U.S. forces admitted months ago that they targeted a vehicle by mistake, causing the loss of 10 innocent lives in Afghanistan, including seven children.

When I went to Kabul after the Taliban’s takeover in September, I visited the area targeted by the U.S. attack where I spoke to the remaining family members in mourning and recorded their stories.

Now after three months, the Pentagon has released video footage of the drone strike. In it, you can clearly see the damaged garden and house. I remember it very well. It was a middle-income neighborhood in Kabul but, as in most parts of the city, sewage was flowing freely in the street. The foul water was running next to the bombarded house, and I still have that sharp smell in my nose.

There, three families lived together. One man was a technician working for the American forces; he was among those wrongly targeted.

'Tragic mistake'

The New York Times obtained the footage, which the Pentagon had to call a "tragic mistake" in the end. The 25-minute footage covers before, during and after the missile attack. It is really very tragic. Seven innocent children were killed. I still have their beautiful faces on my phone, pictures I got from the family when I visited them.

I think this incident is radical proof of the U.S. forces' dehumanized approach in Afghanistan, Iraq and elsewhere. It is very sad that one of the poignant images after two decades of war and hundreds of billions of dollars wasted is an above-ground sewage system and thousands of innocent deaths.

As horrible as this incident was, none of the military personnel involved in this drone attack will face punishment, the Pentagon said so last December. U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, who left the final word to two senior commanders, approved their recommendation not to punish anyone. The Pentagon’s chief spokesperson, John F. Kirby, told reporters, "What we saw here was a breakdown in process, and execution in procedural events, not the result of negligence, not the result of misconduct not the result of poor leadership."

That explanation shows that making these types of "mistakes" is acceptable when it comes to the Middle East. Killing seven innocent children and ruining their families' lives can easily be written off as a "breakdown in the process." In reality, it is far from just. Imagine if those kids had U.S. passports, what would happen then? Could the killers be also forgiven? This injustice makes the world a much harder place to live in.

In the two-decade war against al-Qaida and Daesh, the U.S. military has killed hundreds, potentially thousands of civilians by "accident" in Iraq, Afghanistan and Syria.

No contact yet

When it comes to this incident, the Pentagon has only offered condolence payments to the families. It said that it will help relocate the families to the U.S., however, when I spoke to the remaining members, they said that no U.S. officials had been in touch. In addition, they were scared of being targeted by the Taliban because they had been labeled as collaborators with the U.S. since the drone attack. Therefore, the hazards are tremendous. The U.S. forces not only killed 10 family members but also put the lives of their relatives in danger.

There are many examples like this terrifying incident in Kabul. Unless there is a fundamental change in the U.S. forces' approach to outside operations, polarization and violence will remain problems.