The Ugly Truth about War

War is ugly. You need to have very clear reasons to go to war and you need very clear "rules of engagement" and you need to keep your troops on a tight leash because things can get out of hand. I accept Sherman's statement that "war is hell" and I accept that when attacked you go 110% against those who attacked you. But you have to police your own troops to make sure that the violence stays withing reasonable bounds.

In the current Middle East wars I accept that Al Qaeda, the Sunni insurgents, the Shiite militias, and the Taleban have all committed unspeakable war crimes. But that doesn't justify your troops doing the same. The US horrors of the Abu Ghraib tortures are clearly a crime and a worse crime was committed when only the lower ranks were held accountable when it is clear that senior commanders up to the Bush White House pushed for "aggressive" interrogation techniques that clearly violated Geneva accords and encouraged the misdeeds by lower ranking soldiers. This is a crime that hasn't been properly punished.

Here's a another case where the boundary between allowable acts of war and criminal acts was crossed:



It is pretty clear that the above attack was an "over eager" attack by a US Apache helicopter on unarmed civilians. I can understand that mistakes are made in the "heat of battle" but when you are on a flying platform facing no ground attack and have time to get permission from ground control to attack, you are under an obligation to be sure of your target and honestly tell your ground control what you see. It is pretty clear from the above that this crew was "trigger happy" and were too quick to interpret events as "armed insurgents" when in fact there were only two cameras in possession of the people on the ground. Two cameras held by news reporters. Not weapons.

Here is a NY Times article about the above video.

Here is an interpretation of what the above video shows:



Another case that outraged Canadian sensibilities was the senseless murder of 4 Canadian troops (and injured another eight) by a trigger happy US pilot. It was covered up by an initial report of "returning fire". The reality was that there was no "friendly fire". It was US pilot itching to "get into the fight" and who had failed to read and/or obey the NOTAM which pilots are required to pick up and read before their sortie. The NOTAM clearly identified the area as a practice area in which the Canadian troops were training. Here's a report from CBC news and this bit points out the wrist slap that the murderers got:

U.S. air force Maj. Harry Schmidt, one of the pilots involved in the "friendly fire" incident that killed four Canadians in Afghanistan, was found guilty of dereliction of duty on July 6, 2004, in what the U.S. military calls a "non-judicial hearing" before a senior officer. The maximum penalty he had faced was 30 days of house arrest.

He was reprimanded and forfeited more than $5,000 US in pay. The air force agreed to allow Schmidt to remain in the Illinois Air National Guard, but not as a pilot. Schmidt later appealed the verdict, but the appeal was rejected. He also filed a lawsuit against the air force, saying it released his letter of reprimand to the media, in violation of his privacy.

Schmidt had made a deal in June 2004 so he could avoid a full court martial.

That is awfully light "punishment" for killing 4 and injuring six others because you couldn't be bothered to read the notice of a restricted area in which allied troops were training.

From the text of the US Air Force hearing:

In your personal presentation before me on 1 July 2004, I was astounded that you portrayed yourself as a victim of the disciplinary process without expressing heartfelt remorse over the deaths and injuries you caused to the members of the Canadian Forces. In fact, you were obviously angry that the United States Air Force had dared to question your actions during the 17 April 2002 tragedy. Far from providing any defense for your actions, the written materials you presented to me at the hearing only served to illustrate the degree to which you lacked flight discipline as a wingman of COFFEE Flight on 17 April 2002.

Through your arrogance, you undermined one of the most sophisticated weapons systems in the world, consisting of the Combined Air Operations Center, the Airborne Warning and Control System, and highly disciplined pilots, all of whom must work together in an integrated fashion to achieve combat goals. The United States Air Force is a major contributor to military victories over our Nation's enemies because our pilots possess superior flight discipline. However, your actions on the night of 17 April 2002 demonstrate an astonishing lack of flight discipline. You were blessed with an aptitude for aviation, your nation provided you the best aviation training on the planet, and you acquired combat expertise in previous armed conflicts. However, by your gross poor judgment, you ignored your training and your duty to exercise flight discipline, and the result was tragic. I have no faith in your abilities to perform in a combat environment.

There used to be a video with the cockpit recording that made it utterly obvious that the pilot was trigger happy. But I can't find it. I suspect some "pressure" has been put on archives to remove it as "inflamatory" and "prejudicial". In other words, the truth is suppressed so that the happy warriors can go on in the belief that theirs is noble calling and all are "heros".

What bothers me is that this kind of "mistake" happens again and again. Just this last week German NATO troops killed five Afghan soldiers. As usual, the initial report blames the victims:

The German troops were en route to reinforce others under attack and had opened fire on a civilian vehicle that had ignored warnings to halt and in which the Afghans were travelling, the head of the German armed forces said.

The defence ministry had said earlier that five Afghans died in the incident late Friday, which came soon after German forces were ambushed by Taliban militants with three troops killed and eight wounded.

It is pretty clear that because of the previous fire fight, the Germans were scared and became trigger happy. The story about "ignoring warnings" is most likely an attempt to cover up their crime.

And this story just broke today in a NY Times article.

After initially denying involvement or any cover-up in the deaths of three Afghan women during a badly bungled American Special Operations assault in February, the American-led military command in Kabul admitted late on Sunday that its forces had, in fact, killed the women during the nighttime raid.

The admission immediately raised questions about what really happened during the Feb. 12 operation — and what falsehoods followed — including a new report that Special Operations forces dug bullets out of the bodies of the women to hide the true nature of their deaths.

A NATO official also said Sunday in an interview that an Afghan-led team of investigators had found signs of evidence tampering at the scene, including the removal of bullets from walls near where the women were killed. A senior NATO official later denied on Monday that any evidence tampering occurred.

...

Three women also died that night at the same home: One was a pregnant mother of 10 and another was a pregnant mother of six. NATO military officials had suggested that the women were actually stabbed to death — or had died by some other means — hours before the raid, an explanation that implied that family members or others at the home might have killed them.

Survivors of the raid called that explanation a cover-up and insisted that American forces killed the women. Relatives and family friends said the bloody raid followed a party in honor of the birth of a grandson of the owner of the house.

On Sunday night the American-led military command in Kabul issued a statement admitting that “international forces” were responsible for the deaths of the women. Officials have previously stated that American Special Operations forces and Afghan forces conducted the operation.

To repeat, war is ugly. But it isn't mindless lawless violence. You have an obligation to show restraint and distinguish between combatants and non-combatants (especially if you have superior firepower and are in a relatively safe position such as the US Apache hovering over the scene and under not obvious threat). That's why there is a chain of command and fire control that OKs deadly force. But that system only works if the soldiers report honestly the situation and what they are seeing. If you are jumpy, ill-trained, and hysterical, you will see "enemies" everywhere and bomb and blast everything. But that is a crime.

Another thing that bothers me is how difficult it is to get the truth. In the first story of the Apache attack, Reuters put out a FOI (Freedom Of Information) request and got stonewalled. In the attack on the Canadians the US forced Canada to stop an independent investigation and refused to allow Canadian lawyers any control over the suspected US pilots. That's why the "sweetheart" deal for that pilot. In the German case, I expect that there will be no serious follow-up because this was "just" Afghans being killed. Tragic.