The reason there have been so many such incidents (and they're not always weddings but sometimes other types of parties) is that it's tradition in that part of the world to fire weapons into the air in celebration.

Imagine a pilot flying at night and suddenly seeing a lot of tracers arcing up into the sky near him. Or imagine a soldier on patrol suddenly hearing a lot of firing coming from the other side of a hill.

That's not to excuse not taking all due care before rolling in hot, but is an explanation for the uncanny number of times this seems to happen.

Not to be discounted, too, is Taliban sympathizers deliberately giving bad intelligence to NATO forces, basically inviting them to bomb a wedding in order to gain a propaganda victory, civilian deaths be damned.

And finally, remember the term SNAFU was invented by the military. Sometimes people screw up targets, get it wrong, misunderstand ... etc. etc.

Again, all due diligence should be taken, but understand all this in context.

As for Slim Pickins's claim that the Taliban is doing it for propaganda, I think the more often occurrence is some faction wanting to conveniently "take out" a rival, courtesy of the U.S. military....

Yep, actually makes more sense.

Auto companies and the UAW have done much more than other industries to get lean, efficient and profitable --timbuktom

Oh, so paying thousands full salary and benefits to sit around and read magazines and not build cars is "lean, efficient and profitable?" Don't make me laugh.

The Neocon Republicans caused/allowed our spectacular instant economic collapse. Not the auto companies. --timbuktom

The leading cause of the sudden collapse in September was the credit crunch caused by the collapse of the subprime lending market championed almost 100% by Democrats like Barney Frank and Chris Dodd, who assured us a mere year ago that all was peachy keen with Sallie Mae/Freddie Mac. (That is also while Dodd was getting sweatheart mortgage deals from Countrywide via Sallie Mae and while Frank's homosexual lover was a high muckety-muck in Freddie Mac.) The subprime mess was also encourage by liberal groups like ACORN, which threatened legal action against mortgage companies that wouldn't lend to "people of color" no matter how un-creditworthy they might have been.

For those who haven't drunk the Kook-Aid and have actually paid attention to what's happening in the world, timbuktom is full of crap, spouting the usual Salon nonsense because he can count on the ignorance of his fellow readers.

Precisely because it has the highest number of UAW jobs of all the states. It also has an insane tax policy, causing business to flee.

Timbuktom, German workers may make more money, but look at the perpetually high unemployment rates in the European socialist countries. If you're lucky enough to have a job, great. (Great if you like a 78% tax rate.) But if you're unlucky enough to not be able to land a job, tough nuts.

Germany has realized this is a problem and is gradually deregulating its industries, lowering the unemployement rate from around 11% (that's in good economic times) to about 7.5% in the last quarter, still way higher than U.S. rates.

Auto execs are certainly guilty of stupid decisions, but the bulk of Detroit's problems can be laid squarely at the feet of the UAW and their demands that make Big 3 cars uncompetitive.

Besides, they make crap cars. After years of owning Toyotas, I thought I'd give Detroit a chance again and bought a Jeep. I had to have the differential rebuilt twice in less than 60,000 miles. The transfer case is always leaking. Piece of crap. I"ll never buy a Detroit car again.

Of course, the chief failure of Greenwald's argument, one that an 8th-grade logic student could point out, is that in the case of Israel, the civilians are not the prime target. The Hamas leader was. If the Hamas leader declares war on a country and then hides among civilians and his own family, he is ultimately responsible for what happens. (Never mind that Israel goes to great lengths to avoid civilian casualties in the first place.)

In the case of Hamas, the teenagers in the pizza parlor are the prime target, chosen primarily because they're easy and available. It's to kill Jews solely for the sake that they're Jews.

I'm amazed that Greenwald cannot make this distinction. (Then again, maybe he can ...)

Which is why I've found Rawls' "veil of ignorance" within a construct of justice or fairness so compelling.

-- bystander

"Justice" or "fairness" as compared to what? On what scale are they judged? Indeed, where do such concepts come from in the first place?

That is the chief failure of Rawls' argument.

Your chief mistake is thinking that Israel declared a blockade on Gaza. They did not. They controlled entrance and exits of good based on the solid evidence that Gazans were smuggling terrorists and terrorist weapons, but they in fact had declared a blockade as you assert, Gaza would no longer be a problem because everyone would have died of starvation.

You're just as bad as Greenwald in your inability (or unwillingness) to make logical distinctions.

You can substitute "Islamist extremist" for "progressive" leftist, too. If you visit the moonbat web sites with an open mind, you'll see the same blinkered conviction that they alone are right and the simplicity of not having to even consider other points of view or dismissing them out of hand as "evil." Hell, you can even find that on the Salon letters pages.

And, nick_r, you're wrong about Evangelical Christians. Yeah, there are some who are close-minded, but most are quite open to hearing other ideas. After all, they say you need to know how people think in order to communicate with them effectively. Read some Francis Schaeffer. You'll be amazed what you might learn by actually opening your mind.