Collateral Tragedies

When you look at these pictures, what do you notice about them?

I notice quite a few things:
1) they are all heavily armed
2) they do not wear a common, recognizable uniform
3) they could easily blend into their surroundings and hide amongst the populous.

It infuriates me when I read stories like the one in this week’s Time Magazine called Collateral Tragedies. The article rails against our air campaign against the Taliban as responsible for killing more and more “innocent” civilians.

The tent stake holding the line on this story is the August 22nd airstrike in which the military claims only 7 civilians and 35 insurgents were killed. However, the Afghani government and a United Nations “inquiry” claim that up to 90 “civilians” were killed.

These types of stories work wonders for enemy propaganda and they use it to their utmost ability in Afghanistan (and in Iraq). The problem here, again, is that the Taliban does not abide by the rules of war or the Geneva Conventions. They use civilian buildings and locations to conduct and launch military operations. They use children as cover for their activities knowing that if a targeting gunship sees them, the airstrike will be called off. Did you just hear what I said? We will NOT kill the enemy if there are visible civilians, especially children, at the target location!!

So, what do you do? You have to rely on guys on the ground when possible to engage the enemy in person. This has an expected side effect: increased casualties on our side. It’s a lose/lose situation. We get bad press for killing innocent civilians who are being used as shields – ofttimes willingly and knowingly – and we get bad press when there is an increase in military casualties.

“Sometimes it’s a conscious tactic of these people who meet to make sure there are kids playing in the compound so that they’re seen, and that complicates your targeting methodology,” General James Conway, Commandant of the Marine Corps, told reporters. “This is a dirty game being played.”

And not only is that game being played on the ground where lives are on the line, it’s being played in the media where policy is on the line. How many politicians have you heard since 2001 complain about civilian casualties? It’s all over the place. But, practically no where does the discussion take place about who these “civilians” are. According to international humanitarian law, a civilian is someone who is NOT a part of a particular country’s armed forces. Since neither the Taliban, Al Qaeda, or the Sadr Militia are a part of the armed forces, they are legally “civilians”.

How do the body bean counters distinguish who they will count as civilians and who they will count as insurgents or militia? When the media releases these stories that make our troops look like emotionless, cold-blooded killers, why don’t they offer their readers and viewers an explanation of what the term “civilian” means and the circumstances surrounding the attack?

Oliver North, who was present at August 22nd firefight presented the facts in this incident that mainstream media have yet to pick up on:

The intelligence was painstakingly confirmed and U.S. Special Operations Command officers sat down with their Afghan Commando counterparts to carefully plan a “capture-kill mission” with the goal of taking several key Taliban leaders into custody. FOX News cameraman Chris Jackson and I accompanied the raid force.

To us – and the U.S. and Afghan troops we were covering – it appeared as if they were victorious. Though one U.S. Marine had been wounded in the fray, a senior Taliban leader and 25 of his fighters were dead. A major Taliban arms cache was located and destroyed. Weapons, ammunition, communications equipment, materials for making improvised explosive devices (IEDs), and thousands of dollars in cash had been confiscated.

As the Commandos withdrew from the objective shortly after sunrise, they gently treated and evacuated a woman and her child who had been wounded in the crossfire. Our Fox News cameras had captured the battle on videotape – including the careful treatment of noncombatants. Unfortunately, the good news quickly turned bad.

While we were en route back to the base from which the raid had been launched, the U.S. ground force commander received a report over the radio that pro-Taliban agitators were already asserting, “The Americans have killed 30 civilians.” The claims and alleged number of civilian casualties quickly escalated.

Shortly after noon on the 22nd, Iranian television reported that, “A U.S. air-strike south of Herat in Western Afghanistan has killed more than 50 innocent civilians, including women and children.” To counter these reports, U.S. aircraft transported Afghan and foreign reporters to the Special Operations base so that they could see the confiscated weapons and other evidence for themselves. It didn’t help.

The American press and Afghani leadership ran with the Iranian story as fact, dismissing all other assertions by Soldiers and the Pentagon as “far from certain”.

Folks we are fighting a three pronged war against extremism and terrorism: one in Iraq, one in Afghanistan, and one in the living rooms of every American in this country. We’re winning two out of three of these wars, but we’re getting our asses kicked in the third and the American media is supporting this loss wholeheartedly – even offering aid and comfort to our enemies.