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This past Monday saw the deadliest “intentional” attack on Afghan civilians by the US since the start of the ten year long war in Afghanistan. An unnamed US Army staff sergeant walked a mile in the middle of the night to two different villages near his base in southern Afghanistan and murdered 16 civilians, including 9 children and 3 women. While the US military maintains that the shooting rampage was done by a single rogue soldier, some Afghans are claiming there was more than one gunman involved. The villages near the soldier’s base in Panjwai were believed to be a Taliban stronghold and were often targeted by the US military for night raids with helicopters and dogs. Residents of Panjwai, are demanding a public trial rather than the military tribunal being set up by the US. The Taliban are vowing to avenge the killings, which come a month after Americans were videotaped burning Korans. In fact, the Taliban took credit today for shooting at Afghan government officials at the funeral services for the victims.

The accused soldier, an 11 year army veteran who had done two tours in Iraq, was part of a village stabilization project to help local police track down Taliban. This was the 38 year old father of two’s first posting in Afghanistan. The unnamed soldier hails from the controversial Joint Base Lewis-McChord in Washington State which has become infamous for producing the so-called ‘kill team’ accused of murdering civilians in Afghanistan in 2010, and has seen 12 soldier suicides and hundreds of cases of PTSD.

The massacre puts a damper on the Strategic Partnership Agreement which Afghan President Hamid Karzai had been negotiating with the US to extend the American presence in Afghanistan past the 2014 troop withdrawal date. Karzai’s attempts at bringing the Taliban to the negotiating table have resulted in his backing a repressive code of conduct for women put together by Islamic clerics that explicitly states women are worth less than men – a statement that could undo any progress made for women’s rights over the past decade.

GUESTS: Ahmed Rashid, journalist who has been covering Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Central Asia for more than twenty years. He has written for the Wall Street Journal, Far Eastern Economic Review, Daily Telegraph, and more. He is the author of the 2001 New York Times No1. best selling book Taliban. His latest book is called Pakistan on the Brink: The Future of America, Pakistan, and Afghanistan; Derrick Crowe, Political Director of Brave New Foundation, focusing on the War Costs and Rethink Afghanistan campaigns

Visit www.ahmedrashid.com, and www.warcosts.com for more information.