Afghan Leader Assails Airstrike, 60 Children Killed, Gates Offers Regrets

Marching in sync to fulfill Nostradamus's prophesies - control and protection of the oil regions, wherever they may be, at all costs.....
As common sense in science is lost with the continued stagnation of our energy base and deep troubling theoretical foundational issues in physics, so too, Civilization's Survival Parameters fly out of sight, out of mind, along with the values and morals inherent within new scientific understanding which new energy systems would reveal. The new scientific comprehension would eliminate the caveman 'club/stick' conflict resolution methods still used in the 21st century. Besides, caveman club/stick methods do not work well with nuclear toys, as they threaten all of humanity

Scientific Stagnation bodes an ill wind to evolution, sustainability, and survival as "cycles of humiliation, dumbing us down, violence, and Unrestrained Corporate Greed prompting resource wars with nuclear finality" join hands with global warming and ecological imbalance to precipitate the historical "rise and fall of civilization" - a Tsunami accelerating toward us with a far more spectacular event than the legends and myths of 'Atlantis and Lemuria"........ had more people known that Energy from Corn (or going backwards to a dimwitted concept of radioactive nuclear power application ) sounded a wee bit kindergartenish and senile for the twenty first century......the Future may have had a chance.

The Deadly Dangers of a Mis-informed, Dis-informed & Un-informed Population, Ultimately to Itself, History Provides Ample Evidence.

The Solution: The Promise of New Energy Systems & Beyond Oil Evaporates the Problem: The ill designed "Corporism: The Systemic Disease that Destroys Civilization." when lacking a Bill of Rights for Human Life

Afghan Leader Assails Airstrike, 60 Children Killed, Gates Offers Regrets
Gates Offers Regrets for Afghan Civilian Casualties
Defense secretary Says U.S. Tries to Avoid Civilian Death, but Needs to Do More
By JONATHAN KARL
KABUL, Afghanistan, Sept. 17, 2008 —
In a solo press conference after a "frank and productive" meeting with Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai, U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said he offered Afghan officials "personal regret" for civilians killed in coalition airstrikes.
Gates said the U.S. takes great effort to avoid civilian casualties, but "it is clear we need to do more."
"I offer all Afghans my sincere condolences and personal regrets for the recent loss of innocent life as a result of coalition air strikes," Gates said. "While no military has ever done more to prevent civilian casualties, it is clear that we have to work even harder."
Gates said he asked for detailed briefings today on the use of coalition air power (close air support) and intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR).
But Gates said it is the Taliban that intentionally targets civilians.
"All they seek is death and destruction and the power to impose their will. And they will fail," he said.
Gates also met with Air Force pilots along the flight line at Bagram Air Field and heard about the steps the Air Force takes to avoid civilian casualties from Brigadier Gen. Mike Holmes.
Speaking in front of an Air Force A-10 with sharp teeth painted on its nose cone, Gates told reporters that he is changing the way the military deals with incidents involving civilian casualties here. Now, when there are reports of civilian casualties, the military will first apologize, second compensate victims and then conduct an investigation. In the past, they often waited for the investigation before taking those first two steps.
"I think the key for us on those rare occasions when we do make a mistake, when there is an error, is to apologize quickly, to compensate the victims and then to carry out an investigation," he said.
He said he hopes this change in approach will help persuade the Afghan people that the U.S. is serous about avoiding civilian casualties.
2008 ABC News Internet Ventures

NYT August 24, 2008
Afghan Leader Assails Airstrike He Says Killed 95
By CARLOTTA GALL
KABUL, Afghanistan — President Hamid Karzai strongly condemned on Saturday a coalition airstrike that he said killed up to 95 Afghans — including 50 children — in a village in western Afghanistan on Friday, and said his government would be announcing measures to prevent the loss of civilian life in the future.
Government officials who traveled to the village of Azizabad in Herat Province on Saturday said the death toll had risen to 95 from 76, making it one of the deadliest airstrikes on civilians in nearly seven years of war.
The American military said Saturday it was investigating the attack.
The Karzai government has expressed outrage over recent airstrikes that have led to civilian deaths, as popular support for the coalition presence in Afghanistan dwindles. The tension comes at a delicate time for the American-led coalition, which is facing a resurgent Taliban with a perceived shortage of troops, leading it to rely more on air power to battle militants.
Mr. Karzai also denounced the coalition after an airstrike on July 6 killed 27 people in a wedding party — most of them women and children, including the bride — in eastern Afghanistan.
Mr. Karzai’s spokesman, Homayun Hamidzada, said civilians, including children, were brought to a provincial hospital in the town of Jalalabad. The American military is still investigating that attack; it has not acknowledged that civilians had been killed.
Mr. Hamidzada said civilian casualties had been declining over the past several months but that the recent airstrikes had reversed that trend. He said requests to American forces for greater care concerning civilian casualties had had little effect. The coalition has said it does all it can to prevent civilian deaths.
“This puts us in a very difficult position,” said a government official, who asked not to be identified because of the delicacy of the matter. “It provides propaganda to the Taliban, and if they don’t take responsibility, it actually helps the Taliban.”
The Afghan official said the government would demand broader, strategic-level cooperation on military operations. There have also been calls among members of the Afghan Parliament and Western analysts to put Special Forces, which often call in airstrikes, under stricter constraints.
The account of Friday’s airstrike by Afghan officials conflicted with that of the United States military, which said that coalition forces had come under attack in Azizabad, a village in the Shindand District of Herat Province, and had called in an airstrike that killed 25 militants, including a Taliban leader, Mullah Sadiq, and five civilians.
After the Afghan government said Friday that more than 70 civilians had been killed, Maj. Gen. Jeffrey J. Schloesser, the commander of coalition forces, ordered an investigation into the episode, the public affairs officer, First Lt. Richard K. Ulsh, said.
“Coalition forces are aware of allegations that the engagement in the Shindand District of Herat Province Friday may have resulted in civilian casualties,” a statement issued from Bagram air base said. “All allegations of civilian casualties are taken very seriously. Coalition forces make every effort to prevent the injury or loss of innocent lives. An investigation has been directed.”
Col. Rauf Ahmadi, a spokesman for the police chief of the western region, denied that there were any Taliban in the village at the time of the strikes. “There were no Taliban,” he said by telephone. “There is no evidence to show there were Taliban there that night,” he said.
The dead included 50 children, 19 women and 26 men, Colonel Ahmadi said.
A presidential aide who declined to be identified said that the Interior Ministry and the Afghan intelligence agency had reported from the region that there were no Taliban present in the village that night. The Afghan National Army, whose commandos called in the airstrike along with American Special Forces trainers, were unable to clarify their original claim, he said.
A spokesman for the Afghan Army declined to comment on Saturday.
A tribal elder from the region who helped bury the dead, Haji Tor Jan Noorzai, said people in the village were gathered in memory of a man who was anti-Taliban and was killed last year, and that tribal enemies of the family had given out false information.
“It is quite obvious, the Americans bombed the area due to wrong information,” he said by telephone. “I am 100 percent confident that someone gave the information due to a tribal dispute. The Americans are foreigners and they do not understand. These people they killed were enemies of the Taliban.”