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You are here: Home / Foreign Affairs / Military / Mistakes Were Made

Mistakes Were Made

by John Cole|  June 3, 20099:05 am| 88 Comments

This post is in: Military, War on Terror aka GSAVE®

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Why do these guys hate the military:

A military investigation has concluded that American personnel made significant errors in carrying out some of the airstrikes in western Afghanistan on May 4 that killed dozens of Afghan civilians, according to a senior American military official.

The official said the civilian death toll would probably have been reduced if American air crews and forces on the ground had followed strict rules devised to prevent civilian casualties. Had the rules been followed, at least some of the strikes by American warplanes against half a dozen targets over seven hours would have been aborted.

***

Any American victory would be “hollow and unsustainable” if it led to popular resentment among Afghanistan’s citizens, General McChrystal told the Senate Armed Services Committee during a confirmation hearing.

According to the senior military official, the report on the May 4 raids found that one plane was cleared to attack Taliban fighters, but then had to circle back and did not reconfirm the target before dropping bombs, leaving open the possibility that the militants had fled the site or that civilians had entered the target area in the intervening few minutes.

In another case, a compound of buildings where militants were massing for a possible counterattack against American and Afghan troops was struck in violation of rules that required a more imminent threat to justify putting high-density village dwellings at risk, the official said.

“In several instances where there was a legitimate threat, the choice of how to deal with that threat did not comply with the standing rules of engagement,” said the military official, who provided a broad summary of the report’s initial findings on the condition of anonymity because the inquiry was not yet complete.

It just seems so entirely uncontroversial to me that killing dozens of innocents in air strikes does not advance our goals in the region, and quite the opposite, does grave damage to our mission (whatever that may be these days). We’ll see if anything changes.

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88Comments

  1. 1.

    cleek

    June 3, 2009 at 9:20 am

    using my vast collection of highly-accurate and detailed fighter jet models and a spool of monofilament line, i have recreated the scenario in my garage. and based on this simulation, i can assure you that what is alleged could not have happened as the aircraft in question do not have the turning radius required to bomb, turn and bomb again in the time between explosions. clearly, this was a false flag operation of an al Queda-linked terrorist cell.

    bababooey

  2. 2.

    tc125231

    June 3, 2009 at 9:29 am

    Actually, it does make it tough on the troops, and there isn’t much else to say.

    I also think that it offers an interesting note on “murder” vs. killing. Nobody in the US calls our soldiers “murderers” for stuff like this, nor should they.

    The Taliban probably does.

    Murder is a term reserved for killers who knowingly killed a human being without social sanction. Abortion is a legal activity, and does not constitute killing of a human being without social sanction.

    Thus law-abiding Americans would not call it Murder.

    Bill O’Reilly and most of the GOP does.

    Draw your own conclusions.

  3. 3.

    JR

    June 3, 2009 at 9:29 am

    @cleek: I’ve checked the kerning of your response, and based on technologies available at 9:20 a.m. on June 3rd, 2009, I don’t think you actually wrote that comment when you claim to have, which makes you worse than Hitler and a pimple on America’s collective ass combined.

  4. 4.

    Bill E Pilgrim

    June 3, 2009 at 9:29 am

    I count among my friends a woman originally from Iraq and check in with her from time to time. I catch her up on things from the US perspective and she tells me what she hears from friends and family in Iraq. She often reports things like that many people in Iraq are convinced that all of the biggest terrorist attacks there are secretly carried out by Israel, with the support of the US. “This is what everyone is saying there” she tells me. She also asks me if I think there’s any truth to the rumors about Bush being behind the World Trade Center and all the rest of it.

    She’s not a wild-eyed consipiracy theorist, not that type. This is just what she hears from contacts in Iraq, what the buzz is there. I disabuse her of these ideas as gently but firmly as I can, explaining how little sense it would make for George W Bush for example over the last few years to have wanted increased terror attacks in Iraq, at least from the US political perspective.

    My point is this: All it takes is for something like what just happened in Afghanistan for them to see it as proof that all of the other rumors are true also.

    I’d like to say something about Caesar’s wife, that if you’re going to invade countries and stomp around in entirely foreign cultures and religions (and that may be neccesary, even some of my Arabic friends thought it was neccesary in the case of Afghanistan for instance), then you damn well better not be commiting crimes there that can be pointed to and just make the whole situation worse, i.e. the reason we invaded to begin with.

    I think the analogy fails however mainly because the “beyond reproach” part is now way back there in the rear view mirror, waving bye bye.

  5. 5.

    Scruffy McSnufflepuss

    June 3, 2009 at 9:39 am

    It just seems so entirely uncontroversial to me that killing dozens of innocents in air strikes does not advance our goals in the region, and quite the opposite, does grave damage to our mission (whatever that may be these days).

    Why do you hate America?

  6. 6.

    Persia

    June 3, 2009 at 9:41 am

    I’m probably looking too hard for a silver lining, but I do find myself somewhat relieved we actually admitted we fucked up.

  7. 7.

    Throwin Stones

    June 3, 2009 at 9:41 am

    Hearts and Minds.

  8. 8.

    sgwhiteinfla

    June 3, 2009 at 9:42 am

    I really think that the civilian casualties are what got McKiernan shit canned so abruptly and yet nobody in the media has even pursued that angle.

  9. 9.

    wilfred

    June 3, 2009 at 9:42 am

    All it takes is for something like what just happened in Afghanistan for them to see it as proof that all of the other rumors are true also.

