The Surge

As the ‘surge’ in Afghanistan gets underway two tragic incidents are noteworthy. The US air attack in Afghanistan’s Farah province on civilians a few weeks ago and the latest drone delivered missile attack in Pakistan’s South Waziristan area on a funeral procession. The attack in Afghanistan killed 140 civilians including women and children. They were all Afghan Pashtuns in a mud village that was razed to the ground including its mosque—that, according to one of he justifications offered, was being used as a ‘Taliban barracks’. Some other excuses were ‘people moving in what ‘looked like a tactical manner’ and an earlier assertion a ‘hand grenade had exploded’. The BBC showed footage of the village, the mass graves, the anguish of the survivors and the burnt children in a hospital. The Pentagon has not released footage from the cockpit of the aircraft that delivered the attack. The US has however admitted after an inquiry that something did go wrong after ground troops under fire called in the air strike and that ‘lessons have been learnt.