The story doesn’t seem to change: bandaged babies and the bodies of women, angry villagers and fire-spewing officials. The latest bombing of civilians in Afghanistan — reportedly by U.S. forces, and resorting in scores dead — differs only in that it took place in Farah, a remote southern province about which very little is known.
I have been working with journalists from the region, who have shed some light on events down there. The Taliban are active, and control much of the province. Young men are joining up for lack of anything better to do, some of them becoming the equivalent of Taliban day-laborers. Short of cash? The local insurgent chief will pay you 200 afghani (about four dollars) to attack a local police checkpoint. Throw a few grenades, shoot a few uniformed men, then go home to your mother’s house for dinner.
Many of the schools are closed, and almost no girls are getting an education. Taliban-sympathizing mullahs preach in the local mosques, causing a recent stir by prohibiting birth control.
The Taliban fund themselves in a variety of ways. Farah is not poppy-rich, like neighboring Helmand, so the insurgents have to make do with a more modest budget. They shake down local development projects, demanding 30 percent of the funding to “protect” the workers – from themselves, presumably.
Now a series of U.S. bombings may have killed an unknown number of civilians in Farah, in an area near the Iranian border called Bala Baluk. Local authorities are tossing about figures — 70 dead, 100, 150. It will be almost impossible to substantiate the numbers — the district is too unstable, too remote.
The U.S. spokesperson, Colonel Greg Julian, has promised an investigation. That, too is standard operating procedure.
Soon there will be rumbles that the Afghans are inflating the numbers of the dead in hopes of a greater payoff, while the Afghans will mutter about a cover-up.
It is all too wearily familiar.
So where, exactly, is the new policy on civilians? Time and again we have heard that “new rules” are in place, that “greater care” will be taken to avoid non-combatant deaths. President Hamed Karzai thunders, and is given assurances that foreign military operations will be coordinated with Afghan forces.
But in a week, or a month, a grisly tableau is once again presented on the nightly news.
In every conversation with Afghans, the issue of civilian casualties comes up. Even those who support the foreign presence – a steadily shrinking number – can become all but violent when confronted with the photographs of fathers weeping over the shattered bodies of their children. I have seen friends become increasingly radicalized over the past few years. Young men who, I am sure, would never dream of taking up arms speak about U.S. forces with bitterness, and secretly cheer when the Taliban score a victory.
Now Bala Baluk will join a sad litany of failure, after Azizabad, Hyderabad, Jalalabad, Bughni. More ruined lives, more enemies created.
With the imminent influx of U.S. troops, scenes like Bala Baluk will become standard fare. NATO officials acknowledge that more boots on the ground will lead to more civilian casualties, at least in the short run. They hope that the higher numbers of forces will allow them to hold ground and facilitate development.
But time is running out. Another Bala Baluk, and 21,000 additional troops will not be nearly enough.
http://www.globalpost.com/notebook/afghanistan/090506/the-new-strategy-at-work