    It’s easy to laugh at people when they go off on these conspiracy theories but the truth is that here images of dead Arabs/Muslims, killed directly or indirectly by the US, are on TV every single day, because they happen every single day. The numbers since 9/11 are staggering, really.

    So when someone asks you the Arabic equivalent of cui bono? – what would you say?

    I have a list of questions compiled over the past year that I simply had no answer to.

    One more thing – intention is not as important to Muslims as it is to Western people. It doesn’t work to say that we don’t mean to kill children while other people do. People here have their own way of thinking.

  10. 10.

    John Cole

    June 3, 2009 at 9:45 am

    One more thing – intention is not as important to Muslims as it is to Western people.

    Can you elaborate on this? Can anyone else?

  11. 11.

    Bill E Pilgrim

    June 3, 2009 at 9:48 am

    @wilfred:
    Yes exactly, it feels entirely different even hearing it from someone from the country where it’s happening, it’s all still basically invisible in any real sense to those in the US, or theoretical.

    Where are you?

  12. 12.

    JR

    June 3, 2009 at 9:48 am

    The night of 9/11, I went out to my car with a stick of white shoe polish and wrote “Make NO Distinction: Nuke Kabul!” on my windshield. (I also wrote “Give Blood” on a side window, but much less prominently). At that moment, I was a supporter of a collective national retribution against Afghanistan for the Taliban’s role in the attacks and in hiding al Qaeda. I was, at the time, thinking like a nationalist. Now, if someone had been thinking like a Christian supremacist (paging Ms. Coulter and her fan base) or like an anti-Muslim bigot (paging Ms. Malkin), they may have thought “the hell with Kabul, let’s turn the entire region into a smoldering glass crater” (or rather, “we should invade their countries, kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity”).

    In that mindset, it doesn’t matter if you engender a lifelong hatred of the United States in the hearts of the local population through actions like air strikes outside the rules of engagement, because that 13 year-old kid who decides to take up arms to avenge his family’s death would be someone we’d eventually have to kill either way (once, you know, we get a REAL man in as President, like Tom Tancredo or Rudy Giuliani). In that sense, we’re not setting back any national interest, we’re just getting a jump on the eventual program.

    I have no doubt that there are plenty of people inside and outside government who still think that global Muslim v. Christian Armageddon is not only inevitable but desirable (I think Jerry Boykin’s public comments were a comparatively tame version of that mentality). Under that misguided mentality, what’s a few dozen Pakistani or Afghan civilians?

    That mindset is going to get a lot of American soldiers killed, unless we make sure its adherents are pushed out of positions of authority within the government (civil and military), or at least relegated to areas where they in no way affect military or foreign policy.

  13. 13.

    comrade scott's agenda of rage

    June 3, 2009 at 9:49 am

    Killing tons of civilians and not giving a shit about it worked so well for us in Vietnam.

  14. 14.

    Persia

    June 3, 2009 at 9:52 am

    @wilfred: Wilfred, I would argue that intention doesn’t really matter to Westerners either, when they’re the victims. It’s pretty universal that when someone bombs your ass, you don’t really care what their intentions were.

  15. 15.

    wilfred

    June 3, 2009 at 9:55 am

    Sure. In Islamic law the intention of a person who commits a crime doesn’t matter as much as the crime itself. The reason for this is that, to Muslims, only G-d knows the real intention of a person. That’s why the three options available to a victim of a crime, or his/her relatives, remain the same whether or not the person who commits the crime intended it or not.

    Let’s say someone kills a relative of mine. If the person’s guilt is established then I would have the right to take literal revenge, accept blood money, or forgive the murderer. This last, btw, is stressed as the best thing to do. In any case, it would be me who decided intention, and I could base my course of action on what I believed to be the case, or not. That is one aspect of shariah.

    This is essentially lex talionis. It persisted in Western countries until not so long ago, relatively speaking. Whether or not a person meant it is not really relevant. We’re only surprised by that because we have forgotten that we once did things the same way and have convinced ourselves that our way is the best way.

  16. 16.

    wilfred

    June 3, 2009 at 9:59 am

    BTW, a famous example of how literal this can be happened in Saudi Arabia a few years ago. Someone had left a package in a shop and another man picked it up, found out who the owner was and returned it to the owner. He was charged with theft because he took something that did not belong to him. The owner forgave him, of course, but this case was cited to me by a judge who told me that a Western, or non-Muslim person, would not be charged with a crime in that case because he would be unaware of the law.
    Lots to know, sometimes.

  17. 17.

    peach flavored shampoo

    June 3, 2009 at 10:01 am

    did not reconfirm the target before dropping bombs

    I’m literally dumbstruck that they have any rules at all with regard to bombing Brown People. I’da figured the commands would be something like “kill ’em all, and if that fails, kill more of ’em”.

  18. 18.

    Persia

    June 3, 2009 at 10:05 am

    @peach flavored shampoo: The U.S. Military, for its many flaws, is far more decent and honorable than, say, the Bush Administration.

  19. 19.

    Punchy

    June 3, 2009 at 10:10 am

    Af-gone-istan

  20. 20.

    Ejoiner

    June 3, 2009 at 10:14 am

    Just slightly off topic:

    Currently reading “Power, Faith, and Fantasy” by Michael Oren which details the history of US involvement in the ME since 1776. Just got to the section on the imperialism era of the late 1800’s and it’s crazy how little has changed in over 100 years. If someone set the book down with no date references you would swear it was just a contemporary news report from the past decade.

