Executing handcuffed schoolchildren is still a crime?

Quite possibly!

A. It is a war crime to kill captive prisoners  

B. it is a war crime to kill children

C. shooting captive (handcuffed) schoolchildren dead may also be a war crime.

Of course, the media response to such barbarism would be massive and growing in amplitude and outrage, such that after more than two months of government inaction the political tremors would be shaking the ruling elite from their very thrones.

Oops! This article no longer exists!

American-led troops were accused yesterday of dragging innocent children from their beds and shooting them during a night raid that left ten people dead.

“At around 1 am, three nights ago, some American troops with helicopters left Kabul and landed around 2km away from the village,” he told The Times. “The troops walked from the helicopters to the houses and, according to my investigation, they gathered all the students from two rooms, into one room, and opened fire.” Mr Wafa, a former governor of Helmand province, met President Karzai to discuss his findings yesterday. “I spoke to the local headmaster,” he said. “It’s impossible they were al-Qaeda. They were children, they were civilians, they were innocent. I condemn this attack.”

“First the foreign troops entered the guest room and shot two of them. Then they entered another room and handcuffed the seven students. Then they killed them. Abdul Khaliq [the farmer] heard shooting and came outside. When they saw him they shot him as well.

Let’s try another:

The United Nations said that Afghans slain in troop raid were students

KABUL – The United Nations said Thursday that a weekend raid by foreign troops in a tense eastern Afghan province killed eight local students and that it warned against nighttime actions by coalition forces because they often cause civilian deaths.

The Afghan government said its investigation has established that all 10 people killed Sunday in a remote village in Kunar province were civilians. Its officials said that eight of those killed were schoolchildren aged 12-14.

If only we could find out who those “foreign troops” were!

The New York Pravda only added to the confusion, quite confusingly.  He said? She said?  Men?  Boys? Civilians?  Insurgents?  Joint operations?  Which way is up?  It’s all so bloody discombobulating:

KABUL, Afghanistan – The killing of at least nine men in a remote valley of eastern Afghanistan by a joint operation of Afghan and American forces put President Hamid Karzai and senior NATO officials at odds on Monday over whether those killed had been civilians or Taliban insurgents.

In a statement e-mailed to the news media, Mr. Karzai condemned the weekend attack and said the dead had been civilians, eight of them schoolboys. He called for an investigation.

Rupert Murdoch’s London Times followed up with some clarification:

President Karzai sent a team of investigators to Narang district, in eastern Kunar province, after reports of a massacre first surfaced on Monday.

“The delegation concluded that a unit of international forces descended from a plane Sunday night into Ghazi Khan village in Narang district of the eastern province of Kunar and took ten people from three homes, eight of them school students in grades six, nine and ten, one of them a guest, the rest from the same family, and shot them dead,” a statement on President Karzai’s website said.

Assadullah Wafa, who led the investigation, said that US soldiers flew to Kunar from Kabul, suggesting that they were part of a special forces unit.

Maybe the execution of handcuffed schoolchildren never came to David Gregory’s attention (Brian Williams was busy at a tanning booth).  If anyone wants to bring this to David Gregory’s attention, here are some additional neat links!

http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsme…

http://www.alternet.org/blogs/…

http://www.democracynow.org/20…

http://seminal.firedoglake.com…

http://www.informationclearing…

http://www.commondreams.org/he…

https://www.docudharma.com/diar…

http://www.consortiumnews.com/…