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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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But the broader question is: What are you going to do about it now, and in the future?
BTW, 'Nam Vet '71-'73 MACV-SOG
You let them draft you and send you off to Nam to napalm women and children, and you have the gall to ask what anyone else is gonna do about it, you disgusting hypocrite?
I registered CO and was fully prepared to do community service (truly serving my country), even go to prison, rather than be sent over there.
And no I didn't go to college just to get out of it. I didn't start college till way after that.
Fortunately I drew a high lottery number. Just lucked out.
What am I gonna do about it? Nothing. This govt is beyond hope.
I'm just waiting for it to collapse, as it will eventually, and it won't be from any sort of "revolution", it'll be from forces outside America, beyond this govt's control.
Currency collapse will do it. Forces outside America will bring it about. I don't have to do anything, just sit back and watch it happen.
Unfortunately America goes down with it. That's the price we pay for letting this govt get so far out of control.
WWII vets came home to cheering crowds and ticker tape parades.
Nam vets came home to scorn and ridicule ...and they deserved it.
I have no problem picking up a rifle against a legitimate threat to America.
But Nam wasn't any threat to America. Just another way to keep the MIC in business and kill off a few million people.
You wana go fight communists? You don't have to go anywhere, we have a communist party right here, we just call it "democrat".
You wana go fight fascists like Hitler? You don't have to go anywhere, we have a fascist party right here, we just call it "republican".
We have a communist president freikin Stalin would be proud of.
Oh, you were a daisy man... I get it.
Nice try moron.
Face it, you were the willing mercenary, ready to shoot anyone they told you to shoot because you were "just following orders". You're no better than nazis following hitler. You have that to live with.
Sometimes I feel like a walking contradiction... I like to thank a Vet if I can tell they are one. A hat, license plate or whatever. But when I see stickers and ribbons saying "Support Our Troops". My blood boils. Support em by bringing the troops home. Open our bases here. Let them be Americans in America. Get a taste of what they are fighting for. Let us fight for freedom and not debt.
Thanks for your service.
ALL war is deception.
All war is organised theft.
so certain that it started only after WWII? strong propaganda back then...
The Second World War was just another in a series of wars that Americans were led into by liars.
FDR practically orchestrated the Pearl Harbor attack:
http://original.antiwar.com/justin/2012/12/06/pearl-harbor-roosevelt-knew/
for those with eyes to see, ww2 was a direct consequence of the vicious "armistice" of ww1 (please see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Economic_Consequences_of_the_Peace).
hitler was not inevitable. war is the ironic greatest enemy of liberty, once liberty is established, often by war. the french revolution and napoleon. the american revolution and the mexican war/indian wars/spanish american war, especially the philippines/ww1 (its laws used more by obama to oppress than they were in ww1) and on and on.
i cant wait either....your generation raised the parasites and they are going to consume.....get out the popcorn.
You war guys know there is a lot of trigger time on the streets of America?
If you grew up in Pontiac or Detroit you would realize there is a whole lot of trigger time in America.
Carrington should be in jail where some 20-stone bank robber with a stiffie can "open his aperature."
I wouldn't be surprised if Carrington is the type who'd claim that the United States is a "Christian Nation".
Wer ist Kindermörder?
The work is done.
Hope & Change. Our mullah is no Christian.
Wait... what? "American Military Starts Assassinating Children"? 15 years old is not a "child" in most parts of the world. People are married at 15 regularly, and they were married in the USA and Europe at 15 as recently as the 20th century.
We can re-create our social system around education (and frankly, keeping new workers out of the workplace for as long a time as possible) but the rest of the world doesn't have to follow America's lead.
Targeting combatants is a dicey, morally very sketchy process -- and it's 100% certain that the US has killed thousands of innocents -- but "assassinating children"? Please GW. Hyperbole much?
ps: Nor is it "assassination", as that term refers to political targets.
the article cites dung-gathering individuals aged 12, 10 and 8. many "over there" are killed by remote-controlled missile-armed drones fired by desk jockeys in california. to the untrained eye it looks a bit more than a little like the assassination of children.
ok -- murder of children as they are not famous and possibly apolitical. but do their survivors stay apolitical? imo that's the chink in the logic armor of this war strategy.