Amidst 'Peace Talks', US Drone Strike Kills Entire Family of 6 Civilians in Afghanistan

(source)

A US drone strike allegedly targeting and killing three Taliban fighters in an Afghan village near the Pakistani border last Thursday (November 28) hit a civilian home, killing an entire family of 6, including multiple children, according to the Khost provincial council where the airstrike had occurred.

The attack comes amidst amidst ongoing peace talks between the US and Taliban in Afghanistan, and despite that on the same day of the attack, during a visit to U.S. service members at Bagram air base in Afghanistan, "President Trump asserted the Taliban is ready for a cease-fire," the Washington Post reported. The absurdity of targeting the very group you are engaged in peace talks with at the very time they are ready for a cease-fire should be self evident, but whether or not the US was even targeting the Taliban and is just incompetent or relying on faulty intelligence, or are rather indiscriminately targeting civilians in Afghanistan remains unclear.

The US military admitted that it was aware of the civilian allegations, but nevertheless claimed the strike had killed three Taliban fighters.

“We are aware of the allegations of civilian casualties and working with local authorities to determine the veracity of these claims,” the statement said, adding that the strike targeted three Taliban fighters.

Meanwhile, former Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai harshly condemned the attack and said all parties should be focused entirely on the peace talks.

“The latest US drone attack in Khost, which killed six members of a family, was atrocious and highly condemnable. This is clear and blatant violence against the Afghan people. I once again call on all sides to focus entirely on the peace process,” Karzai tweeted.

It is unlikely, despite their claims to investigate the matter further, that the US will ever publicly reconcile their own claims with that of the apparent civilian deaths; as the US has a long history of killing untold thousands of civilians in drone strikes in both Afghanistan and Pakistan over the past decade, while never recognizing the true number of civilian deaths confirmed on the ground by local investigators and death count teams on the ground, no matter how much evidence is presented to them confirming that these deaths are indeed civilians.

This attack very closely resembles an Israeli airstrike on a Gaza house last month which the IDF falsely claimed had targeted a nonexistent Islamic Jihad rocket chief' but rather killed an entire Palestinian family of eight, and comes on the heals of a massive US massacre of 30 Afghani pine nut farmers in September in airstrikes which the US claimed were targeting ISIS.

What I want to know is this: Why after nearly 20 years, is the US still at war with the Taliban in Afghanistan, in what has recently been described in a BBC investigation as the deadliest conflict in the world, when the original reason to invade the country told to the American public was to punish the al-Qaeda terrorists responsible for 9/11 and capture ringleader Osama bin Laden, who is now long dead? It was al-Qaeda terrorists who were predominantly Saudi nationals allegedly responsible for the 9/11 attacks, and yet long after the ring leader was allegedly captured and then killed, we are still at war with the Taliban in Afghanistan, but are close allies with Saudi Arabia? And why is ISIS in Afghanistan now? ISIS didn't even exist when the US originally waged war against the country, so whether it was the intent or not, if claims of ISIS presence in Afghanistan are authentic, then it is in fact the US war on Afghanistan which has created the fertile conditions for and caused the country to become a hotbed for Jihadist terrorists!

If nothing else, the fact that we are still at war in the country 19 long years later should show the entire world that the 'war on terror' initially waged in 2001 and launched in Afghanistan has been nothing but an absolute and utter failure. Either that, or creating more radical terrorists was the plan all along. If this 'war on terror' in Afghanistan had been at all successful, there would be less terrorists there now, not more; and the war would surely also be over by now. Which is maybe why there is an almost total media blackout to the US war on Afghanistan while focusing on other distractions and war propaganda directed against Syria and Iran.

Of course the reality of the situation is that the Taliban burned poppy fields grown for opium, while US troops sent in guarded them for profit. And the continued US war in Afghanistan probably has nothing to do with an interest in looting its immense natural resources in the form of gold and especially lithium.

The US response to Thursday's strike is nearly identical to the response to the larger civilian massacre back in September, of which a US spokesman stated that: "We are aware of allegations of the death of non-combatants and are working with local officials to determine the facts." They say it every time, but the killing of civilians continues no less. Maybe they should rather investigate their methods of attack which continually massacre civilians instead; then at least the continued killing of innocents in the name of fighting terrorists might stop, or at least be diminished.

In response to the September massacre, and just as relevant to the most recent attack, journalist Emran Feroz who has been to Afghanistan, disagreed with the US claims that they only target Taliban and ISIS, explaining that locals say airstrikes targeting farms and other civilians are a regular occurrence.

Amnesty International agreed, describing the drone strike as "unacceptable," saying that it suggests a shocking disregard for civilian life.

“That a US drone strike purportedly targeting IS militants could instead result in the deaths of scores of farmers is unacceptable and suggests a shocking disregard for civilian life.

But despite peace talks, the war continues to rage on almost entirely ignored by the US mainstream media; and despite calls on the US to change their policy and attack methods in order to ensure civilians do not continue to be killed by US drone strikes, the massacre of innocent Afghani civilians continues.

The UN found the third quarter of 2019 to be the deadliest three months for civilians in the entire Afghan war since 2009, and reported that US airstrikes in 2019 had by the end of September already killed 579 civilians and wounded an additional 306. That civilian death count only continues to stack up the longer US drones continue to drop bombs on Afghanistan in the name of fighting terror.