Bombing hearts and minds

No sooner do we hear that Afghan PM Karzai "has ordered an investigation into a helicopter strike on Friday in Nuristan Province in which the provincial governor said 22 civilians had been killed and 7 wounded"
[U.S. military version : "only people who had been firing on coalition forces were hit"]

than the New York Times reports this: "Local officials in eastern Afghanistan said Sunday that an American airstrike killed at least 27 civilians in a wedding party, most of them women and children and including the bride. "
[U.S. military version : "The airstrike killed militants and there was no evidence of women and children at the scene. We have no reports of civilian casualties, and there were no women and children there,” Capt. Christian Patterson, a coalition spokesman, said."]

Plus ça change...

May 2004 : "A videotape shows a dozen white pickup trucks speeding through the desert, escorting a bridal car decorated with colorful ribbons. The bride wears a Western-style white bridal dress and veil. The videotape obtained Sunday by Associated Press Television News captures a wedding party that survivors say was later attacked by U.S. planes early Wednesday, killing up to 45 people.
Video that APTN shot a day after the attack shows fragments of musical instruments, pots and pans and brightly colored beddings used for celebrations, scattered around the bombed out tent."
[U.S. military version : "There was no evidence of a wedding: no decorations, no musical instruments found, no large quantities of food or leftover servings one would expect from a wedding celebration," Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt said Saturday. "There may have been some kind of celebration. Bad people have celebrations, too."]

More than 8,000 people died in attacks in Afghanistan last year, according to the U.N., the most since the 2001 U.S.-led invasion.