by James Glaser
December 11, 2003

A few days ago it was reported that American forces apologized for killing nine children in the Ghazni Province of Afghanistan. Today the US Military reports killing six children in the neighboring Province of Paktia. US officials said they would not be deterred by civilian casualties.

No, those officials will not be deterred because it is not the officials that will have to deal with those children's death for the rest of their lives. Out of sight, out of mind" Officials never make it out to the actual combat. No, they are back in some heated or air conditioned office pushing little tanks and trucks or maybe flags around on a quarter million dollar topographical map set up in their carpeted office, calling for some underling to bring in more coffee.

It is the Troops out in the field that discover the little bodies of these children that will be trying to get their image out of their mind until the day the die. The parents of those children will remember their death and who killed them forever too. Recruiters never mention things like that when they are out at your high school, telling you about all that education money you will be earning.

A US spokesman, Lieutenant Colonel Byran Hilferty, told reporters in Kabul on Wednesday that the crushed bodies of the six children were found at a compound 20 kilometers (12 miles) east of Gardez, in Paktia Province. "In this incident, if noncombatants surround themselves with thousands of weapons and hundreds of rounds of ammunition and howitzer and mortars, in a compound known to be used by terrorists, we are not completely responsible for the consequences," he said

No, we are not completely responsible, but we are the ones that killed these kids. I don't care how many thousands of weapons you have, if you only have hundreds of rounds to fire in them, those thousand of weapons become clubs. Howitzer rounds and mortar tubes do not interchange.

"According to the BBC News, "The raid was launched in belief that a suspected militant, Mullah Jilani was staying in the compound. When troops arrived they did not find the suspect, but made nine other arrests, a US spokesman said." This was not a raid to capture weapons, but an attack to kill one man and then the weapons were found. Just for reference, there are very few homes in Northern Minnesota where I live, that don't have at least hundreds of rounds of ammunition if not thousands, and many weapons. Afghanistan has been an active war zone for many decades and a person would be a fool not to have as many weapons as possible, just to protect their family, village, or tribe. That is how it is in Afghanistan and many other parts of this world, and Washington tries to make it sound like having weapons in Afghanistan brands their owner a terrorist.

Here in this latest killing of children we were looking for one man and he was we admit, a "suspect" In Sunday's killing we admit that we were after just one man again, this time another Mulla, Mulla Wazir.

General Richard Myers, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff said "we haven't been perfect" while he was offering his condolences.

What would you think if these were your children? Is it really worth the lives of nine children to kill one man and we don't even know if it was the right man. The local villagers say our suspect left days before we attacked and the man we killed was a local laborer.

In this latest attack can we blame those six dead children for being there? Afghanistan is awash with weapons, many of them supplied by the United States to help the Afghans push out their last occupier, Russia.

Every child we kill by design or accident is a terrorist act plain and simple. Children have no choice of where they live. These children were not in a battle zone, but rather in the wrong place at the wrong time, living in a village in one case and in the other, an American described compound, when the United States decided to assassinate a "suspect" Here in America we do not have A-10 ground attack aircraft open fire on suspected fugitives in civilian areas, Yet

George Bush keeps telling us that he is making this world a safer place. I can think of no more powerful recruitment tool for terrorists, than our killing of innocent children. There is no excuse for these deaths and it sounds lame any place in this world for us to try and make one.

We killed children. Let us admit that, say how very very sorry we are and tell the world that we will no longer bomb civilian targets when we have no idea of who we will be killing.