Another NATO War Crime

Wednesday was “the deadliest day for Afghan civilians so far this year”, the New York Times reports, with “a complex suicide attack in Kandahar City and a NATO airstrike” killing innocents.

Of the NATO killings, the Times writes that occupation forces, “working with their Afghan counterparts, received word that a Taliban commander was using a civilian home for the night with some of his fighters. The joint forces prepared to attack the house.”

The Times doesn’t mention that attacking a civilian home where civilians can be expected to be present is not permissible under international law simply because Taliban were also there.  Article 50 of the Protocol I additional to the Geneva Conventions states: “The presence within the civilian population of individuals who do not come within the definition of civilians does not deprive the population of its civilian character.”

So right from the get-go, the occupation forces set out to commit a war crime. Then they came under fire and so called in an airstrike to do the job for them, which “not only damaged the house that the Taliban occupied, but it also has completely destroyed the adjacent house, which belonged to two brothers, Abdul Qayum and Abdul Bashir”, said Din Mohammed Darwish, a spokesman for the governor of the province.

Eleven children, seven women, and a man were killed in the adjacent house. So the mission to commit a war crime was completed successfully, presumably exceeding the expectation of civilian deaths in just the house they intended to hit.

According to President Hamid Karzai, all 18 civilians were killed in total.

NATO, of course, tried initially to deny that any civilians were killed.

The suicide attacks killed at least 23 civilians. This, of course, everyone recognizes as “terrorism”. When will the U.S./NATO’s international terrorism be recognized as such?