Afghan protest turns violent

Source: WP

Afghan protest turns violent

By Joshua Partlow
Washington Post Foreign Service
Sunday, April 25, 2010; 5:21 AM

KABUL -- Protesters angered by killings during an early morning military operation set fire to NATO supply vehicles in Logar province on Sunday, amid differing claims about whether the men killed were civilians or insurgents.

In the early morning darkness, a joint U.S. and Afghan patrol killed three people and arrested two others in the village of Nasir near the Logar provincial capital, according to Afghan officials. A NATO statement said the men were shot when they displayed "hostile intent," and that one of those captured was a low-level Taliban commander who planned suicide bombings.

But a few hours after dawn, more than 100 people had gathered on a main road and insisted the slain men were innocent civilians. The furious crowd blocked traffic and set fire to at least 10 fuel tankers using hand grenades, said provincial police chief Ghulam Mustafa Moisini. By midday, the fire was still raging and neighbors evacuated their homes.

"If they were insurgents, why are the people so angry?" asked provincial government spokesman Din Mohammad Darwish. While he did not know if the men killed and captured were Taliban or not, he said that in past killings, people are "careful about doing these kinds of protests" if the men were Taliban fighters.

Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/04/25/AR2010042500850.html

NOT.

What'd they do - poke their tongues out at the troops. :sarcasm:

"Everyone at work displayed hostile intent toward me so I got my machine gun & mowed them all down."

:sarcasm:

From the article:



Edited to add: this is the http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x4354308">second night raid in Logar province this weekend. There's a reason we're working Kulangar, and it's not to kill civilians.

If we were closing bases (800 or so & counting), dismantling our cockamamie 'empire', there'd be no story like this.

It's the assumption that we have to have foreign entanglements that screws the pooch.

"In the past, including once last week, NATO officials have reversed their initial claims that those they'd killed were insurgents, and admitted they were civilians."

Seems to me that if a foreign power occupies any country, the civilian resistance will always be called insurgency.
Kind of like the word terrorists...it means whoever we want it to be.

Color me surprised. :(

Don't they know we're there to slaughter in the name of profits?

That we're exporting the American dream into their neighborhood so that they too can enjoy the benefits of serfdom to our Lords whichc are much better than their Lords?

Human rights? :eyes: