American Way of War

by Tom Engelhardt

  Khan, it turns out, was no Taliban “militant,” but a “wealthy businessman with construction and security contracts with the nearby American base at Shindand airport.” He reportedly had a private security company that worked for the U.S. military at the airport and also owned a cell phone business in the town of Herat. He had a card “issued by an American Special Forces officer that designated [him] as a ‘coordinator for the U.S.S.F.’” Eight of the other men killed that night, according to Gall, worked as guards for a private American security firm. At least two dead men had served in the Afghan police and fought against the Taliban.

  The incident in Azizabad represents one of the deadliest media-verified attacks on civilians by U.S. forces since the invasion of 2001. Numerous buildings were damaged. Many bodies, including those of children, had to be dug out of the rubble. There may have been as many as sixty children among the dead. The U.S. military evidently launched its attack after being given false information by another person in the area with a grudge against Khan and his brother. As one tribal elder, who helped bury the dead, put it: “It is quite obvious, the Americans bombed the area due to wrong information. I am 100 percent confident that someone gave the information due to a tribal dispute. The Americans are foreigners and they do not understand. These people they killed were enemies of the Taliban.”

  Repeated U.S. air attacks resulting in civilian deaths have proven a disaster for Afghan president Hamid Karzai. He promptly denounced the strikes against Azizabad, fired two Afghan commanders, including the top-ranking officer in western Afghanistan, for “negligence and concealing facts,” and ordered his own investigation of the incident. His team of investigators concluded that more than ninety Afghan civilians had indeed died. Along with the Afghan Council of Ministers, Karzai also demanded a “review” of “the presence of international forces and agreements with foreign allies, including NATO and the United States.”

  Ahmad Nader Nadery, commissioner of the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission, similarly reported that one of the group’s researchers had “found that 88 people had been killed, including 20 women.” The UN mission in Afghanistan then dispatched its own investigative team from Herat to interview survivors. Its investigation “found convincing evidence, based on the testimony of eyewitnesses, and others, that some 90 civilians were killed, including 60 children, 15 women and 15 men.” (The 60 children were reportedly “3 months old to 16 years old, all killed as they slept.”)

  The American Response

  Given the weight of evidence at Azizabad, the on-site investigations, the many graves, the destroyed houses, the specificity of survivor accounts, and so on, this might have seemed like a cut-and-dried case of mistaken intelligence followed by an errant assault with disastrous consequences. But accepting such a conclusion simply isn’t in the playbook of the U.S. military.

  Instead, in such cases what you regularly get is a predictable U.S. narrative about what happened made up of outlandish claims (or simply lies), followed by a strategy of stonewalling, including a blame-the-victims approach in which civilian deaths are regularly dismissed as enemy-inspired “propaganda,” followed—if the pressure doesn’t ease up—by the announcement of an “investigation” (whose results will rarely be released), followed by an expression of “regrets” or “sorrow” for the loss of life—both weasel words that can be uttered without taking actual responsibility for what happened—never to be followed by a genuine apology.

  Now, let’s consider the American response to Azizabad.

  The numbers: Initially, the U.S. military flatly denied that any civilians had been killed in the village. In the operation, they claimed, exactly 30 Taliban “militants” had died. (“Insurgents engaged the soldiers from multiple points within the compound using small-arms and RPG [rocket-propelled grenade] fire. The joint forces responded with small-arms fire and an air strike killing 30 militants.”)

  Targeted, they said, had been a single compound holding a local Taliban commander, later identified as Mullah Sadiq, who was killed. (Sadiq would subsequently call Radio Liberty to indicate that he was still very much alive and to deny that he had been in the village that night.) Quickly enough, however, military spokespeople began backing off. Brigadier General Richard Blanchette, a NATO spokesperson, said that “investigators sent to the site immediately after the bombing” had, in fact, verified the deaths of three women and two children, who were suspected of being relatives of the dead Taliban commander.

