Come Back to Afghanistan Blog #6

On Wednesday, a US airstrike on the villages of Gerani and Ganjabad in Farah province killed approximately 140 people, 95 of them children in an attempt to once again oust the Taliban from Afghanistan. However, the US military denied that the death toll was accurate. The International Committee of the Red Cross said that its teams saw many dead women and children, but they could not get an accurate overall figure. The US refused to release a number of the people that died in the clash from May 4-5. US military spokesman Col. Greg Julian said that, “there is no physical proof that can substantiate,” the number of victims that the Afghan government released. He also said that it was, “very difficult to determine an exact number and there’s a climate that encourages exaggeration.” President Hamid Karzai said that the strikes were “not acceptable” and has demanded condolences for the families of those killed and injured, $1000 for the wounded and $2000 for the dead. Karzai estimated that between 120 and 130 civilians were killed in the conflict. I would have to agree with Karzai that the air strike was unacceptable. I think that the efforts to repress Taliban forces are necessary and noble, but 140 innocent lives lost is not a reasonable amount of collateral damage from faulty intelligence or whatever the reason may be. In my opinion, war in general is stupid. I don’t think that people should have to sacrifice young men and women of their country just to get a point across. It is an unnecessary cost for usually a small reward. But I know that world peace will probably never happen, at least in my lifetime. There will always be disputes and revengeful feelings. It’s just human nature.