Tuesday, January 24, 2012
$2,500
That is the price of your average Afghan civilian killed by US troops. If they only wing him, that is good for $250.
One week after 15 civilians were killed during a U.S. night operation at an Afghan village in 2009, U.S. commanders went to the village and passed out $40,000 in cash “condolence” payments.Weregeld has never been a major part of our culture, not even in Minnesota. Nevertheless, because the military prepares for blowing up people of many different cultures, there is a detailed "handbook from U.S. Forces-Afghanistan called “Money As a Weapon System — Afghanistan,” dated February 2011 and published on the website www.publicintelligence.net, outlines the practice and the procedures for payment." This is good to know because we can't just hand out money willy-nilly to any old wog says he is related to the dead one.
Victims’ relatives in the village were paid $2,500 for each death, $500 for two wounded men and $1,500 for village repairs.
U.S officials distributed $688,000 in condolence and $6.8 million in battle repair funds in Afghanistan in the first half of fiscal 2011, according to the Pentagon. Since 2005, U.S. forces have paid civilians millions of dollars in payments for collateral damage caused by — or blamed on — American forces in Afghanistan.
According to the Government Accountability Office, the Defense Department spent more than $30 million in Iraq and Afghanistan in condolence and compensation for grief payments in 2003-06, mostly in Iraq.
In one case, cited by The Washington Post based on documents obtained through the Army Corps of Engineers, the U.S. paid out $190,278 on “condolences” in Uwayrij, Iraq.
The payments are a gesture of sympathy and remorse in cases ranging from traffic accidents to lost limbs to death.
Despite the amount of money spent, the practice is not well-publicized.
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