Afghan officials accuse U.S. fighters of hitting wedding party, killing up to 27

"militants hide among and intimidate civilians"

Damn militants.

"More than 2,100 people - mostly militants - have been killed in insurgency related violence in Afghanistan this year"

Message to friends and family members of militants: It doesn't pay to be a militant.

How to loose friends and alienate people....

Right, damn militants just hanging around those wedding parties. B/S

Got a questoion for you... After they're dead, what distingishes between a militant and a pedaceful citizen? < :-)

The old 'but but but they were hiding amongst civilians' routine. Nothing like good old airstrikes, that are more than certain to kill innocent civilians, to strengthen the ties there.

"After they're dead, what distingishes between a militant and a pedaceful citizen?"

If you can see daylight through their bodies, militants; if not, peaceful civilian.

It's a simple, easy to remember formula.

USAR

We ask them who the militants are, they don't tell us. We try to find them, the civilians cover for them. So, what can we do? We do airstrikes, they claim all we killed were civilians. Kinda a catch-22, dontcha think?

Maybe if they'd wrap the wedding gifts instead of strolling to the party with AK-47s and RPGs slung over their shoulders they wouldn't attract so much attention (and laser-guided bombs!)

lose "friends"? these same friend's who would cut your head off in a second. this is war.

honestly, do you actually think a group of people walking harmlessly down a road, singing, dancing in marital bliss would be attacked? try putting down your anti us resentment for a second and think about this for a second.

You're new to this war, huh? You make like this don't happen.

It's happened all too much. < :-)

why not just bomb the whole forbidden place and get over it? its cheaper that way.

A.D.D., oh, it happens alright.

People who fire rounds into the air or point rocket launchers at Allied aircraft sometimes have immediate life-altering experiences.

Several years ago, the Afghan government tried to get the word out to their people not to celebrate with firearms and rockets. In America, when folks choose to ignore this kind of advice, we call it "suicide by cop".

USAR

Afghan officials accuse U.S. fighters of hitting wedding party, killing

up to 27

Can we say opps, wonder if ole Bin Laden was having another wedding..... Screw`em if they would stop firing in the air, the Air Force wont drop bombs on them.....

Must of been Air Force pilots dropping the bombs...... Goooooo Navy!

BTW can we say oopps

And your Army is just the Army to stop this kind of stuff. You're going to go into Iraq and going to change their culture. No more firing shots into the air, no more celebrations with AK-47s.

Please, explain to me how you're Army will stop this. Keep killing more and more revelers? < :-)

When will the US pilots learn the difference between somebody firing at you and SOMEBODY FIRING AT YOU. Coming from a gun culture, surely the average jet jock must appreciate the overwhelming desire of the locals to blat off a couple of rounds every now and then. In the United States and other western countries, the target of such activities is usually road signs, so what if the locals have a perchant for loosing off a magazine or two at a low flying aircraft. The pilots should just accept this as an occupational hazard, just a minor inconvience between getting up in the morning and afternoon gin and tonics down the orifices club. It is not like pilots actually work for a living!!

I tell you, getting married in Afghanistan or Iraq is a really dangerous pastime. You never know when some psychotic US pilot is going to unexpectedly "drop his load" on your wedding guests.

And your Army is just the Army to stop this kind of stuff. You're going to go into Iraq and going to change their culture. No more firing shots into the air, no more celebrations with AK-47s.

Please, explain to me how you're Army will stop this. Keep killing more and more revelers? < :-)

Huh, nope I myself believe the US should never have gone into Iraq. The US and the rest of the world should have gone into Afghanistan fully committed to destroying the Taliban and its ally Bin Laden.

But instead for political reasons Bush and his right wingers decided to have a two front war. The invasion of Iraq was a joke and Bush is to blame for it. The war should have been contained in Afghanistan.

Saddam was a threat because of all the Dollars he possessed. Saddam had one other thing going against him, Cheney was the VP. Cheney and Bush owed too much to their supporters and Iraq was nice and soft (well so they thought).

Greeting with flowers never happened as Chalabi had promised and Bush now looks dumb.

