U.S. Incinerates 120 Poor People In Afghanistan.

I can't tell you the number of times I've walked down a street in New York and seen people gathered around a car, back trunk open and full of products, cheap. "Five-dolla, five-dolla steaks; Designer dresses, shoes, CDs, DVDs, suits." You name it, somebody got a whole trunkload of it that apparently fell off the truck, they're selling the hot merchandise cheap to the citizens, if a cop comes along everybody scatters. Illegal, certainly. But I never once saw a cop pull a gun and just slaughter everybody who happened to be there trying to sell stolen goods or trying to buy something on the cheap. Never once saw that happen.

Of course there is no such thing as a "wrongful death" when cops do the shooting. It's always "suicide by cop." You hear these stories that are just unbelievable: the 90-year-old 4'11" couple, stooped over, walking up their stairs with canes, coming back from church in their Sunday best, some nervous or meth-head cop shoots them down, 20-rounds, and the conclusion after the "official" investigation is always the same thing: "Suicide by Cop." Those old people wanted to die. That's why they were out there. No other possible conclusion.

You see the same type of lies and cover-ups in the many wars being conducted by the U.S. around the world. Last week some dudes stole a couple of trunks full of gasoline in Afghanistan, parked somewhere, opened the trunk so to speak to sell it off cheap to the poor locals who showed up with their own containers to carry it back to their dumpy abodes. And our "allies," the Germans, saw satellite photos of the stolen trucks, saw the citizens standing in line with small containers to buy the cheap stolen goods, counted about 120 people standing out there, saw exactly what was going on, and decided to incinerate them by calling in airstrikes, dropping bombs from airplanes, blowing up the trucks, causing all the citizens to burn to death. That'll teach 'em.

And now the cover-up begins. How can you explain the decision to use an air-borne blowtorch on 120 civilians? For buying a little stolen gasoline for their families, maybe so they could have some fuel in their home? For that, they deserved to have an airborne blow-torch death, mass grave, charred remains of what once were citizens? Isn't that a little serious punishment for receiving stolen goods?

But we now hear that it was probably the Taliban that stole the trucks. And all the civilians with their little cans are being redefined -- no longer "civilians," they are now being called "militants." I think they should be called Crispy Critters. That's more accurate. Dead people. People we burned to death. Burned to death for being poor. Come to think of it -- that's what the Germans did during World War II: they burned people to death. And now we're doing it with them. Of course the U.S. denies responsibility, says it's all the Germans. But it's our war. We have no business being there. Every death in Afghanistan is the result of the U.S. war against the people of that country. A war with no purpose, no apparent end in sight. We're responsible.

By JASON STRAZIUSO and FRANK JORDANS, Associated Press Writers Jason Straziuso And Frank Jordans, Associated Press Writers

"Afghan officials say up to 70 people were killed in the early morning airstrike Friday in the northern province of Kunduz after Taliban militants stole two tanker trucks of fuel and villagers gathered to siphon off gas." ...

"The top U.S. and NATO commander in Afghanistan, U.S. Gen. Stanley McChrystal, visited the site Saturday where two charred trucks and yellow gas cans sat on a riverbed." ...

"Taliban militants stole two fuel tankers late Friday that became stuck on a riverbed outside Kunduz. Villagers — either forced by the militants or enticed by offers of free fuel — gathered near the trucks, even as U.S. jets patrolled overhead. German commanders watching images from the U.S. aircraft could see about 120 people, McChrystal said Saturday. The commanders decided that the people were militants and ordered the airstrikes, Smith said, even though images provided by the U.S. aircraft would have been grainy and difficult to see."

NOTE: the article refers to seeing 120 people by the trucks right before the bombing, but the claimed death count is being reported at 50-70, perhaps deliberately understated or perhaps some escaped death, it's not clear.