DRONING ON

One of the worst single attacks on civilians in Afghanistan since the start of the US-UK invasion/occupation took place in the village of Bala Baluk, Farah Province yesterday. Local medics estimate that up to 200 died in the attack. Villagers said that women, children and the elderly had been hiding inside walled compounds to stay out of danger whilst US Predator Drones and war planes attacked suspected Taliban fighters several miles away. 
It didn’t work though. No doubt the advanced heat seeking sensors on the US military machine spotted the warm bodies of potential terrorist targets and closed in for the kill. Whole families were wiped out.

The killings of civilians by US forces have been increasing in number and regularity. Since Afghanistan has been declared top priority for the US War On Terror (sorry, Overseas Contingency Operation), bodies have been piling up. Didn’t you hear - Afghanistan is the new Iraq while Pakistan is the new Afghanistan. 

In typical doublespeak, anonymous US officials blamed the Afghans themselves for the deaths, claiming that the Taliban had probably killed them in some sort of media stunt. This, despite Al Jazeera publishing photos of locals fishing out fragments of US bombs. 
With the ‘surge’ of 30,000 extra troops into Afghanistan and the deliberate escalation of violence across the border into Pakistan things are looking as bad as they ever have in the last 30 years from the viewpoint of most Afghans. 

Just because the US-UK Middle Eastern military campaign looks a bit jaded and worn at the seams in the age of the Credit Crunch, it doesn’t mean that its gone away. The bomb-makers and their corporate backers are still reaping in the profits of war. With Mayday seeing more than a thousand people on the streets of Brighton to fight the war profiteers, it shows that at least there is still some resistance – not enough however to stop escalating casualties in the new number one destination in the War on Terror.