  After President Karzai’s angry denunciation, and the results of his team’s investigation were released, the U.S. military altered its account slightly, admitting that only twenty-five Taliban fighters had actually died alongside five Afghans identified as “noncombatants,” including a woman and two children. The U.S. command, however, remained “very confident” that only thirty Afghans had been killed. Later, after a military investigation had been launched, the U.S. command in Afghanistan issued a vague statement indicating that “coalition forces are aware of allegations that the engagement in the Shindand district of Herat Province, Friday, may have resulted in civilian casualties apart from those already reported.”

  On August 28, the U.S. military “investigation” released its results, confirming that only thirty Afghans had died. On August 29, however, General David D. McKiernan, American commander of NATO forces, raised the number, suggesting that “up to 40” Afghans might have died, though still insisting that only five of them had been civilians, the rest being “men of military age.” These revised numbers were still being touted on September 2, when, according to the Washington Post, “U.S. military officials flatly rejected” the Afghan and UN figures. On September 4, the Los Angeles Times reported that the U.S. military was now “acknowledging” thirty-five militants and seven civilians—forty-two Afghans—had died in the attack. Over a span of two weeks, the Americans slowly gave way on those previously definitive figures, moving modestly closer to the ones offered by the Karzai and UN teams, without ever giving way on their version of what had happened.

  The investigations: The first investigation, according to U.S. military spokespeople, occurred the morning after the attack, when investigators from the attacking force supposedly went house to house “assessing damage and casualties” and “taking photos.” Combat photographers were said to have “documented the scene.” According to Gall, the U.S. military claimed its forces had made a “thorough sweep of this small western hamlet, a building-by-building search a few hours after the air strikes, and a return visit on Aug. 26, which villagers insist never occurred.”

  As claims of civilian deaths mounted and Karzai denounced the attacks, Major General Jeffrey J. Schloesser, then commander of coalition forces in Afghanistan, ordered an “investigation” into the episode. (“All allegations of civilian casualties are taken very seriously. Coalition forces make every effort to prevent the injury or loss of innocent lives. An investigation has been directed.”)

  On August 29, the conclusions of the investigation, completed in near-record time, were released. The casualty count—only thirty Afghans, twenty-five of them Taliban militants—had been definitively confirmed. A future “joint investigation” with the Afghan government was, however, proposed. That same day, General McKiernan suggested that the UN, too, should be part of the joint investigation. On September 3, the Afghans accepted the U.S. proposal for what was now a “tripartite investigation.” On September 7, “emerging evidence”—a grainy video taken on a cell phone by a doctor in Azizabad, “showing dozens of civilian bodies, including those of numerous children, prepared for burial”—led General McKiernan to ask that the U.S. investigation be reopened. Normally, such investigations, whose results usually remain classified, are no more than sops, meant to quiet matters until attention dies away. In this case, the minimalist military investigation, which merely backed up the initial cover-up about the assault on Azizabad, was forced into the open and, as protest in Afghanistan widened, was essentially consigned to the trash hea
p of history.

  The rhetoric: Initially, according to the Washington Post, “a U.S. military spokeswoman dismissed as ‘outrageous’ the Afghan government’s assertions that scores of civilians had been killed in the attack…. A U.S. official in Washington, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said the Taliban has become adept at spreading false intelligence to draw U.S. strikes on civilians.” In not-for-attribution comments, U.S. military officials would later suggest “that the villagers fabricated such evidence as grave sites.” Lieutenant Colonel Rumi Nielson-Green, a spokesperson for the U.S. military, insisted: “We’re confident that we struck the right compound.” On August 24, as protests over the deaths at Azizabad mounted in Afghanistan, White House spokesperson Tony Fratto said at a press gaggle: “We regret the loss of life among the innocent Afghanis who we are committed to protect…. Coalition forces take precautions to prevent the loss of civilians, unlike the Taliban and militants who target civilians and place civilians in harm’s way.”

