Ms Reid is evidently researching an Afghanistan which exists in some alternative universe considering her characterisation of the recent skirmish between Afghan national force members and Taliban. You know, the shoot out last Monday in the wake of which US and other NATO aircraft jockeys were accused of killing nearly 150 civilians.
Ms Reid vented vitriol as she characterised the Monday affray as having the probability of being "the largest and most tragic loss of life to U.S. bombs so far in Afghanistan." Blowing aside the conclusions of the joint preliminary investigation conducted by US and Afghan personnel, Ms Reid went on in a fine bit of rhetorical overkill which was as strident as it was disconnected to reality,
This crock of self-evident delusion is redolent of an attitude which emerged within the context of the anti-Vietnam war movement, "If the government says it--it must be a lie."Yet another devastating error inevitably calls into question the continued viability of the use of U.S. and NATO airpower in Afghanistan. The procedures for protecting civilians and verifying intelligence before launching attacks are clearly not working and must be thoroughly reviewed again.
As a specialist in US national security history, the Geek is well acquainted with the will and ability of the US (and other) governments to lie, to lie early and often. But, this time around the stance of the joint investigative team holding Taliban responsible for the deaths--even those which occurred due to US or NATO delivered ordnance passes the test of Inherent Military Probability.
The Inherent Military Probability notion was developed over a century ago by Hans Delbruck, a German historian of ancient warfare. It is a useful filter for evaluating not only the exaggerations of ancient writers on the wars of their time but also for assessing the degree of truth resident in a government statement regarding the wars of our time.
As the Geek has written in previous posts, the Taliban, like other Islamist jihadist groups violates with intentionality the customary usages of land warfare meant to protect civilians. The jihadists of Taliban use civilians just as did Hamas--as a means of defeating the military superiority of their opponents while assuring that the inevitable civilian deaths can be used in propaganda to undercut support for the status quo government.
Now, listen up and listen tight, Ms Reid. When Taliban takes up positions in civilian residential compounds, it is violating not only the laws and customs of land warfare, it is discarding the basic ethical imperatives which have served over the centuries to separate war as politics from mere bloodlust driven butchery. When Taliban opens fire on US or International Security Assistance Forces (ISAF) or Afghan National Forces (ANF) without allowing civilians to leave the area of operations, it is doing the same. Only with more intent, with more evil in mind. When Taliban forces the civilians to stay in harm's way as was the case last Monday, it, Taliban, is responsible ethically for every dead or injured civilian.
Whether you like it or not, Ms Reid, Taliban is the bad guy in this episode as it has been in so many others which you and your kindred spirits have improperly blamed on the US, or the ISAF or, rarely, the ANF. This reality, the culpability of Taliban, is not surprising. Consider, Ms Reid, if you can, that Taliban, again like all Islamist jihadist movements, engages in suicide bombing and the use of improvised explosive devices (IED) against soft, civilian targets rather than take on troops capable of fighting back.
Ms Reid, you are obviously afflicted by a mental disease common to the academic and chattering classes of the US and Western Europe. It is a form of self-loathing. A form of desperately seeking to blame, to devalue, to deprecate your own culture, your own society, your own country. Thus, you rush to blame-America-first regardless of the realities on the ground.
This is injurious not only to the culture and country which gave you birth. It injures as well the civilians of Afghanistan, the people whom you purport to be protecting.
The only real and final protection of civilian life and hope in Afghanistan is an end to the war. That ending can come only when and if Taliban and the other Islamist jihadist groups are militarily destroyed. Until and unless that happens the ideology of Islamist jihadism will assure that more and more civilians are placed in the crosshairs.
Ms Reid, the Geek has no idea how old you are. Are you of sufficient maturity to remember the Sixties? The Seventies? Even the Eighties of the Reagan administration? Do you remember the ban the bomb campaigns of those years?
If not, you might take a quick look at the history. Back during the Cold War, the ban-the-bomb crowd directed their manifestos, their demands, their demonstrations at the US and the various countries of Western Europe. They did so because these countries are democratic. Amenable at least in principle to the pressure of public opinion. The Soviet Union was not. No protests were aimed in its direction. It would have been a waste of time and energy.
Taliban and the other Islamist jihadist groups are even more immune to public opinion than was the autocracy of the Kremlin. Still, if you and your group, Ms Reid, want to have both credibility and ethical integrity, you must condemn Taliban for its unethical actions. You must, if you are real in your interest in the well-being of the civilians of Afghanistan, take Taliban publicly to task for every one of their recurrent violations of basic human rights.
Human rights? Isn't that in the name of the group for which you speak, Ms Reid?
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