Karzai buys into Taliban airstrike scam

CNN:

Up to 50 people were killed Tuesday in U.S. airstrikes on buildings in an Afghan area frequented by insurgents, a senior U.S. military official told CNN on Friday.

However, Afghan President Hamid Karzai said the death toll was higher, telling CNN's Wolf Blitzer that more than 100 people were killed.

"I got different word from the government this morning that there were more than 100 casualties, nearly 125 to 130 civilians lost ... and that it was done by the bombings," he said.

Asked whether the bombings were done by the U.S., Karzai said yes.

"The airstrikes are not acceptable," he said. "This is something that we've raised in the Afghan government very clearly, that terrorism is not in the Afghan villages, not in Afghan homes. And you cannot defeat terrorists by airstrikes."

He added, "We cannot justify in any manner, for whatever number of Taliban, for whatever number of significantly important terrorists, the accidental or otherwise loss of civilians."

Karzai said he had told President Barack Obama his views on the airstrikes.

"President Obama was very nice and kind to protract and extend his sorrows and apologies for these incidents," Karzai said.

The official, who has direct knowledge of the probe into the strike, said investigators believe among those who died were women, children and insurgents, who the United States believes were using the other two groups as shields. One mass grave has been found, the official added.

U.S. warplanes dropped about 13 bombs, including 500-pound and 1,000-pound bombs, on eight buildings in Farah province in western Afghanistan, the official said.

The buildings were located in poppy and wheat fields, and Afghan and coalition forces were taking fire from those buildings, the official said.

The military has been trying to destroy poppy fields, which are the source of most of the world's opium, to cut off funding to the Taliban and other insurgents.

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The Taliban use the civilian casualty scam in order to make it more difficult for the US to attack them with our most effective weapon. They mix with non combatants while firing on US or Afghan forces in hopes that we will either not fire back or that they will create a civilian casualty "atrocity" to exploit. It is a very cynical tactic on the Taliban part and Karzai's going along with it will only make the Taliban more eager to continue to endanger and kill noncombatants. What the Taliban is doing is an information operation that is also a war crime.