Strengthening terrorism, inciting hatred of the US
It seems quite clear that the US itself is a major factor in increasing the number of terrorists. Take this story by David Fox for Reuters. How would you react if the civilian victims were from your own family or were your own children?
At least 45 civilians, many women and children, were killed in a rocket attack by the NATO-led foreign force in Afghanistan’s southern Helmand province last week, a spokesman for the Afghan government said on Monday.
The incident happened in Helmand’s Sangin district on Friday when civilians crammed into a mud-built house to flee fighting between NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) troops and Taliban insurgents, Siyamak Herawi told Reuters.
“The investigation shows that the rocket was fired by NATO and 45 civilians, many of them women and children, have been killed,” he said.
Reports of civilian deaths and casualties caused by foreign troops are a major cause of friction between Afghan President Hamid Karzai and his Western backers and have led to street protests.
An ISAF spokesman said the alliance had conducted operations against insurgents in the area on Friday and was investigating the reports of civilian deaths.
Confirmation of the incident by the government comes on a day when tens of thousands of classified U.S. documents published by the whistleblower group WikiLeaks cast a new light on civilians caught in what it called “the true nature of this war.”
The documents cover the period until U.S. President Barack Obama took office and adopted a new strategy that sought to reduce civilian deaths in conjunction with a troop surge to tackle the Taliban in their spiritual heartland.
ISAF casualties have soared this year but, after the new strategy’s architect, General Stanley McChrystal, was dismissed in an insubordination scandal last month, his successor said he would review some operational tactics — including air strikes on suspected Taliban hideouts.
In the worst incident of its kind, 140 civilians were killed in May last year in an ISAF air strike on a compound in Gerani, in western Farah province, among them 93 children and 25 women…
And research has shown that people react exactly as you’d expect. Zaid Jilani at ThinkProgress:
The Wikileaks disclosure of thousands of pages of military documents dealing with the war in Afghanistan today highlight, among other things, “how coalition forces have killed hundreds of civilians in unreported incidents.”
This is a particularly important disclosure in light of a report released earlier this month by the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER). NBER’s report, titled “The Effect of Civilian Casualties in Afghanistan and Iraq,” studied the blowback among the population from civilian casualties caused by international forces in Iraq and Afghanistan.
It concludes that blowback is a considerable problem faced by International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan. It finds “strong evidence for a revenge effect in that local exposure to ISAF generated civilian casualties drives increased insurgent violence over the long-run.” The BBC notes that NBER’s report finds that “in areas where two civilians were killed or injured by Nato…there were on average an extra six violent incidents between insurgents and US-led troops in the following six weeks“:
They say that in areas where two civilians were killed or injured by Nato’s International Security Assistance Force (Isaf), there were on average an extra six violent incidents between insurgents and US-led troops in the following six weeks. The report concludes that civilian deaths frequently motivate villagers to join the ranks of insurgents.
“In Afghanistan, when Isaf units kill civilians, this increases the number of willing combatants, leading to an increase in insurgent attacks.” “Local exposure to violence from Isaf appears to be the primary driver of this effect.”
The report also notes that General Stanley McChrystal’s new rules of engagement that he imposed upon soldiers under his command in Afghanistan “led to a decline in attacks by insurgent fighters.” General David Petraeus, who has just taken command of American forces in Afghanistan, is currently reviewing McChrystal’s rules and is considering altering them.
