So US Central Command has now admitted that the civilian casualty toll from that controversial air-raid in western Afghanistan August 22 was indeed much higher than they’d earlier said.
The BBC tells us this:
- US Central Command said 33 civilians, not seven, had died in the village of Azizabad in Herat province.
While voicing regret, it said US forces had followed rules of engagement.
Officials from the UN and the Afghan government say up to 90 people – including 60 children – died in the strike on Azizabad.
Video footage, apparently of the aftermath of the raid, showed some 40 dead bodies lined up under sheets and blankets inside a mosque.
The majority of the dead captured on the video were children, babies and toddlers, some burned so badly they were barely recognisable.
You’ll recall the case became very high-profile inside Afghanistan after both the national government and the U.N. mission there announced their public adherence to the much higher casualty toll.
The US military stuck to its original figure of “seven” — and all alleged ‘militants!– for a long time, even after video footage of many bodies lined up in a mosque became available.
The US military claimed it had sent its own recce team back into the location after the attack to confirm its own casualty figure. Turned out that recce team included none other than well-known serial liar Oliver North.
It’s small wonder the UN’s mission head in Afghanistan is now publicly arguing that there is no way the “international community” can “win” in Afghanistan using military means. And the outgoing UK ambassador there has said the same.
Shouldn’t someone tell Barack Obama that?
I suppose one ought to say a word or two about the nest before intruding one’s own cuckoo?
“[T]he case became very high-profile inside Afghanistan” refers to a more general problem that our Napoléons and von Clausewitzen are to a certain aware of. Also Professor Lynch .
If the propaganda scheme proposed in the article that AA refers to had been already in place, possibly the profile of the 22 August collateral damage incident could have been cut off at the pass.
Naturally there can be no question of that once your client neorégime has started to moan about such things along with troublemaker journalists and NGO ratfinks.
Neither AA, nor his one poster, nor the WP story itself, emphasize, or even mention, the need for “Rapid Response Manipulation” of the colonial media, but that does not prove that nobody at the War Department is thinkin’ about it.
Bis dat qui cito dat: the point is pretty obvious, after all, and furthermore it is directly parallel to its military analogue.
And now here is the cuckoo:
____
What this country needs is a good five-cent aggression!
Inflation being what it has been, probably we shall have to be content at that price with a preowned aggression, but nowadays they refurbish these things so thorougly that you can hardly tell the difference between new and used.
I mention the possibility because the Washington Post claims this morning that our masters have more or less reached this conclusion, although not yet quite consciously:
[U]nlike Iraq, where lawmakers have argued for years over funding and troop levels, there is bipartisan backing for doing more, and doing it quickly, in Afghanistan
What better way to cheer up Holy Homelanders in economic bad times? And to do away with those premature traces of PHGF, “pitiful helpless giant factor,” in the imperial and colonial bloodstream? And to keep the MICE, our “military-industrial-communicationalist-educationizers,” feelin’ good about themselves, their Powe®Point skills honed, and their loyalty to Wasilla and all that Wasilla stands for, both spiritually and intellectually, exalted above any possible suspicion? [*]
I shall not claim that a course of RRT, “reshock-and-retroäwe therapy,” for Áfghánístán must lead to development of a cure for lung cancer. But can anybody actually prove that it will not?
Happy days.
___
[*] De gustibus non disputabo. Sure, MIJA[C] — “military-industrial-journalistic-academic [community]” would be closer to St. Ike’s original words, and it might be worth a little something to be able to claim that Ye Olde Republique has somehow been ‘mighjacked’. (myjacked?)
Speaking of “all suspicion,” be it hereby understood that Neocomrade Horowitz is excluded from the terms of this warranty. Also his friends, his funders, his enemies (as enumerated by himself), and anybody who ever passed within ten feet of him on a sidewalk in Manhattan or the Bronx. D. J. Horowitz could teach the John Birch Society its business.
