140 innocent civilians dead!
On May 4 the US bombed the village of Granai in Farah province, Afghanistan, killing 140 civilians according to the Afghanistan government, including approximately 90 children.
It was the single largest loss of life caused by US/NATO forces since the 2001 invasion.
President Hamid Karzai denounced the air strikes as “unjustifiable and unacceptable,” hundreds of people demonstrated in Kabul and in Farah city there was a riot outside the governor’s office and traders closed their shops in protest.
The US military initially claimed the civilians had been killed by grenades hurled by Taliban fighters. These assertions were shown to be false by eyewitness accounts and were quickly withdrawn.
The US military has since published a 13-page report, estimating that 20-30 civilians died in the bombing, along with 60-65 Taliban fighters.
The investigation conceded that errors had been made in the military operation but did not call anybody to account or apportion blame. Importantly, it did not recommend “the curtailment of close air support.”
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This massacre was widely published as a legitimate fight with Taliban forces in Afghanistan. It has since been exposed for what it was, a massacre of some of the poorest civilians in the country. The value of life in proportion to profit gained by murder is precisely nothing.
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