    Reminds me of a quote I heard somewhere:
    “This has all happened before and it will all happen again.”

  21. 21.

    gex

    June 3, 2009 at 10:15 am

    @Bill E Pilgrim: The difficulty is the fog of war. Errors or crimes will occur – that’s just a fact. But we mitigate that by being vigilant and trying to prevent errors or bring criminals to justice. Or we should. But instead we see ourselves not following our own guidelines and making arguments like we should be looking forward not back.

    Those who are dead set against us won’t care how we deal with those issues. But many others do. Our conduct in WWII helped our troops face Germans who’d rather surrender than fight and built the American reputation around the world. The neocon right and the tribalist/American-exceptionalist base have thrown all that in the trash.

  22. 22.

    cleek

    June 3, 2009 at 10:17 am

    “This has all happened before and it will all happen again.”

    the Muslim is the Cylon of Colonial Fascism.

  23. 23.

    Brick Oven Bill

    June 3, 2009 at 10:18 am

    America has no national interest in the Middle East, other than keeping Russia or China from seizing the fossil fuel reserves of the region. Our presence should be limited to remote outposts. The President thinks he can get the Muslim world to like him, based on his experiences talking to these people on college campuses. It won’t work.

    The candidate who promised to pull one brigade per month out of Iraq starting in January seems to be increasing America’s footprint in the Middle East. This is bad policy. We should come home.

  24. 24.

    The Moar You Know

    June 3, 2009 at 10:18 am

    One more thing – intention is not as important to Muslims as it is to Western people. It doesn’t work to say that we don’t mean to kill children while other people do. People here have their own way of thinking.

    I understand your point (and the religious point) but if someone killed a child or spouse of mine, their intentions would be pretty irrelevant to me. I would want them dead.

  25. 25.

    wilfred

    June 3, 2009 at 10:29 am

    @The Moar You Know:

    Sure. But the Qur’an urges people to forgive. Few do, but it’s the person’s right to take revenge.

    My Iraqi colleagues were astonished to hear that Green, the soldier who raped and then killed a 14 year old girl, and then murdered her family was spared the death penalty. They asked me how that could be when the US routinely murders anyone it wants and slaps the tag of terrorist on them, or claims faulty intelligence when they kill an innocent person.

    The more people ask questions to a man that he cannot answer in good faith the more he hopes for a better world for his children. This one is shot to pieces.

  26. 26.

    Bill E Pilgrim

    June 3, 2009 at 10:31 am

    @gex:

    The neocon right and the tribalist/American-exceptionalist base have thrown all that in the trash.

    That’s my point. What people saw from Abu Ghraib is so far from beyond reproach that projecting a positive image has been a lost cause ever since. I mean that’s hard to blame on the fog of war.

    And re that whole fog of war idea, yes but so do we imagine that no one knew this going in? I mean if “stuff happens” in war, then you’d better be very careful about launching into one.

    This is one of the things that just amazed me watching US TV around 2003, how cavalier people were, some average citizen would be interviewed saying “Well, yeah I think we just gotta go in there, to Baghdad, and get ridda him, and..” as if it was a goddamn picnic, or video game. I’d think “do you have any idea that this is a real place, with millions of people?”

    Well, more than a million fewer now, actually.

  27. 27.

    Brick Oven Bill

    June 3, 2009 at 10:33 am

    Re: “This has all happened before and it will all happen again.”

    Ejoiner is correct. Also see England in Iraq, France in Morocco (The Conquest of Morocco, Porch is a good book), and Napoleon in Egypt. The President needs to read these books instead of trying to get everybody to like him. Middle Eastern societies are built upon the belief systems established by Mohammed and are not going to change.

    This belief system is based on us (Believer) and them (Infidel). In our absence, they turn on each other. In our presence, they turn on the foreigner. It has always been this way.

  28. 28.

    Robert Sneddon

    June 3, 2009 at 10:37 am

    The US military, like all effective militaries is funded and trained and tasked to do one job — kill people and blow stuff up, on command. If the US government tasks the US military to operate aggressively in other parts of the world they are going to kill people and blow stuff up. A lot of the people killed and maimed will not be enemy soldiers, that’s just the way the world is. Either live with it or stop tasking them to kill people and blow stuff up. Thinking fluffy-bunny thoughts about your military being choosy who they are going to kill and blow up may make you feel better but it’s not going to change things at the sharp end.

    If it’s any consolation to you as US citizens (it’s buggerall consolation to those at the receiving end of the $500 billion dollar a year US war-making machine) then take comfort in the fact that your military are only killing and maiming a few thousand collateral casualties a year as they play Taliban whack-a-mole and GTA: Baghdad Checkpoint. They’re not running B-52 carpet-bomb strikes through the Hindu Kush like they used to in Vietnam when the collateral casualty counts ran into the millions.

  29. 29.

    schrodinger's cat

    June 3, 2009 at 10:39 am

    One more reason why the US and its intentions are suspect in Iraq, Afghanistan and even Pakistan is the legacy of colonialism. After their terrible experiences with the British Empire, the people in these countries see the US misadventures as a continuation of what happened to them under the British. That’s one reason I never bought the ” they will greet us with flowers in Baghdad” rhetoric, I knew that was not going to happen, not in a million years.

