How many times are we going to watch this same movie? There is a military incident that results in charges of misconduct of one kind of another. First, the military denies that the alleged misconduct occurred. Then, they deny that the official version of events constitutes a cover-up. And then, just as surely as Lucy snatches away the football every damn time that Charlie Brown runs in to kick it, we are told, guess what, ha-ha, everything they denied is actually true, there was both misconduct and a cover-up, ha-ha-ha.

After initially denying involvement or any cover-up in the deaths of three Afghan women during a badly bungled American Special Operations assault in February, the American-led military command in Kabul admitted late on Sunday that its forces had, in fact, killed the women during the nighttime raid.

The admission immediately raised questions about what really happened during the Feb. 12 operation — and what falsehoods followed — including a new report that Special Operations forces dug bullets out of the bodies of the women to hide the true nature of their deaths.

In Iraq, it was just USA!, USA! all the way, but in Afghanistan NATO is also getting into the fog-of-war-ha-ha! comedy routine:

A NATO official also said Sunday in an interview that an Afghan-led team of investigators had found signs of evidence tampering at the scene, including the removal of bullets from walls near where the women were killed. A senior NATO official later denied on Monday that any evidence tampering occurred.

And when NATO puts on a cover-up, they do it in style:

NATO military officials had already admitted killing two innocent civilians — a district prosecutor and local police chief — during the raid, on a home near Gardez in southeastern Afghanistan. The two men were shot to death when they came out of their home, armed with Kalashnikov rifles, to investigate.

Three women also died that night at the same home: One was a pregnant mother of 10 and another was a pregnant mother of six. NATO military officials had suggested that the women were actually stabbed to death — or had died by some other means — hours before the raid, an explanation that implied that family members or others at the home might have killed them.

Is there an office somewhere in the murky depths of the basement of NATO headquarters where they award some kind of medal or commendation for coming up with the most creative lies in support of an official cover-up? Why else would they try to imply murder by family members instead of just saying “The Taliban did it!”

But, hey, it’s all good, because we have now come clean:

On Sunday night the American-led military command in Kabul issued a statement admitting that “international forces” were responsible for the deaths of the women. Officials have previously stated that American Special Operations forces and Afghan forces conducted the operation.

The statement said that “investigators could not conclusively determine how or when the women died, due to lack of forensic evidence” but that they had nonetheless “concluded that the women were accidentally killed as a result of the joint force firing at the men.”

“We deeply regret the outcome of this operation, accept responsibility for our actions that night, and know that this loss will be felt forever by the families,” said Brig. Gen. Eric Tremblay, a spokesman for the NATO command in Kabul.

Do we also, with a perfectly straight face, regret the lack of forensic evidence? (To earn bonus points, and recharge your battery pack, go back two quotes.)

Coming back to the style points issue, now you can appreciate both the quadruple toe-loop and the landing:

In a statement soon after the raid, NATO had claimed that its raiding party had stumbled upon the “bodies of three women who had been tied up, gagged and killed” and hidden in a room in the house. Military officials had also said later that the bodies showed signs of puncture and slashing wounds from a knife, and that the women appeared to have been killed several hours before the raid.

And in what would be a scandalous turn to the investigation, The Times of London reported Sunday night that Afghan investigators also determined that American forces not only killed the women but had also “dug bullets out of their victims’ bodies in the bloody aftermath” and then “washed the wounds with alcohol before lying to their superiors about what happened.”

So will anyone actually be held accountable?

Probably not. Because how can you punish anyone for an honest mistake? And NATO still seems to be peddling that explanation:

NATO officials have also rejected allegations that the killings were covered up. But it was not immediately clear on Sunday night how troops who shot the women and later examined their bodies would not have recognized that it was their bullets that killed them.

Or how those troops would not have recognized that the women weren’t actually tied up or gagged, and showed no evidence of stab wounds. Or that their bodies weren’t exactly cold, or showed any other signs of having been dead for several hours.

Or how NATO officials would not have recognized that the troops could not have failed to recognize all of the above.