Sunday
May172009
Afghanistan: US Special Operations, Civilian Deaths, and the New US Commander
Sunday, May 17, 2009 at 8:27
Related Post: Now It’s Petraeus’ War - US Replaces Top Commander in Afghanistan
On Friday, The Independent of London put together some pieces of a military puzzle, linking US special operations and Afghan deaths from American bombing and missiles, to declare, "The US Marines Corps' Special Operations Command, or MarSOC...was behind at least three of Afghanistan's worst civilian casualty incidents."
Reporter Jerome Starkey explained that the unit, "created three years ago on the express orders of Donald Rumsfeld,...call[ed] in air strikes in Bala Boluk, in Farah, last week – believed to have killed more than 140 men, women and children". In March 2007, after a suicide bombing close to the Pakistan border, a MarSOC company "fired indiscriminately at pedestrians and civilian cars, killing at least 19 people", while in August 2008 "a 20-man MarSOC unit, fighting alongside Afghan commandos, directed fire from unmanned drones, attack helicopters and a cannon-armed Spectre gunship into compounds in Azizabad, in Herat province, leaving more than 90 people dead – many of them children".
Yet, for all the credit Starkey deserves for getting this story, The Independent's misses its significance in its headline, "Rumsfeld's Renegade Unit". The Secretary of Defense may have authorised the special force, but in 2004 it was for "targeted" operations in Iraq, identifying and then capturing or killing key insurgent leaders. The MarSOC Starkey is writing about is far different: it appears to be a ground commando force, carrying out attacks on its own or in combination with Afghan special units or acting as "spotters" for American air assaults.
The most important warning in the story is hidden instead in one sentence, "News of MarSOC's involvement in the three incidents comes just days after a Special Forces expert, Lieutenant-General Stanley McChrystal, was named to take over as the top commander of US and Nato troops in Afghanistan."
Exactly. McChrystal's reputation was built as head of the Joint Special Operations Command as it developed during the Iraq occupation. For his supporters, he is the general who organised the capture and killing of key insurgent leaders; for his most ardent critics, he was at the head of an "executive assassination ring" that reported to Vice President Dick Cheney's office.
Whatever the truth between these two views, which are actually more compatible than conflicting, McChrystal's significance is now in Afghanistan and his approach to this year's American "surge". And, as Starkey writes, "his surprise appointment has prompted speculation that commando counterinsurgency missions will increase in the battle to beat the Taliban".
If McChrystal was moving sideways to becoming a supporting commander for Special Operations, with other military and civilian leaders putting a focus on reconstruction efforts and political, economic, and social development, there might be some hope --- as our readers have commented --- in US "counter-insurgency". He is, however, the commander.
Thus "special operations", with the targeting of insurgent units, will continue and probably escalate. And, from benefiting from a new American military strategy, the deaths of Afghan civilians may match that escalation.
On Friday, The Independent of London put together some pieces of a military puzzle, linking US special operations and Afghan deaths from American bombing and missiles, to declare, "The US Marines Corps' Special Operations Command, or MarSOC...was behind at least three of Afghanistan's worst civilian casualty incidents."Reporter Jerome Starkey explained that the unit, "created three years ago on the express orders of Donald Rumsfeld,...call[ed] in air strikes in Bala Boluk, in Farah, last week – believed to have killed more than 140 men, women and children". In March 2007, after a suicide bombing close to the Pakistan border, a MarSOC company "fired indiscriminately at pedestrians and civilian cars, killing at least 19 people", while in August 2008 "a 20-man MarSOC unit, fighting alongside Afghan commandos, directed fire from unmanned drones, attack helicopters and a cannon-armed Spectre gunship into compounds in Azizabad, in Herat province, leaving more than 90 people dead – many of them children".
Yet, for all the credit Starkey deserves for getting this story, The Independent's misses its significance in its headline, "Rumsfeld's Renegade Unit". The Secretary of Defense may have authorised the special force, but in 2004 it was for "targeted" operations in Iraq, identifying and then capturing or killing key insurgent leaders. The MarSOC Starkey is writing about is far different: it appears to be a ground commando force, carrying out attacks on its own or in combination with Afghan special units or acting as "spotters" for American air assaults.
The most important warning in the story is hidden instead in one sentence, "News of MarSOC's involvement in the three incidents comes just days after a Special Forces expert, Lieutenant-General Stanley McChrystal, was named to take over as the top commander of US and Nato troops in Afghanistan."
Exactly. McChrystal's reputation was built as head of the Joint Special Operations Command as it developed during the Iraq occupation. For his supporters, he is the general who organised the capture and killing of key insurgent leaders; for his most ardent critics, he was at the head of an "executive assassination ring" that reported to Vice President Dick Cheney's office.
Whatever the truth between these two views, which are actually more compatible than conflicting, McChrystal's significance is now in Afghanistan and his approach to this year's American "surge". And, as Starkey writes, "his surprise appointment has prompted speculation that commando counterinsurgency missions will increase in the battle to beat the Taliban".
If McChrystal was moving sideways to becoming a supporting commander for Special Operations, with other military and civilian leaders putting a focus on reconstruction efforts and political, economic, and social development, there might be some hope --- as our readers have commented --- in US "counter-insurgency". He is, however, the commander.
Thus "special operations", with the targeting of insurgent units, will continue and probably escalate. And, from benefiting from a new American military strategy, the deaths of Afghan civilians may match that escalation.