  30. 30.

    gex

    June 3, 2009 at 10:39 am

    @The Moar You Know: I think that you can see this if you consider the differences between negligence, manslaughter, and murder. While the victim’s family may not care about intent, the legal system sure seems to.

  31. 31.

    gex

    June 3, 2009 at 10:42 am

    @Bill E Pilgrim: Oh I wasn’t disagreeing with you. Just chiming in.

  32. 32.

    ricky

    June 3, 2009 at 10:50 am

    Any American victory would be “hollow and unsustainable” if it led to popular resentment among Afghanistan’s citizens, General McChrystal told the Senate Armed Services Committee during a confirmation hearing.

    This guy will not make in in the NFL. Hey, a win’s a win.

  33. 33.

    Svensker

    June 3, 2009 at 10:53 am

    I know this is impossible, since We are Good and They are Bad, but if any They out there treated the U.S. like we treat many parts of the world, we Americans would be beside ourselves with anger. We’d be planting roadside IEDs and blowing up grocery stores right and left. Not to mention going to the UN and demanding the UN stop the aggressor.

    We have totally lost the ability to put ourselves in other people’s shoes. We’ve become not only arrogant and narcissistic, but also willfully ignorant. Buncha spoiled no-nuthin brats, mostly.

    Hey, maybe I DO hate America.

  34. 34.

    Bill E Pilgrim

    June 3, 2009 at 10:55 am

    @gex:

    Me neither. Blowing off steam but not in your direction.

  35. 35.

    Svensker

    June 3, 2009 at 11:00 am

    Hey, how come I’m moderated? Did I mention s h o e s?
    Or C i a l i s?

  36. 36.

    gex

    June 3, 2009 at 11:03 am

    @Bill E Pilgrim: It’s still better now right? The wingnuts are still ridiculous, but at least they aren’t driving right now. I think they get to rest a bit easier when their guys are in charge (where did the militia movement go for the last 8 years?) but we can’t because the Dems will tack right if you don’t keep an eye on ’em. I don’t get it.

  37. 37.

    HyperIon

    June 3, 2009 at 11:07 am

    Any American victory would be “hollow and unsustainable”

    Still chasing after that undefined “victory”.
    SOMEBODY DEFINE VICTORY IN AF/PAK.
    And explain when/how will achieve it (however, hollow it might be)?

  38. 38.

    Phoenix Woman

    June 3, 2009 at 11:17 am

    The Pentagon never forgave the Dems for finally cutting off Nixon’s Vietnam funding and forcing him out six years after he’d promised to get us gone, so they’ve made sure to push the “Dems hate the military” line really, really hard ever since. This means that, whenever a Democrat becomes president — especially one with no military service in his background — he is so very easily rolled by the brass.

    It happened even with Carter, and Carter was one of Rickover’s boys. It really happened to Clinton, and it looks like it’s happening again with Obama.

  39. 39.

    someguy

    June 3, 2009 at 11:18 am

    What people saw from Abu Ghraib is so far from beyond reproach that projecting a positive image has been a lost cause ever since. I mean that’s hard to blame on the fog of war.

    We can’t project a positive image, and probably will never be able to, thanks to our 250 year+ history of racism and imperial temper tantrums. Don’t kid yourself – we may have helped out here or there in WWI and WWII, but the Russians and Chinese carried the brunt of those burdens, we just took the lead roles in our own hagiographic retelling of the tale. We were late arriving, contributed relatively little compared to other countries, and then overstayed our welcome. Even when they ‘welcomed us with flowers’ the subtext was, “thanks, now get the fuck out.” Peace demonstrations in Europe in the 70s and 80s didn’t draw millions of people to the gates of U.S. bases because they loved us. They wanted us gone.

    The rest of the world views us as fat, stupid, greedy, venal, violent and overindulged swine who deserve a ridiculously harsh comeuppance. For the most part, we give them good reason to think that way, and as long as we keep consuming over 80% of the world’s resources, and arrogantly dictating how everybody else should live, nothing will change. It’s fun to talk about tactics in Iraq or Afghanistan but that has nothing to do with solving the actual problem, which is they hate us because we give them a lot of good reasons to.

  40. 40.

    Bill E Pilgrim

    June 3, 2009 at 11:22 am

    @gex:

    My Iraqi friend is somewhat hopeful, about Obama I mean. She’s mainly very happy for us.

    They’re more world weary and cynical, to put it mildly, than we are. She used to tell me “Eh, George W Bush, Sadaam– they’re all the same. What’s the difference?” She sees Obama being President as positive, but much less optimistically than we tend to, even those of us who aren’t that optimistic.

    We’ll see I guess. Bombing civilians isn’t helping, that’s for sure.

  41. 41.

    joe from Lowell

    June 3, 2009 at 11:38 am

    We’ll see if anything changes.

    The theater commander for the Af-Pak War was fired less than a week after this episode. I’ve always wondered if that was the reason.

  42. 42.

    Persia

    June 3, 2009 at 11:42 am

    @Svensker: Word. Look at BOB’s ridiculous bullshit:

    In our absence, they turn on each other. In our presence, they turn on the foreigner. It has always been this way.

    Just Google “Sonia Sotomayor” if you believe only the Evil Arabs pull this crap.

  43. 43.

