the "[s]ub IQ mysonigistic 7th century barbarians" are only suffereing from bad PR. There's been pleny of "[s]ub IQ mysonigistic barbarian[ism]" to go around since day 1, some just dress it up better than others.
Wow, I thought you we're going to get on him for being an incoherent statist, but damn if you aren't just as bad, if not worse!
Tell me, do you engage in any other forms of pseudo-realism, like "professional" wrestling?
Until you start seeing people as individuals, and not just some cog in an abstract collective, you are no better than those you condemn.
Honestly, this shit isn't that hard. Stop being such an evil, fucking tool, okay?
And you are going to defend your survival stash when the hoards come after it? I think you know nothing of the truth of mortal combat (as opposed to verbal combat).
Or is all this talk on ZH about defending one's survival stash around here just so much hot air? Do you realize that the "defending" everyone is talking about will involve killing everyone who comes at you? Do you think in that moment you will be seeing each and every one of them as real people, as individuals? Or will you be seeing each and every one of them as what they truely will be then (even as some are now) - a threat to the survival of you and yours.
Pseudo-realism?? May you be so lucky as to never find out first-hand what mortal combat actually looks like in the moment (as opposed to in a book or an internet thread or a video game).
Until you start seeing people as individuals, and not just some cog in an abstract collective, you are no better than those you condemn.
If you actually think through the mental picture about defending your survival stash laid out above, you should quickly come to understand the naivete of that quote. All value systems are not equally valuable. You need go no further than the hoards approaching to plunder your survival stash in the example just given. Their values are not as equally valid as yours - to you. You gonna let the people depending on you die just because you don't want to impose your value system on the hoards stealing your survival stash? Or do you say that your value system is more valuable than theirs, fight them off (kill them?), and ensure that those depending on you will survive? If you decide who am I to prevent them from doing what they want to do, I'm sure some of those depending on you for survival will decide that their value system is better than yours and attempt to fight off the enemy (maybe even kill them).
You don't kill the enemy (regardless of age) because you think you are better than them. You kill the enemy because he is trying to kill you. May you be so lucky as to never find out first-hand what mortal combat actually looks like in the moment. But please - let your opinion be informed by those who have been there.