"Afghanistan: Thousands of Civilian Casualties"

When U.S. bombs hit my home country of Afghanistan on Oct. 7, 2001, I was in an Afghan restaurant in New York with other Afghan-Americans grieving over Sept. 11. We weren't surprised that the old country was being bombed. We all knew it would happen.

Yet it was still shocking to see it happen on television. We worried about friends and loved ones who still lived there. As I watched, I remembered the hospitality and love of my aunt and her seven children, whom I had visited just two months before in Kandahar.

Most of us gathered in the restaurant supported the war, at least at first. We despised terrorism and the Taliban. We thought that the U.S. military would wage a rapid, precise war and finally free our country of its demons. We were hungry for peace and freedom, and we hoped that one last war could end the killing.

While we were concerned about civilian casualties, we kept our mouths shut. We were afraid of being rounded up, so men stopped gathering together on Saturday nights to play cards and talk politics.

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