Information on the bombing that occurred July 1 in Kandahar, Afghanistan has exemplified the very definition of “conflicting.”
Perhaps by the time this editorial is printed and fears over terrorist attacks on July 4 have been alleviated, some solid investigation will have begun into what exactly happened between two Air Force bombers and a small Afghanistan village.
For whatever reason, U.S. aircraft attacked Kandahar during a wedding. Kandahar claims the aircraft attacked villagers after they fired weapons into the air as part of a traditional wedding celebration. The Pentagon claims the aircraft had been attacking a legitimate target but that an errant bomb may have struck the village. The U.S. Central Command claims that the bombers were engaging anti-aircraft artillery sites and joining ground forces that had come under fire. All three claims are reported in an Associated Press article in which the United States “defends” the Afghan village bombing.
More confusing still are the numbers of casualties in the attack. Most of the articles the Associated Press has written on the attack are claiming about 40 people were killed, while 70 were injured. According to CNN.com, the Afghan Defense Chief of Staff puts the death toll between 20 and 30. A nurse at the Kandahar hospital claims that 120 people were killed. The Afghan Islamic Press reported that at least 100 people, mainly women, were killed. Reuters reports that sources in the nearby Helmand and Kandahar provinces claim the level of dead is more than 300.
The most solid evidence we have of the attacks are the pictures – photos of mostly children, still dressed in party clothes, collapsed and wounded in rudimentary hospital beds. At least the claim that something terribly wrong happened in Kanadhar cannot be disputed.
It is only natural that the information we receive conflicts. Post Sept. 11 politics have severely soured relationships on both sides of the Atlantic. But what we cannot do is overlook – or worse, deny – this attack.
A similar incident of civilian casualties occurred on Jan. 21, but was dismissed by many as a “natural consequence” of being at war. Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld cleared American soldiers of any wrongdoing, and denied the raid on Khas Uruzgan was a mistake.
The problem is that what we have declared “war” on is not a country, but rather a practice. Maybe civilian casualties in Afghanistan were more acceptable when were still concerned about the Taliban. But it is half a year later, and many Americans are growing tired of our single-minded determination to hunt down Osama bin Laden while overlooking the big picture.
The attack on Kandahar, however and why it happened, was singularly unacceptable. The United States needs to be prepared to step up, accept responsibility, and spend a little time and energy assessing the truth of what really happened.