As to Powe®Point, one was happily surprised to find a distinguished Scandipotamian sectary whom one can rarely agree with poking a little fun (or whatever) at the PP folk recently :
“When these basic questions are not addressed in a nuanced way, it is very hard to ascribe much significance to the predictable succession of graphs and statistics and acronyms that take up the subsequent pages of the Pentagon report . These things all collapse if the underlying assumptions about the “fundamental nature of the conflict in Iraq” and Iran’s channels of influence are wrong.”
The violence pros were positively beggin’ for a put-down, to be sure:
“The CTB submitted a budget of $358 million for CY08. It received $167 million in a direct funding allocation, and the MoD was directed to pay the INCTF salaries of $157 million for CY08. In 2009, the CTB is programmed to receive and have the authority to obligate its own budget. A $580 million budget request is projected.” [57a]
What are the rules of engagement? We don’t know, but what we do know is that only on very rare occasions are there any penalties for breaking the “rules”.
First, this is nothing new in Afghanistan. From a University of New Hampshire study: “What causes the documented high level of civilian casualties — 3,000 – 3,400 [October 7, 2001 thru March 2002] civilian deaths — in the U.S. air war upon Afghanistan? The explanation is the apparent willingness of U.S. military strategists to fire missiles into and drop bombs upon, heavily populated areas of Afghanistan.”
This wasn’t enough.
Feb 7, 2006: NATO forces being deployed across Afghanistan as part of the UN-mandated International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) are operating under new rules. The “rules of engagement” approved recently by the alliance are said to be “more robust” than in the past — allowing NATO troops to take preemptive action against perceived threats.
now some whitewash.
Sep 9, 2008: Nato has issued new military rules of engagement in Afghanistan in an attempt to limit civilian deaths, after the air strike last month which reportedly killed 90 people, including 60 children, it emerged yesterday.
What are the Rules of Engagement, former or latter? We don’t know, but the Winter Soldier testimony has given us some insight into the early ones (in Iraq).
//It was just after 9-11 when Hart Viges joined the Army and the start of the occupation when he entered Iraq in March 2003. As a mortar man, he had his first taste of what he calls the loss of humanity that comes with war, when he helped set up rounds aimed at civilian neighborhoods in a small town on the way to Baghdad.//
General Brooks spelled out the basic ROE tenants in 2003: GEN. BROOKS: “Well Rob, I will start off by saying at first, in all cases whether at checkpoints or otherwise we always maintain the right, inherent right of self-defense. And that’s the start point for any of our rules of engagement.”
Which is merely a scaled-down version of the national security strategy of pre-emptive strikes: “We must be prepared to stop rogue states and their terrorist clients before they are able to threaten or use weapons of mass destruction against the United States and our allies and friends.” If we kill them first they can’t kill us. Or, as we said in Vietnam: Kill ’em all and let God sort ’em out.
War isn’t hell. Hell is only for the people who deserve it. War is particularly unkind to men, women and (particularly) children who don’t deserve it.
I detect a tectonic shift at JWN. Gotta love it.
Aug 4, 2008: In [Afghanistan victory] will depend on defeating or defanging antigovernment insurgencies and helping midwife a governing system.
Oct 9, 2008: It’s small wonder the UN’s mission head in Afghanistan is now publicly arguing that there is no way the “international community” can “win” in Afghanistan using military means. Shouldn’t someone tell Barack Obama that?
The Emperor has spoken: If you’re not with us you’re against us, and you will die.
A Pentagon inquiry into the Herat massacre , headed by Air Force Brig. Gen. Michael W. Callan, found a higher civilian death toll, it also concluded that “the use of force was in self-defense, necessary and proportional based on the information the On-Scene-Commander had at the time.”
The report said that, “unfortunately and unknown to the U.S. and Afghan forces,” the militants who were the target of the raid “chose fighting positions in close proximity to civilians.”
Anti-occupation forces in their own country choosing incorrect fighting positions against invaders — that’s wrong, according to the Emperor’s minions.
