Video: Civilian Casualties in Afghanistan

The UK Guardian's video reports are among journalism's best surprises in this era of dwindling coverage and shuttering bureaus.

Every few weeks, sometimes every few days, we hear of another report of civilian casualties in Afghanistan from errant bombs, misfires, unintended targeting in a war that's gone increasingly wrong over the past seven years.

What we don't usually see are the faces behind the bombings--the victims themselves, or what's left of them. I urge you to watch this brief, six-minute report by The Guardian's Clancy Chassay. The music you'll hear in the background is from Schuman's wonderful, and in this case poignant, "Scenes from Childhood," the movement called reverie, or dreaminess (you can watch Vladimir Horowitz play it in Moscow).

It makes listening to the standard, and typically perfunctory, Pentagon mea culpa over civilian casualties quite difficult.