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Twenty terrorists died in an overnight offensive led by coalition forces. This is great news, right? You would not think so if you read the title of the Associated Press article: 25 civilians killed in Afghan violence.

KABUL, Afghanistan - Taliban militants attacked police posts in southern Afghanistan, triggering NATO airstrikes that left 25 civilians dead, including three infants and the local mullah, a senior police officer said Friday.

NATO said its overnight bombardment killed most of a group of 30 insurgents and blamed them for the deaths of any innocents, saying they had launched “irresponsible” attacks from civilian homes.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai criticized the mounting civilian toll from NATO and U.S.-led military operations as “difficult for us to accept or understand.”[emphasis mine]

I’d like to address a few things here so we can clear up any confusion. The Taliban terrorists launched an offensive, we responded and nailed them along with some civilians. However, it is impossible not to hit civilians when the terrorists use civilian homes as there point of attack. Karzai can say that it is “difficult for to us to accept or understand”, but the truth is, it isn’t difficult at all. There are two things to remember here, the first is that Karzai is only President due to our fight against the murderous thug terrorists that once had complete control of his precious Afghanistan. If we hadn’t gone there the Taliban would still be controlling that region. The second thing, instead of Karzai criticizing us, perhaps he should encourage his fellow citizens to turn in the terrorists. I know that this is a scary proposition because these are scary people, but it must be done.

Now on to my criticism of the Associated Press. I’m growing tired of the way these assholes are covering this war. As you have already read, the lead paragraph in their article mentions “25 civilians dead, including three infants and the local mullah”. Go down to paragraph number five and you read:

NATO responded by calling in airstrikes, which killed 20 suspected militants, but also 25 civilians, including nine women, three babies and the mullah at the local mosque, Andiwal said.[emphasis mine]

We have the redundancy of the three babies and the mullah plus we have the added nine women. I understand that this is a bad thing but it isn’t bad due to U.S. - NATO forces inadvertently killing innocents, it is bad because terrorist thugs are using these innocents as human shields. We are in a country that is inundated with thugs that have little value for human life, therefore it is a reasonable assessment that innocent life will be lost.

If confirmed, the casualties in Gereshk would bring the number of civilians killed in NATO or U.S.-led military operations this year to 177, according to an AP tally of figures provided by Afghan officials and witness report.

It would be more productive for the war if the AP kept a tally of civilian deaths and followed that tally with a sentence such as “these deaths would not have resulted if not for the actions of terrorists in the first place”. What the hell is the matter with these people? Excuse me, we are at war with very bad guys, bad guys that would not think twice about lopping off the journalists heads, as demonstrated with Daniel Pearle.

Aid groups and other observers warn that anger at the mounting civilian toll is undermining support for the presence of foreign troops and setting back their goal of securing Karzai’s Western-backed government against a Taliban comeback.

Yes, because we are all aware of how much better life was under the Taliban. Maybe if Amir Shah, one of journalists for the AP and also for this AP article, focussed on the positives we wouldn’t have the frustration from the civilians. Maybe the only press that should be in a war zone is military press.

I’m tired of writers at the AP drumming up support for the terrorists and “undermining” the job that we are trying to achieve, which is to give a country that doesn’t have something as simple as a working toilet a fighting chance.

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