by James Glaser
May 23, 2002

In any war mistakes are made, but in Afghanistan it is mistake after mistake after mistake and nobody steps up and takes responsibility. This week it was ten killed at a wedding. Tell me those people won't remember America the rest of their lives.

Remember those Canadians, the President didn't even offer his condolences until someone said that he should. And who can forget those three guys looking for scrap metal. It was a real shame one of them was tall and Osama bin Laden is tall, so for sure we had to kill that guy just to be sure. Took him out with a remote controlled "little plane" with the operator a few hundred miles away. Cool huh?

Mistakes like these are important as our troops start to get nervous with each. Friendly fire mistakes can demoralize a whole unit. Remember back in December when three special operations soldiers were killed, five allied troops killed, and twenty of our own wounded. This was all done be a satellite-guided 2000 lb. Bomb near Kandahar, Afghanistan. These bombs are 90-95% accurate.

On March 6th we attacked a vehicle near the village of Shikin and killed 8 adult males, 3 adult females, and 3 children. Who can forget our mistake on bombing the International Red Cross warehouse compound, not once, but we hit that same place by mistake twice and killed four workers.

Molly Moore, a Washington Post reporter, described a missile attack where 21 members of two farming families were killed. All but four were children and infants. Back in December we also hit a convoy of elders going to the inauguration of the new Afghan Government and we killed 60 of those elders and took out 10 houses and a Mosque.

The list goes on and on just check out Google under "mistake deaths afghanistan" and "afghanistan friendly fire deaths".

What is so important about these mistakes is the fact that we are making life time haters of America and potential terrorists with every mistake. Just you think of what you would feel if America killed your little baby or maybe all of your kids, even if it was a mistake. Think how you would feel if America killed your dad or mom and then came and gave you some money for the mistake.

Every war is filled with mistakes and because George Bush and Donald Rumsfled have never been to one, they don't think about them. Colin Powell has been to war and that is why he works so hard for peace. Our leaders talk of that "Just War" crap and that is just what it is. No war is just if you are the aggressor, which we are over in Afghanistan.

Nobody in our Washington leadership thinks about what these "mistakes" do to the American troops that have to live with their memories for the rest of their lives. George and Donald can say "oh what a shame" when the are told about infants and children getting killed, because they are over here. The American troops that have to look on our mistakes "up close and personal," those troops that have to put their friends bodies in bags or those that have to help friends with sucking chest wounds remember that stuff till they die.

Also on a totally military thought, troops start to get "flinchy" when there are repeated mistakes and confidence starts to fade. Artillery strikes and close air support become a gamble in the troops minds and that cohesive unit starts to get lost.

Too much pushing from the top is the reason for most mistakes. Our troops are the best in the world, but even the best start to screw up when the "top brass" wants to push for a victory. America is fighting terrorists, not a country with a army and navy that has military units and uniforms. In this type of war children and infants, along with their parents are right on the front lines and we will kill many. America has taken on a war that not only can we not win, we still have no definition of what victory would be.

We have started this war on terrorism in a country (Afghanistan) that not one of the terrorists in the September 11th attack came from. With this war and the way we have handled the Israeli/Palistinian conflict George and Donald have managed to increase the numbers that hate America a thousand fold.