Fox News ran a report on the incident at Azizabad:
In light of the new video evidence—which has prompted the U.S. to begin yet another investigation of the incident—even if the U.S. is vindicated, it does not look good. While it’s nice of Ollie North to note that the number of dead civilians rose as more bodies were pulled from the rubble (forgetting the same dynamic applies to the U.S.-side of the narrative), this is, in short, a serious loss in the IO war. At this point, it doesn’t even matter how many died. Simply, the U.S. looks bad.
But this came via a questioning post by Christian at the Defense Tech blog. And this is actually more shocking.
Ollie North (who I do not respect as a journalist, but isn’t a bad guy personally — I’ve bumped into him on two trips to Iraq) and a pretty damned good cameraman with no Fox agenda were embeded with the MARINE special operations force on the raid.
They saw the engagement. They saw the casualties. They did not see what “witnesses,” the UN, the Afghan government or the New York Times (nice try with that BS iPhone video) saw.
Right, so he doesn’t respect Ollie but the cameraman is agenda-less, and the UN, GIRoA, and New York Times are all conspiring to create scandal. Not a promising start, but not a surprising sentiment from a milblog (though it’s worth noting the iPhone cannot capture video without some 3rd party software). Then, my jaw dropped:
Now, what I want to know if there’s anyone else out there who can tell us the straight gouge. Why? Here’s what I’m worried about. There’s a high level delegation going over there to conduct another “investigation.” They HAVE to find something wrong. Who are they going to hang out to dry? MarSoc…once AGAIN. Remember all the “civilians” they killed in March 2007 after that roadside ambush? They got kicked out of theater, the commander in Afghanistan prostrated himself before the Afghans, the media and the Pentagon for forgiveness. The Corps holds a public inquiry on the incident and what do they find? The MarSoc operators did NOTHING wrong.
How much do you want to bet this will be replayed once more? Help us keep this from happening again, folks.
What. The. F*ck? Okay, so the inquiry was not public—its sessions were closed to the public, and despite the ruling that the Marines did not break any rules, 12,000 pages of proceedings were classified immediately after. Not so public. I’ll be kind and note Christian seems to be confusing “doing nothing wrong” with “following SOPs.” As I unhappily noted when the Marine Corps declined to press charges, that Marines unit remained under investigation for serious training and discipline lapses, including clashes with the Army unit with which they were embedded, and repeatedly violated orders. That’s hardly doing “nothing wrong,” even if the Corps ruled that speeding for ten miles along a busy highway firing at random into crowds of civilians didn’t violate established ROE.
One last note. Christian is obviously tuned to enough COIN theory, frameworks, and best practices to know whatever strategy a counterinsurgent undertakes, it must be population centric. Throwing scare-quotes around the word “civilian” when even the investigating authority notes 19 civilians died… well, that’s just damned ugly of him. Like it or no, these were innocent people gunned down going about their every day business. And why defame the commander, whose public and profuse apologies Christian mocks most likely averted a more serious blowback? That’s not very population-centric, either.
So I’m left wondering: How would Christian propose that “folks” help prevent another sacrificial lamb from being slaughtered for those uppity Afghans demanding the liberators pretty please stop killing them by the dozen? Stop investigating these incidents? Admitting they have a serious IO problem and haven’t the first clue how to operate in an environment of imperfect information against a sophisticated enemy that pounces on every misstep?
The Coalition has no room for margin right now, and still they place low-ranking officers in charge of media relations—almost as if they consider handling the press and the military’s public image yeoman’s work. It’s not—in this operating environment public image is as important as tactics, if not more so. It needs to become a top priority, now, before these kinds of incidents spiral out of control. They might have, already—which makes this all the more urgent. Bitching about bias is just counterproductive.
This post was written by...
Joshua Foust – author of 1771 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
{ 2 comments }
Joshua, this is a good post that makes a good argument. However, I’m concerned about the way you frame part of it in terms of what “makes good IO”. I think it is far preferable to couch things in terms of the (quite legitimate) political processes of Afghanistan, and say that certain actions make the politics much more complex or have whatever other effect on the politics. I guess my concern about “good IO” is that it could allow for a lot of “DO”, that is, Disinformation Operations– which sadly, a lot of allegedly “I”O turn out to be. Somehow, “IO” always seems to be such a colonialist and easily subvertible notion.
It is surely better to keep the frame of reference where Clausewitz stressed it should always be kept: on the politics of the matter. Recognizing, too, that intra-Afghan politics is not only quite legitimate but will also, at the end of the day, be determinative. Quite rightly so. It is, after all, their country.
Helena, I think you’re right, too. You’re getting at a broader point with my whole problem with how the military handles “soft” or non-kinetic ideas, though, which was outside the scope here.
In a perfect world, the U.S. would engage only in Just Wars, and be able to passionately argue that justness in an honest and straightforward way. That much argument about the wars has been dishonest is disappointing, though I still don’t think of itself that indicates the unjustness of either. Rather, in the case of Afghanistan at least, being honest that political considerations drive low troop levels, which, combined with mountainous, inaccessible terrain makes the heavy use of air power necessary could pay huge dividends.
Saying as much carries consequences, however. For one, the military in most western societies is uncomfortable dictating terms to the civilian government, or at least pretends to be. For another, this would mean admitting that everyone at the top level of leadership badly miscalculated what would be necessary to “win,” and this would involve any of them admitting they were wrong. Thirdly, this would raise the uncomfortable prospect of facing the possibility of failure and loss, which again the West seems unwilling to do.
Lastly, since the other factors cannot change, the only remedy is increasing troops numbers. But that is politically (and in the case of the U.S., logistically) infeasible. So it is, admittedly, a catch-22.
That being said, a good IO campaign would have its eye clearly on the political outcome of events. It would not entail placing 1LTs as the main spokesman for a politically sensitive event. It would involve having more than a Fox News commentator who went to jail for illegal arms selling and destroying documents under the Reagan Administration on your side. And it would involve a more thorough explanation than “well in war things happen but we know we’re perfect.”
Then again, I am being hopelessly utopian. Plus, the DOD is only good at IO within the U.S. — it sucks at it everywhere else.