    Stefan

    June 3, 2009 at 11:54 am

    In that mindset, it doesn’t matter if you engender a lifelong hatred of the United States in the hearts of the local population through actions like air strikes outside the rules of engagement, because that 13 year-old kid who decides to take up arms to avenge his family’s death would be someone we’d eventually have to kill either way (once, you know, we get a REAL man in as President, like Tom Tancredo or Rudy Giuliani). In that sense, we’re not setting back any national interest, we’re just getting a jump on the eventual program.

    I think the word is spelled “pogrom”, not “program”….

  44. 44.

    Brachiator

    June 3, 2009 at 11:55 am

    It just seems so entirely uncontroversial to me that killing dozens of innocents in air strikes does not advance our goals in the region, and quite the opposite, does grave damage to our mission (whatever that may be these days). We’ll see if anything changes.

    I get the impression from news reports that the nature of the terrain, the way that Afghan villages are laid out, and the integration of the Taleban (or alleged Taleban) into Afghan society make civilian casualties more common than in Iraq, where fighting took place in larger cities and towns, and which thus precluded big ass air strikes.

    So, would it be better not to use air strikes, and depend on ground fighting, which would put US forces more at risk? But then again, I’m not even sure that ground fighting would be effective. Worse, efforts to turn Afghans into effective fighters against the Taleben don’t appear to be going well, not on a wide scale.

    On the other hand, a number of recent news reports coming out of public radio interviews suggests that the mere presence of US forces in Afghanistan is a burr in the side of many Afghans, so the equating civilian casualties with a failure to win hearts and minds doesn’t seem to reflect the complexity of the situation there.

    Also, a BBC News report I recently saw suggested that the Taleban are claiming that the fact that some US attacks are directed from Pakistan caused them to increase their efforts to topple the Pakistan government. Again, the consequences of our actions in the region cannot be reduced to simple equations that civilian casualties hurt our cause.

    The June 2 broadcast of the public radio program Fresh Air featured a Terry Gross interview with NY Times reporter Dexter Filkins which touches on these issues. That interview is available on iTunes and can also be reached for listening via this link.

  45. 45.

    jonas

    June 3, 2009 at 11:56 am

    Remember that according to Sarah Palin, McChrystal is being “reckless” and “hurting our cause” in Afghanistan by releasing this report and admitting that our airstrikes have alienated the civilian population.

    I thank God everyday that this woman was kept as far away as possible from any substantial political power in this country.

  46. 46.

    Svensker

    June 3, 2009 at 12:02 pm

    Also, what the hell is our goal in Afghanistan? What is the point? And how do we plan to get to this mythical goal?

    I say bring back isolationism. Trade with all, leave our soldiers out of it. (Interesting how the libertarians and Quakers come together on this one. )

  47. 47.

    mutt

    June 3, 2009 at 12:20 pm

    Someguy # 39 gets to the meat of it. I was in Viet Nam for a year, 68-9. Its was a world class war crime, a horrific chapter in world history.
    Today, any number of wilfully ignorant Viet vets will tell you how we were defending “democracy”, and how WE were betrayed.
    Whiney, cowardly bullshit.
    There is one & only one question about both Iraq & Afghanistan- how many people will we kill & maim before we leave.
    I THOUGHT, back in November, it might be some fewer. Now it looks like it will be a lot more, & we’ll toss Paki’s into the mix.
    My expectations for tis bunch was very low (hell, they are Democrats) but even my low expectations were unmet.
    Ugly, ugly business. Bi partisan war crimes, public war for private profit.
    Good grounds to hate us……

  48. 48.

    Michael

    June 3, 2009 at 12:33 pm

    Sloppy training and an internal culture of disregard for civilian populations is what Our Military (most particularly the USAF) has become over the past decade.

    I say that as a former blue suit.

  49. 49.

    SteveAR

    June 3, 2009 at 1:17 pm

    I notice that Mr. Cole is complicit in contributing to the hatred of the U.S. military by radical Islamist jihadis willing to commit terrorist acts, such as the one in Arkansas the other day. Of course, it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that those like Mr. Cole don’t even believe there is a war on.

  50. 50.

    Brachiator

    June 3, 2009 at 1:17 pm

    @mutt:

    There is one & only one question about both Iraq & Afghanistan- how many people will we kill & maim before we leave.

    Goddamn, I am so tired of whiny-assed Americans, both liberal and conservative, who believe that the universe revolves around their narcisisstic asses.

    Whether we go or stay, the Taliban and other groups will bring misery to Afghanistan, and may well de-stabilize Pakistan.

    The PBS program Frontline World recently presented a chilling program on the Taliban in Pakistan, who were so terrorizing the people in the Swat area, that they were listening to the radio for the Taliban’s instructions about proper behavior even though they disagreed with everything the Taliban represents. Meanwhile, one Talib Rush Limbaugh was declaring, “I swear to God, if you do not obey us, I will blow myself up in the city square and take hundreds with me!”

    In some areas, the Taliban have blown up every girl’s school and herded young men into their own education camps where math and science are forbidden, and only the Koran is taught, in Arabic, a language the boys do not understand.

    And then, there are the women who have been brutalized, who have had acid thrown in their faces.

    One Pakistan youth, fully on board with the Taliban, asserted that it should be simple for the Pakistan government to ban women from going out in public since they had easily banned the use of plastic bags in stores.

    The Taliban are the equivalent of the Cambodian Khmer Rouge, who sadly helped come to prominence as an unexpected consequence of American action. On the other hand, while America and the West sat back and wrung their hands helplessly, the Khmer Rouge brought death and terror to millions, until the North Vietnamese rolled in and put a stop to it.

