Afghanistan's president, Hamid Karzai, called Sunday for a formal investigation into reports that a US/NATO air strike on Taliban positions in a village last Friday killed 45 civilians. Karzai and NATO have decried the Taliban tactic of hiding among civilian villagers, but the mounting death toll this year of Afghan civilians being killed in NATO and US military actions has angered the public and forced Karzai to speak out in protest.
An Afghan human rights organization estimates that US and NATO air strikes this year killed more civilians than did the resurgent Taliban.
Video from Aljazeera English service via YouTube.
Labels: Afghanistan
posted by Juan Cole @ 7/02/2007 06:42:00 AM
6 Comments:
Thank you for posting video when available. It's so hard to find troubling images like this presented with any serious context.
I wonder why that is? Do people in the mainstream press not understand how important it is to present War as it is, for what it is?
If presenting both sides of a story is supposed to be at the core of good journalism, then our modern TV news media is failing badly.
Dr Cole, do you agree with Dr. Gwynne Dyer in his June 23rd column saying that the Iraq war is training Sunni fighters who will endanger pro-U.S. régimes across the Middle East?
The law of unintended consequences strikes again. Only in a Washington, D.C. debate does intent and "collateral damage" matter. For the Afghans, dead is dead, whether by the Talibs or by NATO forces. Evokes the blowback of shelling in Lebanon by the US Navy in 1983. Inexorably, we are viewed in Afghanistan like the Red Army or, at best, a bumbling giant who does more harm than good.
Collateral damage? No,
There are two approaches to counter-insurgency.
1) Mass Violence: Imagine that you can identify the insurgents' lairs and, even if you cannot pick them off with markwman precision, just shoot into a crowd or hurl bombs and tell the world that you hit your target. If lucky, you fool some people or the insurgent group is so small that a few chance bulls eyes will do the trick.
2) Targetted Violence: Deliberately arrest, abuse, or kill people who are kin or dear to the insurgents you want to deter. Make the cost of joining the insurgency too painful. Martyrdom might be fine, but seeing the mutillation or death of a sibling or relative is hard to stomach. Some might name you to interrogators too.
Both approaches are cruel and inefficient. If only the insurgents wore uniforms and massed in neatly marked bases and barracks!
The US utilizes the first approach, mainly because it requires less HUMINT and takes advantage of superior firepower and air force. It is also reinforced by the theses of solder-scholars who get doctorates for writing unprovable tracts about how failed wars could or should have been won by tweaking this or that variable.
The 2nd approach requires a strong secret police or death squad that knows the locale and can pick the right people, but needs little more than light weaponry and objects like stones or knives to carry out its work. It works, but requires significant cultural and local knowledge, plus a maniacal tenacity.
Saddam made liberal use of mass and targetted violence. The current approach divides the labors. The US does the mass thing, the Iraqi forces apply the targetted one. Some day, the US may run out of money or apetite for the mission. However, the other elements could go on with the other violence for many decades, as in Liberia, Congo (ex Zaire), or Europe during the 700s.
A stateless or failed-state society can be self-fulfilling and become semi-permanent. Iraq presents many of the associated features. Afghanistan outside of Kabul may have been that way for a long time now.
All through last weekend, I was NOT preoccupied with the attempted attacks in London. Part of that indeed was the lack of loss of life and the apparent incompetence of the attackers. But my main reason was because of this news from Afghanistan. 45 civilian losses. But this is just one in a long string of mass civilian losses.
If only the U.S. and NATO would boost their troop levels, so that their troops could effectively engage the Taliban on the ground. No more heavy reliance then on the airstrikes that cause these massive civilian losses. I am very fearful for the immediate future of Afghanistan if this change can't take place.
- Inkan1969
al jazeera english should be available all over the u.s.
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