by Damozel | The New York Times says:
An investigation by the military has concluded that American airstrikes on Aug. 22 in a village in western Afghanistan killed far more civilians than American commanders there have acknowledged, according to two American military officials....
The military investigator's report found that more than 30 civiliansm not 5 to 7 as the military has long insisted, died in the airstrikes against a suspected Taliban compound in Azizabad.The investigator, Brig. Gen. Michael W. Callan of the Air Force, concluded that many more civilians, including women and children, had been buried in the rubble than the military had asserted, one of the military officials said.
The airstrikes have been the focus of sharp tensions between the Afghan government, which has said that 90 civilians died in the raid, and the American military, under Gen. David D. McKiernan, the top American military commander in Afghanistan, which has repeatedly insisted that only a handful of civilians were killed. (NY Times)
In other words, shut up, Sarah Palin. But first, look at the photo of the dead baby.
The American Conservative actually has published a piece called "Grow Up, Sarah."
Among other attacks, Sarah Palin is out on the campaign trail this week accusing Obama of dishonoring the troops, in essence calling them babykillers. This stems from an old charge she (her debate coaches) have resurrected about the Democrat, claiming he said "all we're doing in Afghanistan is air-raiding villages and killing civilians" some 14 months ago.
Such a statement, she said in last week's debate, is "a reckless, reckless comment and untrue comment, again, hurts our cause."
No, Sarah, accidentally killing civilians in a country you are supposed to be liberating from the bad guys is "reckless, reckless" and most definitely "hurts our cause..."
Get your head out of the mud and see the situation for what it is. NATO forces are killing civilians..... Ignore this, and disregard everything we've learned in wars past. Ignore this, and put our troops in greater danger on the ground. Ignore this and further confuse any working moral compass we have left as an enlightened nation.
Via Balloon Juice, where John Cole remarked:
I wonder if McCain and his venomous sidekick will read this in their paper this morning:..Tell us, Sarah Palin- why does the military hate the military? Should you send some of your "moran" brigade from your rally to the Pentagon to scream "treason?"
Thomas L. Friedman, writing for The New York Times, has a different beef (we're spoiled for choice really) with Palin. As he says, "Criticizing Sarah Palin is truly shooting fish in a barrel." This is good too and stuck in my craw too, though I'd forgotten about it in the course of being outraged by more recent offenses by this clown.
Criticizing Sarah Palin is truly shooting fish in a barrel. But given the huge attention she is getting, you can’t just ignore what she has to say. And there was one thing she said in the debate with Joe Biden that really sticks in my craw. It was when she turned to Biden and declared: “You said recently that higher taxes or asking for higher taxes or paying higher taxes is patriotic. In the middle class of America, which is where Todd and I have been all of our lives, that’s not patriotic.”
What an awful statement. Palin defended the government’s $700 billion rescue plan. She defended the surge in Iraq, where her own son is now serving. She defended sending more troops to Afghanistan. And yet, at the same time, she declared that Americans who pay their fair share of taxes to support all those government-led endeavors should not be considered patriotic.
I only wish she had been asked: “Governor Palin, if paying taxes is not considered patriotic in your neighborhood, who is going to pay for the body armor that will protect your son in Iraq? Who is going to pay for the bailout you endorsed? If it isn’t from tax revenues, there are only two ways to pay for those big projects — printing more money or borrowing more money. Do you think borrowing money from China is more patriotic than raising it in taxes from Americans?” That is not putting America first. That is selling America first. (NYT)
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