US Marines Shoot and Kill Four-Year-Old Afghan Boy
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2014/01/10Blaming "poor visibility"—not more than twelve years of a war without cause or purpose—Afghan officials say that U.S. Marines stationed in Helmand Province have shot and killed a four year old boy.
"As the weather was dusty, the marine forces based there thought he was an enemy and opened fire. As result of mistaken fire, he was killed," Omar Zwak, spokesman for the governor of the southern province of Helmand, told Reuters.
In response, the Karzai government has called for an unilateral suspension of U.S./Nato military operations taking place in homes and villages.
"We have called ... for an absolute end to ISAF/NATO military operations on homes and villages in order to avoid such killings where innocent children or civilians are the victims," said presidential spokesman, Aimal Faizi, referring to the latest killing of an Afghan child.
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this. That'll make it all better. 
Simply put, shit happens. It's not excusable in the least sense, but there is another level of insult when you take the whole situation into account and realize that it was perpetrated during a BS war. The child is just collateral damage in a war for nothing.
There was a situation that I was involved in when I was in Iraq in 2004 regarding a child that had been shot by one of my Soldiers. I actually was the guy who first found the kid face down in a field and I stood by while I watched in vain as my medic attempted to save the kid in front of his little brother, his uncles, and both of his parents. It remains to be a deeply unsettling sequence of memories in my mind - especially since I've since become a parent to two children myself and I couldn't fathom what the loss of either of them would do to me.
To automatically view the Soldiers that perpetrated the killing of the 4 year old as criminal isn't correct. Their chain of command and the top echelons of our military set up a situation where we place our own safety above everything else. Perceived threats were answered with (overwhelming) lethal force. At least when I was in the Army up until 2007, the "shoot first, ask questions later" mindset was the status quo. Most of these Soldiers are scared and inexperienced themselves.
I'm not trying to come up with excuses for the death of a child, but I hope to at least give some insight and understanding from the Soldiers' point of view. I will bet that the person who pulled the trigger in this incident will be seeking psychiatric help in their future.