Just as with the Haditha massacre in Iraq, and many others not reported, there will be no disciplinary action because “unfortunate” death by US forces is always a justifiable death. It’s always “in self-defense, necessary and proportional”. That’s the nature of war, and that’s the nature of this “Good War” as well.
How is that a tectonic shift. I really don’t think Helena ever advocated a military solution alone as a way to resolve the Afghanistan conflict.
So choosing fighting positions among civilians, if that’s what they really did, is actually right?
Inkan1969,
I stand by my “shift” comment, for obvious reasons.
How would you fight an invasion of your home district? Would you form up a company of the home guards in bright uniforms and march in diamond formation across open fields toward the enemy fortifications in order to engage in rifle fire and then hand-to-hand combat with the dastardly invaders, who have machine guns and artillery as well as manned and unmanned combat aircraft that you lack, and thus will kill you and your brave comrades before you’ve taken twenty steps? Or would you just hide under the bed.
“The guerrilla must move amongst the people as a fish swims in the sea”.– Mao Tse-Tung
Guerilla wars are not won or lost on the battlefield. Guerillas can take casualties far beyond what the invaders suffer and win when it becomes apparent to the people that the invader is the enemy of all the people.
The US military repeatedly states that there is no military solution to any of this aggression, but their actions belie their words. They know no other way but to bomb and kill the people of the invaded countries. That’s what armies do, until they fail, as the Brits and Russians have failed before in Afghanistan.
The US military has been in Afghanistan for nearly seven years, and recently Admiral Mullen stated that the situation in Afghanistan will likely get even worse next year. You might say that these people never learn or you could say that they enjoy endless war. Both are probably correct.
Who’s invading my home district? Why are they invading? You don’t say who or why, just that they have colorful uniforms and that they’re “dastardly”. Oo, that’s bad. And for the matter, what am I fighting for. Am I really a “brave” guy who’s fighting to save my home? Or am I fighting for an inhuman ideology, or to indulge in old vendettas or bigotries? I couldn’t say from your first paragraph; you just talked about dastardly invaders vs brave comrades, which might or might not correspond to reality.
It’s the commander in chief who has to realize that guerilla wars can’t be won militarily. The Bush administration doesn’t want to admit this and so has trapped the military in this guns only strategy, encouraging a policy of bombing civilian areas to keep the bad guy from escaping. If there is a change from the Republican administration, all pressure must be applied for a policy open for negotiation to go along with increased ground troops for security enforcement.
The blog “Ghosts of Alexander” has a commentary on negotiations.
http://easterncampaign.wordpress.com/2008/10/06/negotiating-with-the-taliban-in-mecca/
The main question that springs out: “Which Taliban?” It’s been widely reported that the “Taliban” movement is fractious. Then reconciliation should go on with factions in this fight only for self protection, or for money. Factions that don’t fight for the inhuman ideology of the 90’s regime. They turn against al-Qaeda and they renounce the administration of Mullah Omar, that is good. I want to see how Karzai judges whom he can talk to.
Inkan 1969,
Invaders normally are resented by the people who are invaded, nationalism being a paramount motivation. It doesn’t matter so much who is invading, they can always be characterized as evil outsiders. When, as the US is doing, the invaders arbitrarily kill the natives, including children, portraying the invaders as evil is not difficult. In fact, as a result of wanton brutality, the invaders act as recruiters for the resistance.
The commander in chief commands only the military, not the country. He is not constitutionally responsible for starting and ending wars, nor for foreign policy in general. Recently the US Congress has abdicated its constitutional responsibility, which is one reason their popularity is at 9% (they make The Chimp look good in this regard).
Bottom line in Afghanistan — it’s their country, not ours. Sending more troops, as Obama and McCain want to do, would be counter-productive for the reasons stated above. As Helena wrote: It’s small wonder the UN’s mission head in Afghanistan is now publicly arguing that there is no way the “international community” can “win” in Afghanistan using military means. Shouldn’t someone tell Barack Obama that?