    Millions of people in Pakistan have been displaced from cities and huddled into camps as the government and the Pakistan army fight.

    And yet there is often little discussion here or in the US in general on what is happening in Pakistan, except for the typical conservative BS (bomb them all) and liberal tripe (woe is us for committing war crimes).

    I don’t know what the freakin answer here is, but to reduce what is happening in Afghanistan and Pakistan to US-caused pain and the simple-minded formula of “public war for private property” is beyond ignorant, and utterly repugnant.

  51. 51.

    wilfred

    June 3, 2009 at 1:28 pm

    @Brachiator:

    You don’t know what you’re talking about. I spent 3 months in Swat Valley, mainly in Madyan, but as far north as the entry into the Malakand and every single man in that Valley was armed, many of them had fought in Afghanistan, in fact were from there, and thousands had offered to help Saddam in the first Gulf War.

    You use the word Taliban as if there were no disticntion between that formation and average Swati – most, if not all, despise Pakistan and robbed any punjabi they could, punjabi being their word for Pakistanis in general.

    So the Pakistani Aramy was received with candies and flowers in Swat, eh? That’s not a defense of Taliban, but of people who don’t like their homes invaded by people who don’t even speak the same language.

    Oh, and where were you when Israel was killing hundreds and hundreds of Palestinian women and children and dropping white phosphorus on them?

    Hypocritical piece of shit. Shut the fuck up before talking about things you know nothing about.

  52. 52.

    JohnR

    June 3, 2009 at 1:33 pm

    On the one hand, on the other hand, etc. The trouble is, I don’t figure there’s any way to eliminate even dumb mistakes in warfare. These sound like the normal “gray-area”, “act-first, think-later” mistakes that people do. When you’ve got a load and a target, I understand that it’s really hard to not drop that load on that target, even if it might possibly be a mistake. When you drop area-effect weapons, people die, and the odds are pretty high in these kinds of actions that many of those people will not be “legitimate targets”. I don’t care how careful you are, I don’t figure there’s any way to avoid that. The real question should be “What is the best way to reach our goal?”, and if these kind of operations are unacceptable, then they should be scrapped, no matter how militarily effective they might be. If the decision is made to continue to murder civilians, then that should be clearly understood by all of us as an acceptable part of the war aims, and there should be no high-minded talk about “We don’t do that”. We actually do, and have done so the better part of a century, if not longer, No matter how people creatively redefine them, murder and torture have been and continue to be done in our names, and we are all responsible for it.

  53. 53.

    HyperIon

    June 3, 2009 at 1:53 pm

    @wilfred:

    You don’t know what you’re talking about.

    It would be more useful for the rest of us if you would point out exactly what Brachiator does not know. He was mostly repeating what he saw on a Frontline.

    I’m happy to listen to your POV especially as you have actually been there but your verbal venom is distracting.

  54. 54.

    TenguPhule

    June 3, 2009 at 1:59 pm

    Oh, and where were you when Israel was killing hundreds and hundreds of Palestinian women and children and dropping white phosphorus on them?

    Good ol one-sided wilfred. Because its not like Palestinians are treated like shit and exploited by their own ‘muslim brethren’.
    It’s not like hundreds of Israeli women and children were deliberately targeted and murdered by Palestinians.

    Oh no, it’s only puppies and rainbows and no-fault insurance.

  55. 55.

    Brachiator

    June 3, 2009 at 2:02 pm

    @wilfred:

    I spent 3 months in Swat Valley, mainly in Madyan, but as far north as the entry into the Malakand and every single man in that Valley was armed, many of them had fought in Afghanistan, in fact were from there, and thousands had offered to help Saddam in the first Gulf War.

    Quite simply. I don’t believe you. And even if I did, I would doubt any observation you might make. You have never been an honest broker of information.

    I know a fair amount about the region from personal experience. I never make reference to it here because no one could easily verify its accuracy.

    The Frontline documentary I mentioned and the Fresh Air interview I referred to contains direct, first-hand testimony that people can watch and come to their own conclusions about.

    The three insightful Frontline documentaries about Pakistan can be viewed here. I strongly recommend this to anyone who has an interest in the region and of what our future policy here might be.

    Note that I never claimed that the Pakistan army was sweentess and light. In fact, the Pakistan military and intelligence service has been complicit in the present crisis. And in a previous post, I mentioned the insanity of a Pakistani army officer happily noting how he had to destroy an entire village in order to pacify it from Taliban control (shades of Viet Nam). Elsewhere I noted how Pakistan lied to US officials (who were eager to eat up this crap) by claiming that they were moving on a Talib leader, even as a reporter sat with that leader and observed that there was absolutely no military operation taking place at all in the surrounding area.

    I said, and say again, that I tire of idiot liberals and goofball conservatives who reduce what is happening in these areas to the evils of America. This was the thrust of my post, not a defense of the Pakistan army.

    This would apply to some of what is going on in Israel and the Palestinian areas as well.

    You might have understood this if you didn’t have your head permanently up your ass with your own narrow agenda.

  56. 56.

    wilfred

    June 3, 2009 at 2:04 pm

    Fuck off. Nothing reveals the hypocrisy of phony liberals than their misdirection when the question of Palestine comes up.

    Jews killing Palestinian women and children? No worries, mate – Muslims do worse.

