Afghan wedding bombings (2002- ) is the apparent American practice of bombing weddings during their War in Afghanistan (2001-present).
On the day of the Boston Marathon Bombing (April 15th 2013), reports of one such bombing appeared on Twitter. The tweets made it seem like it took place the same day, but the Daily Mail article they linked to was a report of a bombing in 2002. So the Americans bombed a wedding 11 years ago – war is a mess, mistakes are made. A tragedy, surely, but not a crime.
Yet that was not the only Afghan wedding bombing. There are others.
Here are the ones I know about, in order of date:
- May 2002: north of Khost: 11 wedding guests killed. The Americans said it was justified since their plane had come under fire. It is common for men at weddings in Afghanistan to fire their guns in the air in celebration.
- July 1st 2002: Uruzgan province: 48 wedding guest killed when an American US AC-130 plane (pictured above) bombed a house at one in the morning. Again the American plane had “come under fire”. American president Bush: “We don’t want any more Afghan civilian casualties.”
- July 6th 2008: Nangarhar province: Deh Bala wedding party airstrike – 47 killed, mostly women and children who were on their way with the bride to the groom’s town. The first bomb killed the children leading the wedding party. The plane returned and dropped the second bomb on the middle of the procession and the third killed the bride as she tried to escape. Body parts everywhere. Sung about by the rock band Airborne Toxic Event in “Welcome to Your Wedding Day” (2011).
- November 3rd 2008: Kandahar province: Wech Baghtu wedding party airstrike – 37 killed, 23 of them children, 10 women, who had gathered to celebrate a wedding in the heart of Taliban country. The strike also killed 26 “insurgents” who were nearby, at least some of them Taliban. This was the day before Obama won the American presidential election. Afghan president Karzai said, “this is my first demand of the new president of the United States – to put an end to civilian casualties.” He did not:
Other American and NATO airstrikes that I know of which killed a large number of civilians:
- August 22nd 2008: Azizabad airstrike: 78 to 92 civilians killed, mostly children, by a US AC-130 ground attack aircraft.
- May 4th 2009: Granai airstrike: 86 to 147 civilians killed, mostly women and children, by a B-1 bomber
- September 4th 2009: Kunduz airstrike: over 100 children killed by an American F-15E fighter jet. Up to 179 died altogether.
- February 21st 2010: Uruzgan helicopter attack: 27 to 33 civilians killed.
- July 23rd 2010: Sangin airstrike: 39 to 52 killed, mostly women and children
This stuff is all right there in the Wikipedia.
In any war there will be civilian deaths, even with American “precision” bombing. The trouble is that America fights guerrillas, like the Taliban and Al Qaeda in Afghanistan and Pakistan (Dronelandia), by going after the leadership – who are easiest to kill at public events like weddings and funerals where they have to appear in public at a known place and time.
Sources: Wikipedia, Aljazeera.
See also:
I wouldn’t be surprised if the Tsarnaev brothers were inspired to do what they did by these incidents.I’m not condoning the Boston Bombings, but they probably did the terrorist attack to avenge the deaths of Afghan/Iraqi/Pakistani kids that have been killed by American drone strikes.
3 people were killed in Boston whereas hundreds perhaps even thousands of children have been killed by NATO in Afghanistan/Iraq/Yemen/Pakistan.
I remember when Sergeant.Bales murdered 9 kids in Afghanistan, he was hailed as hero back in America, he was called a good “father” and an American patriot.
I guess for Obama white blood is more valuable than Brown blood.
If terrorists happen in the west, it’s not because “Islam” is some violent ideology, but because of American/western foreign policy.
I mean if Muslims really hated non-Muslims, then Muslims would have carried out terrorist attacks in Japan or in Brazil, When Western people ask “why they hate us” they need to look at the mirror for a good answer
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@ Cyrus
“When Western people ask “why they hate us” they need to look at the mirror for a good answer”
Well put. However, it’s tough for some Westerners to come to that realisation when they believe their respective countries are fighting terrorists and doing good overseas. I blame government/media propoganda first and foremost. If the gov’t stopped telling lies about their military ambitions/actions, and if the media were objective, then there wouldn’t be so much widespread ignorance/hypocrisy.
It’s also a shame that radical terrorists retaliate against innocent civilians when they’re not necessarily to blame…
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it was called spooky or puff the magic dragon in vietnam
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Reblogged this on revealingartisticthoughts and commented:
I just can’t, honestly.
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[…] Afghan wedding bombings (2002- ) is the apparent American practice of bombing weddings during their War in Afghanistan (2001-present). On the day of the Boston Marathon Bombing (April 15th 2013), r… […]
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horrible
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“In any war there will be civilian deaths,….”—this is where humanity goes wrong. To say that one set of innocent civilian deaths is “justifiable” but another set isn’t goes beyond logic or reason. There is absolutely no need for humanity to fight with weapons of mass destruction, mines, cluster bombs, drones, chemical weapons or atom bombs…..In fact there were other ways to apprehend AQ criminals without resorting to destroying 2 whole nations….and droning others.
When America bombed Hiroshima and Nagasaki—the survivors put their energies into advocating for pacifism rather than into retaliation—The Europeans brought the Nazi to justice for war crimes rather than bombing the country that gave them asylum (one such country was the U.S.A.)
war is not the only way to solve our problems………………….
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right wingers try to fear monger, left wingers try to guilt trip and threaten
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Sometimes we do not see the horror of what we do because it is happening to the “other”
—-what if—-
…..during the search for the two terrorists—the Boston police/FBI/whatever had used drones to flatten most of Boston?—after all these guys were caucasian as are most of Boston residents. The excuse that “we need to keep America safe”—that “we can’t tell the difference between civilians and terrorists” and various other justifications—the same ones used to excuse drone attacks—could have been used!!!!……………if such tactics and excuses are not acceptable to the people of America—how can they condone that very action by their government in their name onto others?
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Would we bomb Irish weddings if the Provisional Irish Republican Army had attacked us on September 11th?
http://www.salon.com/2013/04/16/lets_hope_the_boston_marathon_bomber_is_a_white_american/
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I think you can take a page from mossad here; the asymmetrical model of war that is now plaguing everyone has changed things, it’s not uniformed soldiers on a well defined area of operation. And yes, it sets the stage for civilian involved events like boston.
I think that metaphor can be furthered, we have bombed various places like afghanistan till the rocks bounced and the political maps split along financial fault lines
The real take-away here is why is there so much more, processed even, heroin coming out of afghanistan? I realize that sounds crude but it is a declared war.
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the tactic is person ‘x’ is of such ‘vaunted military value’ regardless if he is a member of a specific military organization, or ‘enemy combatant’ and well, he’s hard to find, so we just wait until he goes to his cousin or whatever’s wedding and guess what
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i hate givin out links on this type of thing because no i do not own a tinfoil hat, but it started with one of the first sociological computer programs implemented by rand corporation, and yes it was made to kill people…
operation phoenix, which was to sort out who was a vc and who was a legitimate political figure during the vietnam war, and morphed into cointelpro, also a lot of intelligence officers came back from ‘nam and became police and federal agents…
http://disc.yourwebapps.com/discussion.cgi?id=149495;article=144687
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This is just horrible. I know that sounds naieve but that the best I can do for now. America has got to answer for a lot of bloodshed. Innocent civilians were murdered. What should have been a beautiful and joyous occasion was turned into a nightmarish bloodbath. This is so sad and shameful. And we wonder why other countries abroad have derision and hate for our country, This is sad and sick.
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