Bombing is a murderous disaster

The depth of outrage felt by Afghans at the indiscriminate bombing inflicted on occasion by the American forces in Afghanistan was made shockingly clear this week when relatives of 90 slaughtered civilians offered to open the graves of their dead loved ones in order to prove that civilians had been killed in an air raid.

The US military ordered the attack on August 22, and to this day the US military claims that 30 to 35 militants were killed in the raid, and only five to seven civilians died.

This claim has been vigorously denied by the villagers, who filmed evidence showing over 60 women and children lying dead in the village mosque awaiting burial, and making clear that over 90 villagers died in total.

This raid should never have been ordered in the way that it happened, and the US forces should take responsibility for what they have done. The tragedy of so many indiscriminate civilian deaths does great harm to the reputation of Nato forces, and greatly supports the cause of the Taliban opposition who seize on such clumsy and murderous raids as evidence to show the Afghan people that they cannot trust the US-led Western forces.

The American military has a disastrous record of investigating its own errors. No senior officer has been disciplined for the shocking torture and abuse in Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. The US military has never apologised for a B-52 dropping seven 2,000 pounds bombs on a wedding party in Kandahar, killing 30 people and injuring many more.

The Americans cannot just deny the deaths they cause. They should admit their errors. They should also stop waging war as though they are fighting the whole Afghan nation, and learn that they are only fighting the Taliban and enemies of the Afghan government.