Sorry About Killing Your Family. Here’s $2000, Now Get Lost
Posted in H.L. News, Main Blog (All Posts) on May 9th, 2007 5:53 am by HL
U.S. Apologizes to Families for Killing Afghan Civilians
NY Times
Excerpt:
WASHINGTON, May 8 — An Army commander apologized and paid compensation on Tuesday to families of Afghan civilians killed by marines after a suicide attack in March, marking the first formal acknowledgment by American authorities that the killings were unjustified.
Col. John Nicholson, an Army brigade commander in eastern Afghanistan, met on Tuesday with the families of the 19 Afghans killed and 50 wounded when a Marines special operations unit opened fire along a crowded stretch of road near Jalalabad after a suicide bomber in a vehicle rammed their convoy.
“I stand before you today, deeply, deeply ashamed and terribly sorry that Americans have killed and wounded innocent Afghan people,†Colonel Nicholson said, recounting to reporters the words he used in the meetings. Speaking in a videoconference to reporters at the Pentagon, he added: “We made official apologies on the part of the U.S. government†and paid $2,000 for each death.
The incident is already the subject of a criminal investigation by the Pentagon. But the decision to issue a public apology now reflects the militarys growing concern that a spate of recent civilian casualties have led to widespread ill will among Afghans and could jeopardize military operations.
“Anytime we’re responsible for the loss of innocent life, we understand that that hurts our ability to accomplish the mission,†Bryan Whitman, a Pentagon spokesman, said Tuesday.
Offering payments to relatives of victims is considered by the American military as vital in allaying anger among civilians in both Afghanistan and Iraq, where the military regularly makes payments when it kills noncombatants.
HLs Take
$2000 for every death of an innocent. Bush must figure that with us spending Billions every week that we can kill a hell of a lot of innocent people then just hit them with the 2Gs and they will be happy that the war came through there part of town. And stupid people wonder why all these “Terrorists” and “Al Quaida” hate us. Pretty arrogant to think that 2000 dollars makes up for killing your family. If this happened to you when a foreign country came in and started killing your family, you might be pissed off enough to want to try to take out a few of them too. The best thing we can do to get these people to stop hating us is to just leave. Right now.
