April 7, 2010



Remember this from May of last year?







Wikileaks, the scourge of governments from China to the US, will soon release a video related to this killing of more than a hundred innocent Afghan civilians in May 2009. This comes on the backdrop of the release of helicopter footage of the slaying of Iraqis in 2007. Take note of what the US were saying when the news broke last year of the casualties: "We do everything we can to avoid civilian casualties. When the insurgents embed themselves amongst the population, this makes it very difficult. But we ask our commanders to use proportionality and restraint, especially among the populated areas and consider other options." This is a familiar accusation against Hamas in Gaza but had been widely discredited by human rights organisations. It is easier to accuse the Taliban of this tactic because they have a stricter interpretation of Islam and are therefore more 'evil'. The release of this video will hopefully give us the answers, although I suspect we all know what they are.

