Airstrikes Not Answer To War In Afghanistan

Team Infidel

Forum Spin Doctor
Atlanta Journal-Constitution
September 25, 2008
Pg. 17

By John A. Robinson, For the Journal-Constitution
The U.S. military does not target innocent civilians. Period. I realize this assertion should restate the obvious for most Americans, but when the number-two ranking lawyer in the U.S. Air Force implies otherwise, I can not allow the potential ambiguity to go unanswered.
Last week, Major Gen. Charles J. Dunlap, Jr., the Air Force deputy staff judge advocate, penned a personal piece in the AJC that urged unfettered airpower in the war in Afghanistan. His message about civilian deaths: you can't make an omelet without breaking a few eggs. Civilian eggs, that is.
After seven years of mostly unconventional warfare, you'd think "airpower first" advocates such as Dunlap would have learned the strategic lesson that General David Petraeus recently summarized: "You don't kill or capture your way out of an industrial-strength insurgency."
The issue isn't whether ruthless Taliban use civilians as shields, hoping to thwart a squeamish coalition from bombing. They do. The issue is what Americans do about it.
Dunlap prefers we ignore it because to do otherwise is to "reward" the Taliban. We mustn't "deprive" our troops of their "most effective weapon."
You'd think we faced this dilemma on a daily basis. We don't. Our intelligence and command and control are a lot better than Dunlap gives us credit for.
Current airpower rules of engagement in Afghanistan, while classified, fully consider the implications of collateral damage, while at the same time ensuring we fully prosecute the fight.
U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates recently said that "we will do everything in our power to find new and better ways" to prosecute this tough fight in Afghanistan.
If you're keeping score, that better way is probably something other than the way that just resulted in the deaths of between five and 90 Afghan civilians.
One way to do that is to commit additional ground forces to the fight. General David McKiernan, commander of all ground forces in Afghanistan, recently called for three additional combat brigades, beyond the brigade-plus that President Bush had already ordered forward.
Additional ground forces provide commanders with options to take the fight to the enemy on the ground, as opposed to only from the air.
The former can be far more discerning than the latter, especially when civilians are present.
A 2,000-pound bomb en route to a target that turns out to have civilians mixed among the targeted enemy can't be recalled. And it doesn't discriminate. A soldier who fixes his site on an enemy combatant, only to have a child walk through the site picture, can keep himself from pulling the trigger.
Or consider this: You take your child out for errands and you stop by the local bank. Gunmen storm the bank and take your child hostage.
The first police on the scene simply launch grenades into the bank. And your child? That's why police teams have SWAT and why joint force commanders like McKiernan want enough ground troops to provide more than one option.
In three tours supporting the fight in Afghanistan, I have personally been in the thick of life-and-death decisions just like these. When airpower was the best option -- and it often was -- I vigorously advocated its use and championed its effects. And yes, mistakes were sometimes made, but far more often we obliged the enemy's desire to meet his maker -- on our terms. True moral courage is knowing when to take the hard right over the easy wrong.
John Robinson is a military targeteer and an Army chief warrant officer based in Atlanta. He has served as chief of ground targeting in Afghanistan and the Army's targeting liaison to the Air Force headquarters supporting both Afghanistan and Iraq. These are his personal views.
 
Excuse me, but I'm not convinced.
Airstrikes are messy. Let's be accurate please. An airstrike is to call a airplane to drop bombs. If you do that in an area where there is civilians, it's bound to make collateral damage. You cant say that it's an accident when you know that innocent people will get hurt.
You skillfuly use the bank and SWAT teams exemple... but here is my question:
why you dont abandon the attack when you know that civilians will get hurt?

You have a superior force. You surround a weaker enemy. The only options you give him is:
Fighting: It would be like commiting suicide.
Retreating: Like a suicide when you are surrounded.
and finally... Hiding next to civilians: This way, they may survive if you give up. Or at least, they wont die alone, and they will make you look like the bad guys.

I think that it's best to call it a day. And leave... nobody on earth can afford to shed innocent blood. Once you do that... You are like cursed.

I dont like this Body count method to count success. You cant destroy all the Talibans. You kill some today, tomorrow they will hire more.
So it's not a problem to let them flee to spare civilians.

I may be naive, but it's my opinion on the question.
 
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