Newly Released Documents Show Pentagon Whitewash of U.S. Killing and Mutilation of Afghan Family in 2010

More than six years after a notorious night raid gone wrong by U.S. Special Operations Forces in Afghanistan, Pentagon documents shed new light on the event including the determination that mutilating the bodies of dead pregnant women was an “appropriate use of force,” according to a new report in the Intercept by Jeremy Scahill.

Scahill had previously written about the February 2010 night raid near Gardez in Paktia Province in his 2014 book, Dirty Wars. Seven civilians were killed, including two pregnant women, and troops used knives to remove bullets from their bodies after the shooting. The victims were all members of a family that opposed the Taliban and had worked with U.S. forces to build up the Afghan police and judicial system.

However, a trove of Pentagon documents released in late April showed how the military initially fabricated a story for press consumption about what happened, was reluctant to investigate when challenged by press reports with other witness accounts, and finally attributed the mistakes and atrocities committed to “tactical errors.”...
http://www.alternet.org/investigations/newly-released-documents-show-pentagon-whitewash-us-killing-and-mutilation-afghan