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US occupation forces in Afghanistan
Thousands of Afghan civilians have began fleeing their homes before a threatened US military offensive against Taliban fighters.
International Red Crescent aid workers in the southern Afghanistan city of Marjah, Helmand province, reported that US warplanes had dropped leaflets on the area warning people to leave or be killed.
The Taliban has inflicted a huge number of casualties on the US-led occupation forces in Marjah.
Commander of more than 55,000 foreign fighters in Afghanistan US General Stanley McChrystal claimed that the leaflets were directed at Taliban militants.
Hee added that the offensive against the city, which has a population of 80,000, was intended to “re-establish security.”
Red Crescent spokesman Bijan Farnoudi warned that the Afghanistan government did not seem prepared to deal with an exodus of refugees and revealed that medical posts in the province were already recording an increase in the number of patients with bullet or shrapnel wounds.
Peace and Justice Post 
Photo of dying American Marine draws fire from Pentagond
September 7, 2009Sanitizing War and Occupation
By Matthew Shaer | Information Clearing House
Scroll to base of page to view photographs
September 05, 2009 “CSM”
Defense Secretary Robert Gates has condemned the Associated Press decision to release a photograph of a US Marine wounded during a battle in the Helmand province of southern Afghanistan. The Marine, Lance Cpl. Joshua M. Bernard of New Portland, Maine, was struck by a rocket-propelled grenade in a Taliban ambush on Aug. 14. He later died of his wounds.
In the AP photograph, Bernard is pictured lying on his side on a sandy slope. The image is blurry, but Bernard appears to be bleeding; two other Marines stand over him, attending to his wounds. The caption, titled “Afghanistan Death of a Marine,” identifies the location as the village of Dahaneh. The photographer is Julie Jacobson, who also took the image at the top of this post. The AP reports that Bernard later died on the operating table at a nearby field hospital.
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Tags:Afghanistan, AP photograph, Associated Press, Defense Secretary Robert Gates, Helmand province, Julie Jacobson photographer, Lance Cpl. Joshua M. Bernard, Matthew Shaer, occupation, rules for embedded journalists, US Marine, war in Afghanistan
Posted in Afghanistan, Commentary, imperialism, Uncategorized, US policy, USA, war, warmongers | 1 Comment »