‘There were conflicting reports of how many shooters were involved, with U.S. officials asserting that a lone soldier was responsible, in contrast to witnesses’ accounts that several U.S. soldiers were present.
[....]
Neighbors and relatives of the dead said they had seen a group of U.S. soldiers arrive at their village in Kandahar’s Panjwayi district at about 2 a.m., enter homes and open fire.
An Afghan man who said his children were killed in the shooting spree accused soldiers of later burning the bodies.’
— http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/03/11/us-afghanistan-civilians-idUSBRE82A02V20120311

It would be wonderful if the Afghani people could process that it was one rogue person – but one only has to look at recent events to know that won’t be the case. They’ll probably rampage, kill each other and up the death toll even more.

Oh wait – the Taliban was responsible for 76% of civilian casualties in Afghanistan in 2009, according to the UN*.  Yes, let’s all just pack up and go home and let them get back to dispensing ‘local justice’, like hanging children, shooting women in the head in public squares, and cutting people’s noses off.

* http://unama.unmissions.org/Default.aspx?tabid=1741&ctl=Details&mid=1882&ItemID=9955

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2012/03/11/national/a175026D97.DTL

More details will eventually come out, but I wonder if the reason for lone soldier/group inconsistency is because the lone soldier was the only one to turn himself in.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/And_babies

It hasn’t been that long since My Lai has it?

This is news because this particular massacre wasn’t authorized.

Things aren’t exactly as black and white as you might wish to portray them. For example, you say that the wanton murder of Afghani innocents by our demented Christian crusade crazies might be a recruiting tool for “al Qaeda”. Well, it would behoove all of us to understand that Hillary Clinton and the putative leader of al Qaeda, Ayman al Zawahiri are in total lockstep on regime change in Syria. Furthermore, keep in mind that during the 1980s the U.S. CIA and the royal house of Saud contributed in equal measure to the recruitment and provisioning of mujahideen fighters in the Soviet-Afghan War. Al Qaeda was the evil spawn of the mujahideen proxy war. 

We’ve always been allied with al Qaeda. They are our necessary foil for the rapacious profiteering done by the imperialist frauds who run America (into the ditch, financially speaking). 

“Weeks of violence set off by the burning of Koran holy books on the US base had just started to die down . . .”  

Let’s try to get our heads around that one.  So, the ‘violence’ in the WAR in Afghanistan was not set off by, you know, the WAR happening there, but actually all that was quite normal, but then there was some ‘violence’, (’cause, ya’ know, the locals there did it) which was set off by the US burning some Korans, and such a pity because things were just getting back to normal when this is going to cause some ‘violence’ again.  

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/video/video-official-us-troop-opened-fire-on-afghans/article2365812/

Another eyewitness, 20-year-old Jan Agha, told Reuters he had been woken by gunfire along with his father, who peeped nervously outside through a curtain. Suddenly more shots were fired and his father fell dead, hit in the throat and face. Also killed were Jan’s mother, brother and sister. The young man said he had survived by lying on the floor, pretending to be dead. He also believes that more than one US soldier entered his house. “The Americans stayed in our house for a while,” he said. “I was very scared.”

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-17334643

“Mission Accomplished” isn’t that old is it?