  On August 25, Fratto added: “We believe from what we’ve heard from officials at the Department of Defense that they believe it was a good strike…. I should tell you, though, first of all, we obviously mourn the loss of any innocent civilians that may lose their lives in these attacks in—whether they’re in Afghanistan or in Iraq, in any of these conflict areas.” On that same day, Pentagon spokesperson Bryan Whitman said: “We continue at this point to believe that this was a legitimate strike against the Taliban. Unfortunately there were some civilian casualties, although that figure is in dispute, I would say. But this is why it is being investigated.”

  On August 27, at a Pentagon press conference, Commandant of the Marine Corps General James Conway said:[I]f the reports of the Afghan civilian casualties are accurate—and sometimes that is a big “if” because I think we all understand the Taliban capabilities with regard to information operations—but if that proves out, that will be truly an unfortunate incident. And we need to avoid that, certainly, at every cost….

  You know, air power is the premiere asymmetric advantage that we hold over both the Taliban and, for that matter, the al Qaeda in Iraq…. And when we find that you’re up against hardened people in a hardened type of compound, before we throw our Marines or soldiers against that, we’re going to take advantage of our asymmetric advantage….

  You don’t always know what’s in that compound, unfortunately.

  And sometimes we think there’s been overt efforts on the part of the Taliban, in particular, to surround themselves with civilians so as to, at a minimum, reap an IO [information operations] advantage if civilians are killed.

  On August 29, General McKiernan reiterated the American position, while expressing regrets for any loss of civilian life: “This was a legitimate insurgent target. We regret the loss of civilian life, but the numbers that we find on this target area are nowhere near the number reported in the media, and that we believe there was a very deliberate information operation orchestrated by the insurgency, by the Taliban.” He also complained about the UN investigation, saying, “I am very disappointed in the United Nations because they have not talked to this headquarters before they made that release,” and he suggested that President Karzai had been the victim of bad information.

  On September 3, with pressure growing, U.S. ambassador to the UN Zalmay Khalilzad put the disparities in numbers down to the “fog of war,” while urging a new joint investigation: “I believe that there is a bit of a fog of war involved in some of these initial reports. Sometimes initial reports can be wrong. And the best way to deal with it is to have the kind of investigation that we have proposed, which is U.S., coalition, plus the Afghan government, plus the United Nations.” On the same day, Karzai’s office issued a statement indicating that President Bush had phoned the Afghan president: “The President of America has expressed his regret and sympathy for the occurrence of Shindand incident.” They quoted him as saying, “I am a partner in your loss and that of the Afghan people.” Also that same day, General McKiernan said: “Every death of a civilian in wartime is a terrible tragedy. Even one death is too many…. I wish to again express my sincere condolences and apologies to the families whose loved ones were inadvertently killed in the cross fire with the insurgents in Azizabad.” Though the Afghans seem to have largely died due to U.S. air strikes, not in a crossfire, this was as close to an apology as anyone related to the U.S. government or military has come.

  Under fire for its account of the raid, the U.S. military was quick to point out that its now discredited findings at Azizabad “were corroborated by an independent journalist embedded with the U.S. force.” That man turned out to be none other than Oliver North, working for FOX News. North had not only gained notoriety as an official of, a defender of, and a shredder of papers for the Reagan administration in the Iran-Contra scandal, but had earlier fought in Vietnam. He actually appeared as a witness for the defense in the case of one of the marines accused of carrying out a massacre of Vietnamese at Son Thang in February 1970.

  As now, so in Vietnam, were “hearts and minds” being hunted both from the air and on the ground; so, too, civilians were repeatedly blown away there; and so, too, as in the case of the infamous My Lai massacre, cover stories were fabricated to explain how civilians—Vietnamese peasants—had died and those stories were publicized by the U.S. military, even though they bore little or no relation to what had actually happened.

  Today, “hearts and minds” are being similarly hunted across large stretches of the planet, and people in surprising numbers continue to die while simply trying to lead their lives.

  This sort of “collateral damage” is an ongoing modern nightmare, which, unlike dead Amish girls or school shootings, does not fascinate either our media or, evidently, Americans generally. It seems we largely don’t want to know what happened, and generally speaking, that’s lucky because the media isn’t particularly interested in telling us. This is one reason the often absurd accounts sometimes offered by the U.S. military go relatively unchallenged—as, fortunately, they did not in the case of the incident at Azizabad.

