At Least Some of the Protests in Afghanistan Were Over 8 Women Killed in a NATO Airstrike

While the U.S. government throws free expression under the bus to deflect criticism of its own interventionist policies

The United States continues to insist that worldwide anti-American protests by Muslims are solely attributable to a trailer for an anti-Islamic film, Innocence of Muslims, even as the actual occurrence of a demonstration prior to the deadly attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi is questioned by the Libyan government itself.

Meanwhile, anti-American protests erupted again over the weekend in Kabul and elsewhere in Afghanistan, where the United States has waged a war for the last eleven years. As usual, the protests there have been attributed to resentment against the film. Over the weekend, a NATO airstrike reportedly hit a group of village women collecting firewood. Villagers brought the bodies to the local government office while chanting "Death to America," according to local authorities. Notably, too, the first Islamist protests on 9/11, in Jakarta, were not hooked to a film at all.

Forty Afghan police officers were injured at violent demonstrations in Kabul earlier today, a change of pace from a weekend that saw a renewed surge of green-on-blue incidents, when uniformed Afghan security forces attack Western troops in the country, a phenomenon certainly preceding Innocence of Muslims.

The wisdom of a continued U.S. presence in Afghanistan is left unquestioned in a government-driven narrative where the often violent outburst of Anti-American sentiment is attributable solely to a movie trailer that's apparently been on YouTube for months.