Another Massacre

The Israeli Air Force has long been criticized for launching air attacks on populated areas. A plane dropping a bomb in a heavily populated area is almost certainly going to kill innocent civilians, even if it is on target. Indeed, some Israeli pilots have refused to support the practice.

Not so their eager US colleagues in Iraq. On Saturday, the U.S. military launched an airstrike in Fallujah after intelligence suggested it was being used as an al-Zarqawi safehouse. The US immediately claimed the strike as a success, even though four houses were destroyed, not one. Now it appears that all those killed were innocent civilians.

MSNBC reports: "A senior leader in the U.S.-allied Fallujah Brigade, Col. Mohammed Awad, said his troops 'affirmed to us that the inhabitants of the houses were ordinary families including women, children and elders.'

'Some of our soldiers who participated in the rescue operation after the attack said they saw the remains of bodies apparently belonging to women and children,' Awad said. 'Through our inspection in the ruins, we could see clothes and stuff of women and children. There was no sign that foreigners have lived in the house.'"

As usual, the story that grabbed the headlines was the premature claim of success in the "War on Terror". As usual, US military intelligence has *@%#ed up.

Why does the US even need to contemplate airstrikes on crowded areas? Because its troops on the ground are too afraid to go into the middle of places like Falluja on foot.