The New York Times recently posted reports about the U.S. military’s trial of soldiers accused of randomly killing civilians in Afghanistan’s Kandahar province, “for sport.” Apart from the horrors of the alleged crimes, there is a terrible irony in the stories. This goes beyond the fact that these kinds of incidents are hardly news. They are completely predictable in any war, even among the best-trained and most disciplined armies—let alone those in which governmental and military leaders provide signals that make incidents like Abu Ghraib possible.
The irony also goes beyond the coincidence that this story appeared in the New York Times the same day as another, titled “CIA Steps Up Drone Strikes on Taliban in Pakistan.” That story re-emphasized the open secret that Pakistan has become the new Cambodia. Like that other unfortunate nation, Pakistan is being targeted because another of America’s wars is not going well. But rather than accepting the original war’s folly, our military and civilian leaders, in their consummate wisdom, have expanded it to nearby countries. Supposedly, it is these nations’ failures to control their populations and borders that explains the war’s failures.
But the real irony is the prosecution of these soldiers, when the architects of the war–responsible for placing the soldiers in Kandahar to begin with–are taking actions that predictably lead to large civilian casualties as well. It is, of course, true that from a legal standpoint, there are differences in the intent of the killers: in the first case, intentional; in the second, unintentional. It is also true that in the first case, the soldiers allegedly knew their victims to be innocent. In the second, military officers believe themselves to be targeting Taliban or al-Qaeda fighters—though of course their information is often faulty. And, of course, the soldiers should be prosecuted for their alleged crimes.
But the strategic effects of these incidents is little different. Who would you hate more if your home was destroyed and your children killed by Predators? The Taliban fighters who the missiles were intended to kill and who were conducting operations in your area—or the American military and CIA personnel sitting at their desks in Creech Air Force Base? Perhaps both equally—but, more likely, those who pulled the trigger. Nor is a grieving Afghan likely to care about the legal niceties that help the drone controllers sleep at night–or be assuaged by the payments the U.S. government sometimes disburses to relatives of its collateral carnage.
To my mind, the closest analogy to this situation comes from Vietnam: The well-deserved prosecution and conviction of Lieutenant William Calley for the My Lai massacre–at about the same time that the U.S. government was carpet-bombing Vietnam and Cambodia to the tune of untold thousands of civilian deaths—all with the broad rationale that we would thereby win hearts and minds.
No doubt our new smart bombs and drones kill fewer innocents–though still far too many, given the futility of the “war on terror.” But if I were an Afghan grieving over a drone’s dismemberment of my family, would I care about this sign of “progress?”
With respect to the drone strikes, which (as NYT and Wash. Post both have reported) have increased markedly in the past month: This should be addressed as part of the broader issue. I think there are (at least) two ways to look at it.
(1) The current US/ISAF strategy is costing too much, in terms of civilian and military casualties (among other things), relative to its objective (i.e., disrupting the Taliban and preventing them from taking over southern and eastern Afghanistan). Therefore the strategy should be changed — perhaps, as Michael Cohen and others have suggested, by ceding the south and east of Afghanistan to the Taliban and concentrating on the north and west while trying to pursue a political resolution; or perhaps by withdrawing from Afghanistan completely (which I assume is the approach C. Bob favors, although this post leaves it unclear).
(2) Ceding the south and east of Afghanistan to the Taliban or withdrawing completely are not acceptable options, given the security consequences (for US, Europe, and SW Asia); therefore there is no particularly good alternative at the moment to pursuing the current strategy (including drone strikes, since the strategy can't really work without some way of getting at the sanctuaries of Taliban, al Qaeda, and the Haqqani network in the Pakistan border areas).
I would be interested in what the post's author thinks re (1) versus (2) (the post suggests an answer but leaves it implicit), or more generally what he advocates re policy/strategy.
LFC, could you elaborate on the security consequences for the US (let's ignore Europe, South Asia, and Southwest Asia for the moment) if it withdraws from the south and east of Afghanistan? Other than negative reputational effects, from which the US has recovered in the past, what are the consequences? I am assuming you don't accept the idea that al Qaeda (as a franchise) is restricted to Southasia. So I don't see the consequences from a strategic perspective (although I certainly can see the moral consequences for women, minorities, etc.)…
Vikash,
Well, I agree the security consequences are not obvious. I suppose the argument is that a Taliban takeover of south and east would lead eventually to re-establishment of the Taliban in power in Kabul, and that that would have security consequences for the US. But it's a rather tenuous argument, IMO.
I agree, LFC: US security implications of withdrawal are “rather tenuous.” Given the huge costs in lives, money, reputation in the Islamic world–as well as the folly of current policy–I favor prompt and complete withdrawal. Morally, we do owe the Afghan people for our starting the war, and we should make them whole. But continuing current policy simply deepens our debt. VY is right that there will be moral consequences of withdrawal. But we cannot succeed in imposing our cultural and political values on their society. The only sustainable route for ending reprehensible policies in Afghan cultures is through indigenously led change.