When you find that you are digging yourself into a hole, don’t keep digging. More to the point, if your predecessors dug themselves into a hole and then handed you the shovel when you assumed office, it’s not a good idea to climb down into the hole and continue digging where they left off.
Yet that is pretty much what the Obama administration is doing in Afghanistan. Despite the administration’s claim that they are pursuing a new strategy in Afghanistan and Pakistan, in fact they are continuing the Bush Administration’s policy of waging a shooting war against the insurgents, hoping that approach will somehow begin to work when a) it didn’t work for the Soviets twenty years ago, and b) it didn’t work for the Bush administration over the past eight years. Hello… is anyone paying attention? This strategy isn’t working!
Not only is the administration’s Afghanistan strategy basically unchanged despite the claim that it is new, even the military tactics and rules of engagement remain essentially unchanged. Whenever U.S. or NATO ground troops encounter resistance, they call in airstrikes. Jets arrive quickly and drop tons of bombs, pulverizing homes and entire villages. Partly because one cannot aim bombs and missiles accurately from a plane flying at 500 mph — especially at night when many of these airstrikes occur — and partly because the insurgents hide amid villagers, the airstrikes claim an ever-increasing number of civilian casualties.
During the Bush administration, airstrike incidents that killed and maimed large numbers of civilians piled up. Every month there was another one. U.S. officials often denied that civilians had been killed, then changed their minds when presented with photos and videos showing lines of bodies of women and children. Afghan President Hamid Karzai grew increasingly vocal in his condemnation of these incidents. Human Rights Watch issued a report on the Afghan civilian casualties caused by coalition airstrikes. The U.S. military and its allies kept promising to take more care so as to minimize civilian casualties. But nothing changed.
When Obama was elected, peace advocates hoped that his administration would change the entire approach, e.g., the U.S. and its allies might switch to a strategy based more on development assistance rather than war, more on building rather than destroying, more on winning the hearts and minds of the Afghan people and less on blowing out the lungs and brains of the insurgents. That hope has been utterly dashed. Four months into the Obama administration, airstrike incidents continue to cause large numbers of civilian casualties.
The latest incident occurred on May 5-6 in an isolated area of western Afghanistan. After a firefight in which coalition ground troops encountered Taliban fighters, airstrikes were called in. The battle was unusually long and fierce. Initial estimates were that at least 100 civilians died, including women and children, according to the Red Cross, which sent people into the area immediately after the strike to assess the situation. Then the estimate rose to 147, which would make the incident the worst in many years of war in Afghanistan. The U.S. military also sent investigators, and went through the usual sequence of positions: 1) denial: only combatants were killed, 2) speculation: civilians were killed, but we have evidence (which we cannot share) that they were killed by Taliban, who then carried the bodies to the airstrike sites, 3) the airstrikes killed lots of civilians, but it’s the Taliban’s fault, because they used civilians as shields, 4) Defense Secretary Gates is sent to Afghanistan to apologize for the civilian deaths, although the US military still denies that 147 civilians were killed. For the detailed chronology, see the stories listed below.
The bottom line here is that this entire approach is doomed and should be abandoned. Not only is it killing innocent civilians and alienating the Afghan population, it cannot achieve its objective of neutralizing the Taliban and rooting out Al Qaeda operatives.
The way to win the support of the Afghan people is to stop shooting them and instead help them develop roads, schools, and agricultural infrastructure. Help them rise out of poverty. Follow the lead of Greg Mortenson and his Central Asian Institute, which builds schools in the remote tribal regions of Pakistan and Afghanistan. Winning the support of the Afghan people would also help neutralize the Taliban’s influence.
The way to root out the Taliban and Al Queda leadership without causing large amounts of civilian casualties is to infiltrate their ranks, just as insurgents infiltrate the ranks of security forces in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Iraq. Infiltrating their organization would not only provide useful intelligence and opportunities to disrupt their operation, it would also sow mistrust in their organizations, thereby reducing their effectiveness. Is that risky for those doing the infiltrating? Of course. However, risking the lives of paid willing agents is much preferable to risking the lives of civilians whose only mistake is to be in the wrong place when battles break out.
May 5-6 Airstrikes in Western Afghanistan: News Chronology
- May 6, NY Times: Civilian Deaths Imperil Support for Afghan War
- May 7, LA Times: Red Cross confirms Afghan civilian toll
- May 7, Wired News: Officials: Taliban May Have Faked Civilian Slaughter
- May 7, NY Times: U.S. Admits Civilians Died in Afghan Raids
- May 9, NY Times: US denies killing 147 civilians in Afghan clash
- May 10, SF Chronicle: U.S. blames Taliban for Afghan civilian deaths
- Update May 11, Associated Press: Gates replaces top general in Afghanistan
- Update May 20, Associated Press: U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan makes pledge
- Update May 21, LA Times: Dispute over Afghan civilian deaths intensifies
