The American military claimed responsibility and expressed regret for an airstrike that mistakenly killed six members of a family in southwestern Afghanistan. The attack, which took place last Friday night, was first revealed by the governor of Helmand province, Gulab Mangal, whose spokesman, Dawoud Ahmadi, said that after an investigation they had determined that a family home in the Sangin district had been attacked by mistake in the American airstrike, which was called in to respond to a Taliban attack.
The American military did not regret the killing of two Pakistani citizens by the CIA sleuth Raymond Davis in the Lahore market. The American military did not even bother to regret over its daring unilateral action of violating the sovereignty of Pakistan on May 2 when its Navy SEALS attacked bin Laden’s compound and killed him. The Ambassador, Munter, who has reportedly been a bit milder and softer towards Pakistan, given his idea of dealing with the country not through gun and instead considering its great sacrifices of over 37,000 soldiers and citizens, has to resign because (a) the Obama administration has not accepted to his advice of tendering apology over Salala and (b) not announcing $10m bounty over the head of Hafiz Saeed.
Are we a colony for America? Or is it not treating us as an independent sovereign country? What has reduced us so low that the American military feels it its right to kill us without a sense of remorse or regret? What has gone wrong with our 37,000 corpses that have shed their blood for the safety of our friends sitting across the 52 states of America? Should we wait for a formal apology from America over Salala, or go and defend and prevent such incidents to happen in future?
ALYA ALVI
Rawalpindi