    Besides the Israel Firsters are honor bound to defend the murder of Afghan women and children because if they didn’t then Americans would have to wonder how we could condemn our own crimes but ignore those of the Israelis.

    Nice try asshole. Try some some Rachel Corrie jokes. About time to start hammering the shvarzer Muslim, no?

  57. 57.

    Brachiator

    June 3, 2009 at 2:32 pm

    @wilfred:

    The system ate my original reply, which is probably a good thing. Here is a shorter take.

    You don’t know what you’re talking about. I spent 3 months in Swat Valley, mainly in Madyan, but as far north as the entry into the Malakand..

    I don’t believe you. You have never been an honest broker of information. And even if I did believe you, I wouldn’t trust your conclusions.

    I recommend the Frontline World Pakistan documentaries, which can be viewed here. I trust that people can make up their own minds.

    I noted before that I never defended the Pakistan military. There are many reasons to distrust them, which I have mentioned in previous posts.

    The thrust of my post was to deride solipsistic US-centric views of the problems in the region, which may also apply to some US views of Israel and the Palestinians.

    But as I said in the phantom post, you missed this since your head is too far up your arse to recognize anything but your own narrow agenda.

  58. 58.

    Little Dreamer

    June 3, 2009 at 2:35 pm

    Okay, I’m confused.

    Did Obama order these types of airstrikes or is the problem that we have the same military that worked under Bush’s rules now trying to finish the job under Obama and they are having a hard time switching philosophies?

    Perhaps we need Obama to come out and directly inform our military that we are trying to kill as few people as possible?

  59. 59.

    Little Dreamer

    June 3, 2009 at 2:39 pm

    @wilfred:

    Ummm, excuse me, but no other country or area of land has a book written by a supposed sky god with all sorts of confusing language about two separate groups of people who live in the same area and whether one should kill the other and who inherits that land.

    If you think that doesn’t confuse the issue greatly, you need to open your eyes and look around.

    Your comment fails.

  60. 60.

    HyperIon

    June 3, 2009 at 2:45 pm

    @wilfred: Are you trying to engage people or just piss them off?

  61. 61.

    Chuck Butcher

    June 3, 2009 at 2:47 pm

    @wilfred:

    Jews killing Palestinian women and children? No worries, mate – Muslims do worse.

    Not what he said. You blow your credibility by going over the top. If someone says both sides have plenty of assholes, you go off. You could probably find 60% of both populations sick of it all and ready to be reasonable, but that doesn’t stop the 10% that commit atrocities to keep things hot and past reason.

    You reflect that same mindset, too hot to be reasonable and thus a part of the problem rather than the solution. If you think you’re presenting convincing rhetoric allow me to assure you that all you’re doing is showing your ass.

  62. 62.

    wilfred

    June 3, 2009 at 2:55 pm

    @Chuck Butcher:

    You like to call yourself a leftist, but you are the first one in my experience who routinely has mouthed such shit as “let them kill themselves’, as if there was an equivalence between an army with a state that practices apartheid and murders women and children in their beds with American made and paid for weapons.

    You’re a disgrace to whatever politics you may have once had and I’m tired of your lecturing, hectoring bullshit.

    Leftist my ass. Take a position against oppression or piss the fuck off.

    @Brachiator:

    Put your money where your mouth is.

  63. 63.

    wilfred

    June 3, 2009 at 2:57 pm

    @HyperIon:

    Engage what? You’re either against oppression and tyranny or you’re not. If you are, get involved. There’s tons of things you can do to show where you stand.

    If you’re not, who gives a shit what you think?

  64. 64.

    Cain

    June 3, 2009 at 3:02 pm

    @wilfred:

    Hypocritical piece of shit. Shut the fuck up before talking about things you know nothing about.

    He was talking about the frontline program. Maybe you should yell at the Frontline people instead?

    cain

  65. 65.

    Blue Raven

    June 3, 2009 at 3:03 pm

    @wilfred:

    Fuck off.

    No, I insist. You first.

  66. 66.

    TenguPhule

    June 3, 2009 at 3:04 pm

    No worries, mate – Muslims do worse.

    And once again, wilfred completely misses the point made.

    So kindly explain how the recent Palestinians murdering Palestinians in a struggle for power is the fault of the jews?

  67. 67.

    TenguPhule

    June 3, 2009 at 3:06 pm

    You’re either against oppression and tyranny or you’re not.

    The Palestinian answer to George Bush.

    yeah, that’ll end well.

  68. 68.

    TenguPhule

    June 3, 2009 at 3:07 pm

    or is the problem that we have the same military that worked under Bush’s rules now trying to finish the job under Obama and they are having a hard time switching philosophies?

    Yes.

    Our military operates under two basic rules:

    1. American troop casualties must be reduced to the lowest number possible.

    2. Blow up stuff. Preferably with big shiny toys.

  69. 69.

    TenguPhule

    June 3, 2009 at 3:10 pm

    as if there was an equivalence between an army with a state that practices apartheid and murders women and children

    And if we give Palestians a whole bunch of big shiny toys I presume wilfred will be right there with the Israelis railing against a Palestinian state that practices genocide and murders women and children in their beds, AMIRITE?

  70. 70.

    wilfred

    June 3, 2009 at 3:10 pm

    @Cain:

    He wrote this:

    I don’t know what the freakin answer here is, but to reduce what is happening in Afghanistan and Pakistan to US-caused pain and the simple-minded formula of “public war for private property” is beyond ignorant, and utterly repugnant.