  Of course, it matters what you value and what you dismiss as valueless. When you overvalue yourself and undervalue others, you naturally overestimate your own power and are remarkably blind to the potential power of others.

  In this way, not just Vice President Cheney but President Bush and his top officials remained self-protectively embunkered throughout their years in office. The sixty or so children slaughtered in Azizabad, each of whom belonged to some family, did not matter to them. But those children do matter. And when you kill them, and so many others like them, you surely play with fire.

  Launching the Drone Wars

  In 1984, Skynet, the supercomputer that rules a future Earth, sent a cyborg assassin, a “terminator,” back to our time. His job was to liquidate the woman who would give birth to John Connor, the leader of the underground human resistance of Skynet’s time. You with me so far?

  That, of course, was the plot of the first Terminator movie, and for the multimillions who saw it, the images of future machine war—of hunter-killer drones flying above a wasted landscape—are unforgettable. Since then, as Hollywood’s special effects took off, there have been three sequels, during which the original terminator somehow morphed into a friendlier figure on-screen, and even more miraculously, off-screen, into the humanoid governor of California.

  Meanwhile, hunter-killer drones haven’t waited for Hollywood. Actual unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), pilotless surveillance and assassination drones armed with Hellfire missiles, are now patrolling our expanding global battlefields, hunting down human beings. And in the Pentagon and the labs of defense contractors, UAV supporters are already talking about and working on next-generation machines. Post-2020, according to these dreamers, drones will be able to fly and fight, discern enemies and incinerate them without human decision-making. They’re even discussing just how to program human ethics—or, rather, American ethics—into them. />
  It may never happen, but it should still give us pause that there are people eager to bring the fifth iteration of Terminator not to local multiplexes, but to the skies of our perfectly real world—and that the Pentagon is already funding them to do so.

  As futuristic weapons planning went, UAVs started out pretty low-tech in the 1990s. Even in 2009, the most commonplace of the two American armed drones, the Predator, cost only $4.5 million a pop, while the most advanced model, the Reaper—both are produced by General Atomics Aeronautical Systems of San Diego—came in at $15 million. (Compare that to $350 million for a single F-22 Raptor, which proved essentially useless in America’s recent counterinsurgency wars.) It’s lucky UAVs are cheap, since they are also prone to crashing.

  UAVs came to life as surveillance tools during the wars over the former Yugoslavia, were armed by February 2001, were hastily pressed into operation in Afghanistan after 9/11, and like many weapons systems, began to evolve generationally. As they did, they developed from surveillance eyes in the sky into something far more sinister and previously restricted to terra firma: assassins. One of the earliest armed acts of a CIA-piloted Predator, back in November 2002, was an assassination mission over Yemen in which a jeep, reputedly transporting six suspected al-Qaeda operatives, was incinerated.

  Today, the advanced UAV, the Reaper, housing up to four Hellfire missiles and two 500-pound bombs, packs the sort of punch once reserved for a jet fighter. Dispatched to the skies over the farthest reaches of the American empire, powered by a 1,000-horsepower turbo prop engine at its rear, the Reaper can fly at up to 21,000 feet for up to twenty-two hours (until fuel runs short), streaming back live footage from three cameras (or sending it to troops on the ground)—16,000 hours of video a month. There is no need to worry about a pilot dozing off during those twenty-two hours. The human crews “piloting” the drones, often from thousands of miles away, just change shifts when tired. So the planes are left to endlessly cruise Iraqi, Afghan, and Pakistani skies relentlessly seeking out, like so many terminators, specific enemies whose identities can, under certain circumstances (or so the claims go) be determined even through the walls of houses. When a “target” is found and agreed upon—in Pakistan, the permission of Pakistani officials to fire is no longer considered necessary—and a missile or bomb is unleashed, the cameras are so powerful that “pilots” can watch the facial expressions of those being liquidated on their computer monitors “as the bomb hits.”