The Columbia Journalism Review has kindly run another essay of mine, this time examining the IO problems with imperfect information about the war in Afghanistan. In short, the Pentagon is shooting itself in the foot by issuing contradictory statements about situations it clearly has not examined definitively, and would benefit from being honest about the limits of its information-gathering capabilities.
The way the coalition has handled these incidents creates the impression that they are callous or even casual about dead civilians: repeatedly denying non-coalition body counts without evidence to back their claims, calling the dead “Taliban” when they are nothing of the sort, and disparaging human rights groups trying to confirm ground conditions. All of this serves to isolate the Pentagon from real social currents on the ground. Moreover, it sets up an expectation that, no matter what actually happened, the official response will be to deny until forced to admit—which, when its account differs so greatly from local accounts of these incidents, encourages the idea that the coalition is lying.
That is almost certainly not the case. It is difficult to imagine the U.S. military or NATO not caring about non-combatants dying by their hands. Yet without better reporting from the scenes of these alleged tragedies, it is difficult to move beyond hearsay accusations.
Hope you enjoy.
Bonus Data Point: Moon of Alabama notes that 30 Dead Taliban is the magic number in Afghanistan (a lot of those he cites are actually not in the Hindu Kush mountains, but whatever). Just look at how often the Coalition kills exactly 30 Taliban, no matter the details of the battle or aftermath. Remarkable.
Update 2: See what I mean? This is ridiculous. As for Azizabad-specific information, while the Afghans agree the U.S. was fired on first, they also allege that the supposedly faulty information to raid that specific house was given by a rival elder, whom locals now accuse is being protected by the U.S. This is a situation in which rumors can spin out of control very quickly.
This post was written by...
Joshua Foust – author of 1801 posts on Registan.net.
Joshua Foust is a Fellow at the American Security Project and the author of Afghanistan Journal: Selections from Registan.net. His research focuses primarily on Central and South Asia. Joshua is a correspondent for The Atlantic and a columnist for PBS Need to Know. Joshua appears regularly on the BBC World News, Aljazeera, and international public radio. Joshua is also a regular contributor to Foreign Policy’s AfPak Channel, and his writing has appeared in the New York Times, Reuters, and the Christian Science Monitor. Follow him on twitter: @joshuafoust
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Very good text. An additional argument against the current NATO/US IO strategy wich is purely military is that it gives all the initiative to the opposition and detracts from the US base of legitimacy. In this way its exactly the opposite of the FM 3-24, and so is *counter-doctrinal* and therefore wrong, wrong, wrong even when seen with just military eyes. By continuing to stonewall any suggestions of mistakes it creates the image of a military monolith that doestn care about the killing of civilians, and this is directly counterproductive to any inteligent COIN strategy. Its as easy as that.
For the sake of argument, let’s assume the US is right about the number of civilian victims. Why is it so difficult to introduce some transparency to the matter?
OK, OpSec comes into play, but nonetheless, there was an AC-130 in the air, a reporter accompanied the commandos (though he may not be the best witness in the world *cough cough*) … Hell, there should be SOME imagery to proof the US point.
Instead, even the investigative report is a secret, except for the usual “leakers”.
IMHO not a very convincing way to fight on the informational battlespace.
BTW, it’s not as if anyone else came up with some really plausible proof, no pictures, no fresh graves, simply a list of names and statements of villagers. So far, I don’t trust either statement. Of course, that doesn’t matter, IO-wise the thing is clear.
According to NY times, the US is finally on the ball.
“The American commander of the NATO force in Afghanistan, Gen. David D. McKiernan, expressed regret on Friday at the loss of civilian life in the airstrikes last week in western Afghanistan. He offered to conduct a joint investigation with the Afghan government and the United Nations to resolve broad discrepancies in accounts of what had happened.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/30/world/asia/30afghan.html?_r=1&ref=world&oref=slogin
fnord, theyre still talking about only five civillians killed. So no change here.
“(a lot of those he cites are actually not in the Hindu Kush mountains, but whatever)”
Well, “on both sides of the Hindu Kush” would not have fitted the headline space … I included some of those “30 militants killed” events that happened in Pakistan.
Here is another one from yesterday Pakistani army says 30 militants killed.
I can guarantee that the Pakistani army does not know how many they killed in that bombing in Swat, that very likely some of the death are women and children and that the ‘militants’ were mostly locals with a grudge.
The brits are discussing the consequences, thinking of changing their ROE. http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/aug/31/afghanistan.defence
“Internal US air force figures reveal that 272 tonnes of bombs were dropped on Afghanistan during June and July – the same amount dropped on the country during all of 2006. At least 500 civilians have died this year as a result of the actions of foreign forces.
‘[The coalition] told me that their rules of engagement hadn’t changed which is strange. If you look at the increased use of aerial bombing, the numbers don’t seem to add up,’ said Alston. ”
Good to see the UN finally acting up.