WILL SOMEONE PLEASE PUT A STOP TO THIS SENSELESS KILLING?

U.S. forces have been killing Afghan civilians for years (here & here) and nothing seems to change. There's no outrage about this incompetence anywhere in the U.S. media.

Afghan president condemns civilian killings
Sat Aug 23, 2008 1:43pm EDT
By Jonathon Burch

KABUL (Reuters) - Afghan President Hamid Karzai on Saturday condemned a U.S.-led coalition air strike his government says killed 76 civilians, most of them women and children.

Civilian casualties are an emotive issue for Afghans, many of whom feel foreign forces take too little care when launching air strikes. Support for the presence of international troops is waning and anti-U.S. demonstrations broke out on Saturday.

The issue has also led to a rift between the Afghan government and its Western backers, with Karzai saying recently that foreign air strikes have achieved nothing but the deaths of civilians.

"Afghan President Hamid Karzai strongly condemns the uncoordinated air strike by coalition forces in Shindand district of Herat province which resulted in the death of at least 70 people including women and children," the president's office said in a statement.

File this under "LOSING HEARTS AND MINDS":

The demonstrations erupted in Shindand after Afghan soldiers arrived in the area to bring aid to the victim's families, Nawaz said, adding Afghan soldiers fired shots into the air and wounded six people after the crowd threw stones.

"People didn't accept the aid and started throwing stones at the soldiers saying the Afghan army is our enemy, we don't want anything from our enemies," he said.