My comment was that the US Air Force can not get the job done right. If it were Navy Pilots or a Missile from a Sub this story would never of come out......

In other words, the Navy gets the job done........The town would have been a parking lot.<G>

It`s a sad story. Unfortunately, in war there are many sad stories. The world has gone mad!

proving that a wedding was indeed going on is not too hard, so why is this still not cleared up? You just dont decide to throw a huge party without making any arrangements.

Karzai has not had the clout to get the tribes near pakistan in line, and its still anarchy over there. we're halfway there if compared to the soviets. The initial successes were tainted by the economics, there's just too much money to be made producing opiates and in contract work.

The USA needs to just pull out of Afghanistan let let the Afghans do their own fighting. We never hear anything good about what has been done to help the country. Accidents will happen in war and when civilians die the Afghans go into a frenzy. Pull out and let these officials fight themselves. As a USA tax payer I resent my tax money go to this Afghan government. What they need to do is investigate their own corruption and imcompetence first instead of always critizing Nato forces who are there to help them in the first place.

It is unclear from the article what really happened. It's obvious that more information is needed before any definitive conclusions can be drawn. But it appears many of the posters here must have inside information since they claim to know exactly what happened, well beyond the limited scope of this article. I guess they must have their own sources on the ground in Afghanistan that call them directly.

Looks like they are having lots of big wedding parties in Afghanistan again. I am not saying that innocent people are not killed there (of course they are, and from both sides), but this is too pat. Like the dead babies that Palywood always produces after Israeli airstrikes. Journalists should be a bit more sceptical before gobbling up every story they are fed.

Pepingalarga: "proving that a wedding was indeed going on is not too hard, so why is this still not cleared up? You just dont decide to throw a huge party without making any arrangements."

The US needs time to come up with excuses, that's why.

The coward American terrorists once again show their true colors.

coward American terrorists

Terrorism is defined as "the calculated use of violence (or the threat of violence) against civilians in order to attain goals that are political or religious or ideological in nature; this is done through intimidation or coercion or instilling fear ". The US does not target civilians. When there are civilian deaths it is a result of cross-fire or terrorists using civilians as shields (hiding in civilian/residential areas).

Maybe we could go in and take all their weapons. I don't mean gun registration and control. Just take their weapons.

These people do fire shots into the air when they celebrate.

Just the other night millions of Americans went out doors and fired their privately owned weapons into the air to celebrate the 4th of July. Control that. Stop that mindset. You can't.

So to say that the Afghanistani's have to stop their celebrations with gunfire ain't going to happen. < :-)

"Maybe we could go in and take all (Afghani) weapons....Just take their weapons."

Bwahhahahahahaha...

A.D.D., you go in there and disarm them. You've just relieved the Allies of their mission in Afghanistan. Heh, heh...

Just what dya think the Allied troops mission is over there anyway?

Unbelievable.

Yeah, A.D.D., good idea. You disarm them and the Allies can return home.

USAR

That was a sarcastic remark USARonin.

It won't happen. But, some poster blamed the deaths on this practice and said it was their fault.

It was their custome before we got there and it ain't going to stop. < :-)

peacetoismailha at 12:07 AM JST - 8th July The coward American terrorists once again show their true colors.

Truly an enlightened remark there, hope to hear from you more often.

Thank you for your remarks Prime Minister Sarkozy hope to see your wife next time at the G8 meeting.<G>

Now back to our program..............

I was looking at your post and maybe if you wrote,

"The Cowardly imperialist American terrorist dog" it would have sounded better. Think about it for your next post.<G>

Now as I was saying, really who cares? This news will die out in a few days and no one will remember in the West.

This is the price of war, nothing new......

BTW ever wonder why we keep hitting these weddings? Honestly do you really think the US makes so many strikes on so called wedding parties? Dont you think that there may have been good intel that said that there was someone of interest there?

I dont think we really care if this was a real wedding or just something staged to try and hide from the eyes in the sky. If there is a person of interest there that party is ending real quick.

If there was good intel do you think the US will tell the News that they got their man? Hell no, keep them in the dark, most terrorist listen and watch the news to get their intel.