    That’s what pissed me off. I was there in 1990 and was pretty goddamned close to a paradise. In fact, you could buy all the hash you wanted, and float in makeshift pools on the Swat River wearing those balloon pants and watching otters play in the water. Madyan was even in Lonely Planet!

    Now it’s a fucking wasteland and to suggest that that has little to do with American ‘interventions’ in the lives and customs of people who wanted to be left in peace pisses me the fuck off to no end. And the reason for that is that even during the worst of the Catastrophe in Afghanistant, and every family practically in Swat Family gave half their house to refugees, it never lost its character. Until now.

    This asshole is an Israeli apologist who has to take nonsense positions like this in order to justify what I already pointed out.

  71. 71.

    wilfred

    June 3, 2009 at 3:12 pm

    @wilfred:

    Fuck you. Everything you say is an attempt at either rationalizing or defending the most recent murders of Palestinian women and children.

    Christ, even Obama has had enough of you and yours.

  72. 72.

    gex

    June 3, 2009 at 3:14 pm

    @Brachiator: I think your eaten post has been regurgitated and is back online. Must have been the filter.

    It was good. And Frontline is an excellent program and I think a reasonable source of information.

  73. 73.

    TenguPhule

    June 3, 2009 at 3:14 pm

    I was there in 1990 and was pretty goddamned close to a paradise.

    Gee, I wonder what power brokers moved into the area in the last 19 years….

    Oh yeah, fundamentalists.

  74. 74.

    TenguPhule

    June 3, 2009 at 3:16 pm

    wilfred
    @wilfred:
    Fuck you.

    Even wilfred is sick of wilfred.

  75. 75.

    wilfred

    June 3, 2009 at 3:19 pm

    Oh yeah, fundamentalists

    Actually drug dealers from Dera Ismail Khan. But the Pashtuns in Swat drove them out. these are some of the toughest people on earth.

    But here is more of the equivalence we see applied to Palestinian. You fight back, you’re a terrorist. You don’t accept the imposition of someone else’s will, you’re a fundamentalist.

    Somehow the Taliban have become a combination ghurka/waffen ss/cossack warrior death machine. What, precisely, is the difference between them and every other Pashtun with balls and Kalashnikov?

    Never fails.

  76. 76.

    Little Dreamer

    June 3, 2009 at 3:25 pm

    @wilfred:

    Somehow the Taliban have become a combination ghurka/waffen ss/cossack warrior death machine. What, precisely, is the difference between them and every other Pashtun with balls and Kalashnikov?

    Gosh, every country has warlords who drive the people out of their villages.

  77. 77.

    wilfred

    June 3, 2009 at 3:31 pm

    @Little Dreamer:

    The point is not to mistake anyone who carries arms against the US or the Pakistan Army a member of the Taliban. The people in Swat Valley are for the most part members of the Khan Afridi – nobody pushes these people around. They ARE the warlords.

    Just don’t believe the propaganda given out every day, ok? Ask yourself why people who fought it out with Spetznaz should be intimidated by the fucking Taliban.

  78. 78.

    Tsulagi

    June 3, 2009 at 3:42 pm

    @TenguPhule:

    Even wilfred is sick of wilfred.

    Maybe because Wilfred1 on the right, fucking Zionistic bastard, isn’t sharing his 20 yr old hash with now cranky Wilfred2 on the left. He wants to swim and commune with the otters again.

  79. 79.

    Little Dreamer

    June 3, 2009 at 3:42 pm

    @wilfred:

    Sounds like you are one who likes to take sides.

    I think war is a stupid endeavor, personally.

  80. 80.

    ThatLeftTurnInABQ

    June 3, 2009 at 3:54 pm

    Even wilfred is sick of wilfred.

    lolz!

    wilfred, if you care so much about these issues, why don’t you try persuading the undecided for a change? Who knows, you might actually change somebody else’s mind if you really work at it. Here’s a hint – most people are more likely to be persuaded by calm and patient exposition, not by angry rants which inevitably spiral downwards into a veritable Kama Sutra of auto-copulatory advice.

  81. 81.

    Little Dreamer

    June 3, 2009 at 3:58 pm

    a veritable Kama Sutra of auto-copulatory advice

    Heh!

  82. 82.

    Little Dreamer

    June 3, 2009 at 7:57 pm

    Teng, you fool, you made everything striked out now, including the farking window to reply to other posts.

  83. 83.

    Little Dreamer

    June 3, 2009 at 7:58 pm

    Hope this post fixes it.

  84. 84.

    Little Dreamer

    June 3, 2009 at 7:58 pm

    MAYDAY, MAYDAY!

    Houston, we have a problem!

  85. 85.

    Colette

    June 3, 2009 at 8:02 pm

    Do these stripes make me look thinner?

  86. 86.

    Little Dreamer

    June 3, 2009 at 8:09 pm

    Thank you for fixing this thread.

    ;)

  87. 87.

    TenguPhule

    June 3, 2009 at 8:19 pm

    Teng, you fool, you made everything striked out now, including the farking window to reply to other posts.

    But the contractors swore these guided posts never miss….

  88. 88.

    Dayv

    June 4, 2009 at 3:06 am

    It just seems so entirely uncontroversial to me that killing dozens of innocents in air strikes does not advance our goals in the region…

    Well, unless that is part of our goals…

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