Reports are slipping out from the US military’s official investigation into the accidental bombing of civilians in Afghanistan’s Farah Province last month and it looks like the US is admitting some mistakes. The investigation, according to the LA and NY Times, acknowledges that all rules of engagement were not followed during the incident, including reports that the Taliban threat at the time was not a grave enough threat to to call for a 2,000 lb bomb to be dropped and a lack of assurance that civilians were not present at the scene of the attack. The details of the report are a case study in the ‘fog of war’.
From the articles it appears that US marines and the Afghan army were in heavy fighting with the Taliban and as the fighting went into the night, the marines called in an airstrike in a building they believed the Taliban were being sheltered in. Sadly, this building apparently became filled with civilians at an unknown time, and how this occurred and who should have known about it have become the key investigative questions asked. The US still claims that around 20-30 civilians were killed, while the Afghan government claims around 140. 60-65 Taliban members were also reported killed in the fighting.
This incident goes to the heart of struggle in battling an insurgency; killing the bad guys and protecting the citizenry. Unfortunately, ‘bad guys’ and ‘citizens’ are both hurt at times and the question becomes, ‘Was killing those blank number of bad guys worth killing those blank number of civilians?’ ‘Are we winning the battles (fights against the Taliban), while losing the war (hearts and minds)?’
The incoming commander of US forces in Afghanistan, Gen. McChrystal and for US troops along the Af-Pak border Maj. Gen. Curtis Scaparrotti, each emphasized the importance of protecting Afghan civilians in recent weeks. McChrystal vowed that the protection of civilians would be ‘essential to our credibility’. During his testimony before Congress, McChrystal, while emphasizing that airstrikes and Special Ops would maintain a central part of US military strategy, stated American success in Afghanistan should be measured by “the number of Afghans shielded from violence,” not the number of enemy fighters killed’. Scaparrotti was quoted; “We look very closely at the use of close air support in terms of being deliberate and very precise. We are here to protect the people of Afghanistan and we intend to pursue our operations with that first in mind, and use CAS (close air support) only where we need to protect our force and complete the mission.”
These men have quite the task ahead of them, as the tragic incident in Farah shows all too well.