[Peace] from BBC

[Dlind49 at aol.com]

This is exactly the finding that one would expect when the bad guys 
investigate their own actions. Since when is killing civilians justified at 
all? We have example after example where U.S. military personnel killed or 
wounded civilians yet no accountability occurs.   

We must stop the double standard nonsense and do what is right for God and 
the citizens of the world.

doug

***



US justifies Afghan wedding bombing

 
Afghans say 48 people were killed in the airstrike

A US airstrike that killed dozens of guests at a wedding party in Afghanistan 
in July was justified, a US military investigation has concluded. 
 
The US say their gunship was fired on
 
Its report says people at the party in central Afghanistan's Uruzgan province 
who fired at US aircraft were to blame, not the American pilots who returned 
the fire. 

"While the coalition regrets the loss of innocent lives, the responsibility 
for that loss rests with those that knowingly directed hostile fire at 
coalition forces," the report says. 

The Afghan Government says 48 civilians - mostly women and children - were 
killed and 117 injured by the US AC-130 aircraft during the incident, which 
severely strained relations between Washington and Kabul. 

Self-defence 

The US report says that the crew of the AC-130 gunship acted "properly and in 
accordance with the rules" in attacking several sites in the Deh Rawood area. 

  

It also says reconnaissance patrols heard gunfire and explosions at all hours 
of the day and night, and that the AC-130 came under fire itself. 

"The operators of those weapons elected to place them in civilian communities 
and elected to fire them at coalition forces at a time when they knew there 
were a significant number of civilians present," the report says. 

The US investigators say the airstrike was part of a larger operation in the 
area, which the report says was at the time home to families of several key 
Taleban leaders. 

No evidence 

The Afghan officials and survivors of the incident say the only gunfire from 
the area came from the guests who fired their rifles in celebration. 

 
Many of the victims were children
 

Despite the report's claims that heavy weapons had been fired at the US 
aircraft in the days before the raid, the American investigators found no 
evidence of anti-aircraft weapons at the bombed sites. 

The report says that the US investigation could only confirm 34 dead and 
about 50 wounded. 

Washington has not used the word "apology" because of differing accounts of 
what happened during the 1 July airstrike.