McChrystal Apologizes for Afghan Civilian Deaths

America’s top military commander in Afghanistan, Gen. Stanley McChrystal, took to the Afghan airwaves Tuesday to apologize for the deaths of 27 civilians in an airstrike led by U.S. forces last week, according to The Christian Science Monitor.

Here’s a video of McChrystal’s apology released by the Department of Defense (dubbed over):

The Christian Science Monitor:

In a video distributed Tuesday in Dari and Pashto, the main languages spoken in Afghanistan, the top NATO commander here Gen. Stanley McChrystal said he was sorry to the nation for 27 civilian deaths, after US special forces killed a convoy of Afghan civilians they had mistaken for insurgents. It was the coalition’s deadliest mistake in six months.

While public apologies by NATO have become almost commonplace – this was just one of half a dozen in the past 10 days, and the second by McChrystal himself – the push to admit mistakes and say sorry is unprecedented in NATO’s nine-year intervention in Afghanistan. It fits into McChyrstal’s new strategy that prioritizes winning over the population.

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