One of the case study titles in General Petraeus' heralded staff re-write of the Army's field manual on counterinsurgency is, "Lose Moral Legitimacy, Lose the War". It seems that the US military personnel fighting the forgotten war in Afghanistan failed to read that case. High civilian casualty incidents due to indiscriminate fire are increasing as a result of renewed enemy strength. But the US and its NATO allies are indeed in danger of losing the war by further alienating the Afghan people and motivating assistance to the Taliban and Al Qaeda. In seven days of bombing attacks at the beginning of the war from October 11, 2001 to December 1, 2001 the US caused the greatest number of recorded civilian deaths : - October 11th- the farming village of Karam in Nangarhar Provice is bombed. 60 houses are destroyed and 160 civilians killed. The village had a population of 450;
- October 18th - the central market of Sara Shamali in Kandahar is hit killing 47;
- October 21st- a cluster bomb hits a military hospital and mosque in Harat missing the intended target of a military barracks, killing about 100 civilians;
- October 23rd- 'Spooky' gun ships tear apart two farming villages north of Kandahar killing 93 civilians;
- November 10th-the villages of Shah Aqa in the Kahkrez district are bombed causing perhaps as many as 300 civilian casualties;
- November 18th-carpet bombing by B-52s kill a least 100 civilians in the province of Kunduz;
- December 1st-B-52s dropped 1,000lb bombs on the village of Kama Ado during the attack on Tora Bora, 10 hours away by foot. Village elders say 156 of the village's 300 residents were killed.[1]
During the latest large scale incident on August 22, 2008 90 civilians were killed when US Special Forces called in air support including a AC-130 'Spooky' gunship [photo] sortie on Azizabad village in Herat province after a patrol searching for a Taliban commander, Mullah Siddiq, was ambushed. At first military spokesmen attempted to minimize the death toll to seven civilians, but a doctor's mobile phone video emerged showing about 40 bodies. The US military cited an embedded news correspondent for its wildly inaccurate death toll. The correspondent was none other than Fox Spews' Oliver North of Iran-Contra fame! [2] Despite the outrage over the mounting "collateral damage", NATO commanders seem unwilling to alter their air war tactics against a resourceful enemy embedded in a largely rural population living in mud brick huts, or risk more casualties to their infantry in ground operations against them. Human Rights Watch said in their latest report on civilian deaths due to coalition air operations, "There has been a massive and unprecedented surge in the use of airpower in Afghanistan in 2008. In response to increased insurgent activity, twice as many tons of bombs were dropped in 2007 than in 2006." After the release of the report, two more civilians were killed and ten injured in Sabari, Khost province when a malfunctioning weapon missed the intended target by about two miles.
[1]http://www.cursor.org/stories/civilian_deaths.htm#80
[2] This is an example of Col. North's "impartiality" from the June 8,2004 edition of The Sean Hannity Show. NORTH: Every--every terrorist is hoping John Kerry gets elected. I'll say it. Every terrorist out there is hoping John Kerry is the next president of the United States.