The Reminder is making its archives back to 2003 available on our website. Please note that, due to technical limitations, archive articles are presented without the usual formatting.
The Pentagon calls it Òa good strike.Ó On August 22, United States-led coalition and Afghan troops radioed in U.S. warplanes to bomb the village of Nawabad, where Taliban leader Mullah Siddiq and 25 fighters were hiding. When the dust settled, Siddiq and his crew were dead. The U.S. forces recovered rocket-propelled grenade launchers, assault rifles, bomb-making materials and ammo. But the Taliban werenÕt the only people killed in the air raid. The United Nations reports that 90 civilians died, including 60 children. Another 15 civilians were wounded. At least seven homes were bombed to ruins and many others damaged. ÒMost of these dead bodies were children and women,Ó Ghulam Azrat, a local school director, told The Associated Press. ÒIt took all morning to collect them.Ó If the UN is right, the Nawabad raid was anything but a ÒgoodÓ strike. It destroyed a small village, betrayed the alliesÕ duty to spare civilians and undermined efforts to win people away from the insurgency. Nor was this the first time the commanders of 70,000 American and allied troops have been criticized for preferring to bomb the Taliban from the air rather than risk soldiersÕ lives chasing them down. In July, a U.S. air strike reportedly killed 47 at a wedding party, mostly women and children. No fewer than 698 civilians were killed in the first half of 2008, the UN reports, including 422 by the Taliban and 255 by allied forces. Afghan President Hamid Karzai says Afghans have Òlost patience.Ó He wants an end to air strikes on civilian targets. CanadaÕs military commanders should take his concern to heart. The PentagonÕs overreliance on air strikes is notorious. Chasing down Taliban leaders by bombing villages is a sure way to lose this war. But Karzai must share some blame. The Afghan government is riddled with corruption and inefficiency. Vast amounts of cash have disappeared that should have been used to build up the country. If the Taliban are now in a position to harass even Kabul, the capital, it is in part because people have given up on the government. Clearly, pressure must be brought on Pakistan, where Taliban leader Mullah Omar and others direct the insurgency. The U.S. must also shift troops from Iraq to seal the Afghan border. But the Karzai government has to do its part. The Afghan army led the raid on Nawabad with U.S. backup. When the Taliban put up a fight, the army called in the warplanes. When Afghan soldiers showed up to help the survivors the next day, people hurled stones at them.
