A chara, - Women and children were singing in the night air of Kakarak, Afghanistan, celebrating a wedding party, when the American shells exploded.
Forty-eight innocent people were killed, most of them women and children. The "errant bomb" became a "response to enemy fire" and then later "an intelligence error" - an intelligence source had suggested that Mullah Omar was in the area.
The tragedy in Kakarak raises two very serious questions. First, how can the best equipped military force in the world make such appalling blunders? (This was not an isolated incident. For example, 21 villagers died in an erroneous US special forces raid in January).
The second question is more urgent. Even if Mullah Omar had been residing in Kakarak, would it have justified an indiscriminate attack on an entire village?
Those who authorised the attack made no effort to distinguish between combatants and non-combatants. Protocol 1 of the Geneva Convention prohibits indiscriminate attacks of this nature. Unfortunately, the US is not among the 159 states which have ratified this protocol. - Is mise,
Ciaran Macaonghusa,
Baile an tSratha,
Tír Chonaill.