The Civilian Toll

National Security:

This month, the investigative website Wikileaks released a horrifying video "showing an American helicopter shooting and killing a Reuters photographer and driver in a July 2007 attack in Baghdad." After the initial shooting, a van of civilians arrived to aid the wounded, only to be fired upon by the helicopter's high-power cannon, wounding two children on board. "Well, it's their fault for bringing their kids into a battle," one military pilot says, echoing the grim detachment of much of the conversation captured between the soldiers on the tape, which the military later authenticated. "[A]t face value, it is the most damaging documentation of abuse since the Abu Ghraib prison-torture photos," the Atlantic's James Fallows commented. But appearing on ABC's This Week Sunday, Defense Secretary Robert Gates claimed that while the video was "clearly not helpful" and "painful to see," it "should not have any lasting consequences." Gates appears to be giving the unfortunate impression of U.S. indifference to civilian casualties. The video portrays just one incident among many others of civilians being needlessly killed by American forces in Iraq and Afghanistan. Just yesterday, "American troops raked a large passenger bus with gunfire near Kandahar" in Afghanistan, "killing as many as five civilians and wounding 18." The Wikileaks video serves to underscore the human and strategic costs of the U.S.'s continuing military engagements in Iraq and Afghanistan, particularly the stepped-up use of drone strikes. While insurgents are inflicting chaos and violence (last year was the deadliest for civilians since 2001 in Afghanistan), the foreign troops are more often blamed, thereby dangerously undermining American credibility among the public and their political leadership. Sadly, as the Center for American Progress' Brian Katulis notes, the Wikileaks video may just confirm what Iraqis already assume about U.S. forces. New York Times correspondent Rod Nordland noted last week that the response in Iraq to the video has been "somewhat muted," as "most Iraqis have a pretty cynical attitude toward the Americans. And incidents of this sort don't really surprise them as much as maybe it does ourselves."

ALL TOO COMMON: Before taking command of the war in Afghanistan last summer, Gen. Stanley McChrystal told Congress that his success should be measured by "the number of Afghans shielded from violence." He has taken some laudable steps, and emphasizes the right things, but unfortunately, civilians are killed by coalition forces far too frequently. "[T]he most remarkable thing about the video is the business-as-usual dialogue between the pilots and crew of the Apache and the ground controllers that are guiding their actions," Foreign Policy's Stephen Walt notes. "This tells me that this incident wasn't unusual, which is of course why no disciplinary action was taken against the personnel involved. What is different in this case is that two Reuters journalists got killed, and eventually a video got leaked and put on the internet," he adds. Reports from former soldiers and war correspondents support this claim. Yesterday's bus shooting was "the latest deadly case of what the military calls 'escalation of force,' in which troops guarding military convoys or checkpoints gun down Afghans perceived as a threat because they have come too close or are traveling too fast." Speaking of these types of incidents earlier this month, McChrystal made this startling assessment: "We've shot an amazing number of people and killed a number and, to my knowledge, none has proven to have been a real threat to the force." Still, checkpoint and convoy deaths are "fewer in number" than those from air strikes or Special Forces operations. And while drone attacks have been successful at killing top al Qaeda and Taliban leaders, they have also killed a startling number of innocents. As the Washington Independent's Spencer Ackerman notes, the military leadership may say the right things, but "the effect, the output, the result -- that's what matters." And the military's official reaction to killings is often unhelpful, with attempts to cover up or down play embarrassing incidents.

BLOWBACK: While it's difficult to count how many civilians have been killed by American forces in Iraq and Afghanistan, the effect of the killings is tangible. Yesterday's bus shooting in Afghanistan "triggered a vitriolic anti-American demonstration, infuriated officials and appeared likely to harm public opinion on the eve of the most important offensive of the war, in which tens of thousands of American and NATO troops will try to take control of the Kandahar region," the New York Times observed. Demonstrations like this are common after civilian killings, which undermine public opinion of the coalition forces. Killings may also aid recruitment of militants fighting coalition forces. "Many of the detainees at the military prison at Bagram Air Base joined the insurgency after the shootings of people they knew, said the senior NATO enlisted man in Afghanistan, Command Sgt. Maj. Michael Hall." "There are stories after stories about how these people are turned into insurgents," Hall told troops last month, urging them to exercise more caution. Following an alleged cover up of a botched Special Forces raid in February that killed two pregnant women and a teenage girl, the father of the girl vowed revenge, saying, "I will destroy everything I have and will launch my own suicide attack."

STRAINED RELATIONS: Civilian killings also have "political reverberations far beyond the sites of the killings." Following yesterday's bus shooting, the governor of Kandahar "called for the commander of the military convoy who opened fire to be prosecuted under military law." "If you want to stop the bus, it should be shot in the tires," he said. "Why shoot the people inside?" "This is a savage action. They have committed a great crime," said a member of Kandahar's provincial council. Afghan President Hamid Karzai has repeatedly called such attacks "unjustifiable" and become increasingly frustrated with civilian deaths. Last week, he told a gathering of tribal elders in Kandahar that he "would not permit an American offensive there unless the people supported it." The planned operation will be "one of the biggest of the nine-year war" and involve 10,000 American soldiers, but Karzai is threatening to stop it because of these needless deaths. "Are you happy or unhappy for the operation to be carried out?" Karzai asked the elders. "We are not happy," one shouted back. Karzai undeniably needs to clean up corruption and nepotism within his government, but the pressure he faces internally over civilian killings makes it more difficult for the U.S. to influence him.
 

Let The Sun Shine In......