Civilian casualty in the US war in Afghanistan hardly gets much press. In the pursuit of victory in the highly-controversial war on terror, Afghan lives are simply collateral damage. When US safety is concerned, ‘media isn’t about to focus real attention on the particular form of barbarity involved — the American air war over Afghanistan which has been a war of and for, not on, terror.’

The US wants to turn a new leaf in Afghanistan, the Obama administration wants to do it right this time. The US now wants to bring Afghans to its side. One can only imagine how the US proposes to do that while US drone attacks continue to decimate innocent Afghan lives.

‘It’s all about conducting a “holistic counterinsurgency campaign,” as new Afghan commander General Stanley A. McChrystal put it in Congressional testimony recently. It’s all about “hearts and minds”(though that old Vietnam-era phrase has yet to be resuscitated). It’s all about, they say, “protecting civilians” rather than killing Taliban guerrillas; it’s all about shaping, clearing, holding, building, not just landing, kicking in doors, and taking off again; it’s all about new “rules of engagement” in which the air war will be limited, and attacks on the Taliban curbed or called off if it appears that they might endanger civilians (even if that means the guerrillas get away); it’s all about reversing the tide of the war so far, about the fact that civilian casualties caused by air attacks and raids have turned large numbers of Afghans against American and NATO troops.’

Fact is, however, no Afghan life is worth more than the US effort to secure itself in this long-drawn war on terror.

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Via TomDispatch.com