Sorry About That

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In March, U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan opened fire indiscriminately on civilian bystanders following a militant ambush in Jalalabad. Soldiers then destroyed photos and video taken at the scene by freelance journalists. Destroying the evidence was necessary, a military official claimed at the time, to protect "investigative integrity" and prevent "public conclusions" from being "falsely made." Yesterday, however, the U.S. officially admitted that soldiers had indeed killed innocent civilians. "I stand before you today, deeply, deeply ashamed and terribly sorry that Americans have killed and wounded innocent Afghan people," said Col. John Nicholson. In addition to the apology, the U.S. paid $2,000 to surviving family members for each of the 19 civilians killed. As the Economist of London notes, however, the apology is "unlikely to prevent many more such incidents. The killing of large numbers of civilians by American forces, through indisciplined firing or as a result of their heavy reliance on air-strikes, has been a bitter feature of the campaigns in Afghanistan and Iraq — just as it was in Vietnam."