Wednesday, March 16, 2011

Aiming Is An Intentional Act

Memo to NATO - Try harder when you're responding to complaints about dead civilians.

Last week a NATO gunship helicopter whacked nine Afghan boys out gathering firewood.  The bad news:  they've done it again.   The good news:  they only killed two kids this time.

The two boys, 11 and 17, were tending their family's farm when a helo showed up  and took them out.  NATO's response?  The crew "may have unintentionally engaged civilians who were working on road and field drainage."   Guess what?  There's nothing remotely unintentional about lining up a person in your sights, squeezing the trigger and sending them to Allah.  The death could be mistaken, negligent, criminally negligent, even murderous but the one thing it's not is "unintentional."   I'm sure the crew didn't mean to kill kids but they did mean to kill those two.

Can we go home now?

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