US assault on Marja - liberation or war crime?

In the following report on the looming assault on Marja and vicinity, where 80,000 or more Afghans live, Robert Naiman's main point is that the US-led forces have an obligation to protect Afghan civilians in the anticipated battles. The problem is that, as Naiman points out, there is no satisfactory way to distinguish civilians from the Taliban. Under relevant international law, the US-led assualt may become a war crime. If it should turn out this way, there is nothing new in this, in what US officials have referred to as "collateral damage," as though the lives of children and other civilians are an unfortunate but inevitable consequence of war.

Let's hope that somehow the assault on Marja becomes an exception to what the US had done in Iraq (with over a million "excess" deaths and over 4 million internal and external refugees), and in other parts of Afghanistan. Let's hope that it does not become yet another example of the long bloody history examined by William Blum in his book, Killing Hope: US Military and CIA Interventions Since World War II, or, in a more general way, by Howard Zinn in his widely read, A People's History of the United States.

Bob

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Afghan Civilians Imperiled by US/NATO Assault in Marjah
Submitted by robert naiman on 11 February 2010 - 2:07pm

Source: http://www.justforeignpolicy.org/node/480

The United States and NATO are poised to launch a major assault in the Marjah district in southern Afghanistan. Tens of thousands of Afghan civilians are in imminent peril. Will President Obama and Congress act to protect civilians in Marjah, in compliance with the obligations of the United States under the laws of war?

Few civilians have managed to escape the Afghan town of Marjah ahead of a planned US/NATO assault, raising the risk of civilian casualties, McClatchy News reports. "If [NATO forces] don't avoid large scale civilian casualties, given the rhetoric about protecting the population, then no matter how many Taliban are routed, the Marjah mission should be considered a failure," said an analyst with the International Crisis Group.

Under the laws of war, the US and NATO - who have told civilians not to flee - bear an extra responsibility to control their fire and avoid tactics that endanger civilians, Human Rights Watch notes. "I suspect that they believe they have the ability to generally distinguish between combatants and civilians," said Brad Adams of Human Rights Watch. "I would call that into question, given their long history of mistakes, particularly when using air power. Whatever they do, they have an obligation to protect civilians and make adequate provision to alleviate any crisis that arises," he said. "It is very much their responsibility."

Indeed, a report in the Wall Street Journal casts fresh doubt on the ability - and even on the interest - of U.S. forces to distinguish combatants from civilians. "Across southern Afghanistan, including the Marjah district where coalition forces are massing for a large offensive, the line between peaceful villager and enemy fighter is often blurred," the Journal says. The commander of the U.S. unit responsible for Pashmul estimates that about 95% of the locals are Taliban or aid the militants. Among front-line troops, "frustration is boiling over" over more restrictive rules of engagement than in Iraq, the Journal says - a dangerous harbinger of potential war crimes when the U.S. is about to engage in a major assault in an area densely populated with civilians.

If the U.S. assault in Marjah results in large scale civilian casualties, the U.S. will have committed a major war crime. If the United States cannot protect civilians in Marjah, as the U.S. is required to do under the laws of war, the assault should be called off.