The murderous arrogance of the United States in its wanton heartless massacre of 10 Afghans, including 7 children, one as young as 2

NST:

Righteous, America?

Aimal Ahmadi, whose daughter Mailka and his elder brother Zimarai Ahmadi was among 10 relatives killed by a wrongly directed US drone strike on August 29, stands near a car, which was damaged during the strike, outside his house in Kabul. - AFP pic

HERE we go again. The United States, the self-appointed leader of the free world and self-proclaimed adherent of rules-based world order, has decided for the umpteenth time that it will not hold its military personnel accountable for killing civilians.

This time it is for the heartless massacre of 10 Afghans, including seven children, one as young as 2. Kabul and the parts of the world which have been constant victims of American military misbehaviour will never forgive the United States. Why should they?

Read this. John F. Kirby, the Pentagon's chief spokesman, tells reporters what must amount to cruel words. "What we saw here was a breakdown in process, and execution in procedural events, not the result of negligence, not the result of misconduct, not the result of poor leadership," the New York Times reports.

Breakdown in process and execution in procedural events? Typical Pentagon nonsense. Be stupefied. Defence Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III agrees. Come on America, you can do better than this. Are we talking about missiles or the military personnel?

No negligence, no misconduct and no poor leadership? At this rate, impunity will be thy name, America. But we are not surprised as we have not been shocked countless times before.

A pharmaceutical plant in Khartoum, Sudan, was similarly bombed on Aug 20, 1998 by a dozen or so Tomahawk cruise missiles launched from two US warships stationed in the Red Sea.

None were punished. But that is a Leader for another time.

Let's get back to Kabul. From the moment of the Aug 29 drone strike, the Pentagon had a storyline ready, as it always has: the vehicle was carrying explosives meant for Hamid Karzai International Airport.

Never mind if they were water bottles. Explosives they shall be. Until a Times investigation video evidence challenged the Pentagon's public relations assertion. The newspaper is right.

For two decades — we will go beyond that — the US military has killed hundreds, if not thousands, of civilians by "accidents" in war zones like Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria and Somalia. "While the military from time to time accepts responsibility for an errant airstrike or a ground raid that harms civilians, rarely does it hold specific people accountable."

We join Steven Kwon, the founder and president of Nutrition & Education International, the California-based aid organisation that employed Zemari Ahmadi, the driver of a white Toyota sedan that was struck by the American drone, in being outraged: "How can our military wrongly take the lives of 10 precious Afghan people and hold no one accountable in any way?" We ask the Pentagon this: If there is wrongdoing, why not punish the wrongdoers?

We think the reason is this. General Mark A. Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, initially called the Kabul drone attack a "righteous strike", but as the Times says, almost everything senior defence officials asserted in the hours, days and weeks after it turned out to be false.

What the chief says is righteous must remain righteous. Like former US president George W. Bush's righteous strike of Iraq. Never mind if the "weapons of mass destruction" that Iraq was supposed to have was a fabrication.

The righteous strike storyline must be maintained. And so America, the leader of the free world, must keep the righteous strike storyline ready to be used every now and then. But people are getting used to it. America and impunity are interchangeable.

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kt notes:

US soldiers were immune from rapes they perpetuated in, for example, Philippines, Okinawa, Afghanistan, Iraq and even Darwin, Australia, by agreements with local authorities of immunity for their troops stationed in those places.