In 2008, a AC-130 "Spectre" gunship carried out a ground attack on the village of Azizabad in Herat Province. The target was a Taliban commander. The report at the time said that no civilians had died. It only refers to 30 insurgents killed in action.

In fact, according to a UN report, 90 civilians died - 60 of them children as well as 15 women.

Meanwhile in September 2006, troops taking part in Operation Medusa moved into a large area around Panjwayi, west of Kandahar, and a known Taliban stronghold.

A Nato report found that 31 civilians had died - 20 of them from the same extended family following an airstrike. The leaked documents record 181 civilian deaths.

http://www.channel4.com/news/articles/politics/international_politics/secret+files+wikileaks+exposes+aposunseen+afghan+warapos/3723387

Wikileaks shows the truth once again.

sad, we will probably never know the true death toll of the "War on terror" has taken.

The vast majority of fatalities in war are always civilian, this should come as no surprise no matter who wields the gun. There is real talk of pulling all Norwegian troops out of Afghanistan now, it seems futile to keep them there, not to mention costly. Besides, it really shouldn't be a NATO responsibility since NATO did not condone the invasion to begin with and a rogue coalition was formed to execute the attack.

More unneeded deaths from an unneeded war...

Get the fuck out of those countries already ¬_¬

The only thing the war is creating is more hate against Western Nations and more terrorists.

It also is annoying in discussions 'North Korea is bad for attacking an South Korean cruiser that killed soldiers, USA and his allies are killing civilians tell me who is worse NK or USA'   

Not the kind of discussions I like to have at meetings...

I want us (UK) to pull out right away. The country is unfixable however long we stay because the culture is such that democratic institutions don't last and human rights aren't held to be universal when they conflict with religion, and tribal mentality is still strong.

We should come back in 50 years when they've achieved this themselves; I doubt democracy could have been imposed on the UK 200 years ago (culture wasn't ready).

Agreed @ the need for Wikileaks. Governments should not be run by PR agencies.

Id argue strongly that democracy has NOTHING to do with human rights (post 9/11 weve all problems with human rights). And i would caution you to label their culture as the reason for the conflict, but rather the illegal and openended invasion and occupation of their land. If it happened to me, and it was my kids who are dying at Weddings, i'd be just as upset.

Sometimes the brainwashed can't be cured. We should pull out of Afghanistan and just hope (not pray) that they don't conduct terrorist attacks upon our lands.

Democracy has everything to do with human rights. Few dictatorships or theocracies have ever advanced the latter; democracy as a system tends to reduce corruption and increase civil liberties.

We invaded because we were trying to help, only we should have got UN approval and an international coalition first. Terrorism in their country is as damaging to them as it is to us and did need to be tackled - possibly not with direct military force.

Illegal? There's no such thing as international law, not really. America's word goes, though I wish that wasn't the case.

Open-ended? Yes, because there weren't clear targets to meet and we didn't consider leaving when it became apparent we wouldn't get anywhere.

Their culture is the main reason for the conflict, as religious teachings cause the fundamentalism that leads to the Taliban's existence. No Islam = No Taliban. Not saying we should enforce secularism, just that we should go away until they find it for themselves as all wealthy countries have had to do. The people in charge cannot get over their tribal history, and cannot get out of the ways of corruption and power-building with government resources. Because of this, the authorities can't get respect and whole sections of Afghanistan don't really have a government, only alternating martial law and Taliban control.

For some reason, we allowed them to pass laws that perpetuate their cultural inequities like the oppression of women and punishment for apostasy. A government where the leaders won't speak out against that is not one worth supporting artificially as now.