by James Glaser
July 9, 2002

As Donald Rumsfled said last week, "Such mistakes are inevitable" and he regrets them. 48 dead and 117 wounded at a wedding in Afghanistan is what he was regretting. Only those actions that can't be denied away or out right lied about, do we regret. With the Commander of this war sitting in Florida, it is up to those at the front to make sure that any mistakes can be "covered."

Military men are usually some of the most honest of men, but toward the end of your career there are too many men for the few positions of top leadership and to disappoint your Commander with the truth can lead you to a earlier retirement than you planned on. Also each promotion at that stage makes for a much better retirement check.

In every war military leaders lie about civilian attacks, heck President Harry Truman told the American people that the atomic bombs were dropped on military bases, not large cities. Some times just the horror of the destruction that your troops have inflicted on those innocent, compels you to justify what you have done. They shot at us! We were given the wrong intelligence. We regret this. Anything to keep any blame for atrocities away from you.

Being a Commander in the field, you already know what the President and those in Washington want to hear and truth has nothing to do with your reports. Do you remember those three guys that we killed with a unmanned plane? They were out picking up scrap metal. Well right away the reports came out that one guy was tall and we were going to do DNA tests to see if it was Osama. Take the focus off the murder of these three innocent guys and put it on Osama. Do you also remember that some reporters went to the scene and American Troops pointed weapons at them and would not let them see the crime scene? It wasn't ready for reporters yet.

In Vietnam like in all wars, officers were taught to lie about the number of enemy casualties, while at the same time never even mentioning any civilians that got killed. Every war has had this same rule.

Americans should remember that our government has to "Sell" the war to us. This is so very important today because of all the potential profits for American Corporations. Americans have to remember that innocent people are not the subject here but the performance of the weapon system. America is the top seller of weapon systems in the world today and too many mistakes can give that weapon a bad name and hurt sales. Remember the "War Zone" is our "Sales Floor." Potential customers are watching. I hope you really didn't think we put on this 10 billion dollar show to just kill a few hundred al Qaida. American arms merchants expect some big pay backs on this one.

With all the people displaced in Afghanistan and killed by starvation, disease, and just exposure to the elements, plus those killed by errant weapons, we could have killed tens of thousands already. We will never know because that information is not information that Washington wants known. The media has really let not only America down, but how about the Afghans?

This mass murder at the wedding will still have a chance to be OK because those in command keep talking about Anti-air craft fire as a reason for our attack. The only problem now is that they couldn't find any anti-air craft weapons on site. Sick as this sounds, I would be willing to bet that pieces of old Russian guns are worth lots now. Scatter a few identifiable parts around, bring in the investigators and they will honestly say, yes there were anti-air craft weapons on site. America will be exonerated and all the troops will feel good again, cause those people deserved to die.