Bombing Red Cross in Afghanistan No ‘Mistake’

Opinion by Professor Michael Foley, contributor

What mother, faced with her child’s defense, “I didn’t mean to do it,” hasn’t said, “Maybe not, but it’s still your fault. You should have known better.” What court, presented with evidence of reckless driving in a fatal accident, would not hand down a judgment of voluntary or involuntary manslaughter? Yet in war all such elementary notions of personal responsibility are apparently called off.

Recently, US bombs have destroyed civilian areas in Afghanistan, including the warehouses and offices of the International Red Cross in Kabul, where there had been thousands of tons of food and clothing destined for the civilian population. US warplanes struck that target twice. The Pentagon declared both hits mistakes, but admitted that military planners had detailed knowledge of the location of the complex, thanks to consultations with Red Cross officials designed to avert just such a tragedy.

It was a mistake. Will it be punished? That is, will those who knew and should have communicated their knowledge to the pilots be sanctioned? Unfortunately not, if past experience is any guide, unless, that is, the US public expresses its outrage at the mounting toll of such mistakes. The trouble is, we have become used to mistakes of this kind, because, by and large, the US military has come to enjoy impunity in the conduct of its mission.

Take the School of the Americas. In 1996 the Pentagon revealed that training manuals in Spanish and English widely used at the Army’s School of the Americas advocated blackmail and intimidation of civilians involved in unions, political parties and other opposition organizations, torture of suspects, and assassination of civilians as part of a broadly conceived counter-insurgency strategy. The School of the Americas, established in 1946, has trained thousands of Latin American officers and troops. The Pentagon said the manuals had been withdrawn, but there was no indication that anyone had been disciplined for their use and dissemination, despite compelling evidence that hundreds of Latin American soldiers and officers who went through School of the Americas training had gone on to commit gross human rights violations in their own countries.

More recently, the shielding of military personnel from prosecution has been taken up by Senator Jesse Helms. Last year he, along with representatives of the Pentagon, quashed US support for the International Court of Criminal Justice, designed to be a permanent follow-up to the Hague Tribunals judging war crimes in the former Yugoslavia and the genocide in Rwanda. Though the US was one of the prime movers in the creation of the Hague Tribunals, Helms and the Pentagon feared that a permanent body of the same sort would someday want to call US forces to account for actions carried out in wartime. Despite US objections (and those of China, Israel and Iraq), 120 countries voted to adopt the treaty creating the court.

Those who want to protect our military forces from accountability argue that sanctions or the fear of sanctions would undermine our ability to conduct war. But that is precisely the point. Warfare is the most destructive enterprise available to us. Nations should be extraordinarily careful when and how they unleash it, and those who fight should be restrained to the extent possible to avoid exacerbating the immense harm that war inevitably causes. That is especially true for the greatest military power in the world, whose annual military budget exceeds that of the next ten powers put together. The US should be especially circumspect in the use of force, lest we be considered a global bully who fights without regard for human life, a view that increasing numbers of people in the Muslim world have come to share as the war in Afghanistan slogs on.

The bombing of International Red Cross facilities was not a mistake attributable to the “heat of action” or the “fog of war.” The bombing campaign has been carried out in a carefully calibrated fashion, with each target individually chosen. Pentagon planners knew where the Red Cross facilities were. Somewhere, someone failed to let the pilots know. Such “mistakes” should not go unpunished. Those responsible should be disciplined. That is the least we can do to convince the watching world that this is not a war against the Afghani people.

Americans know how to take responsibility for their actions. It is time we required the same of the Pentagon.

Michael Foley is Associate Professor of Politics at The Catholic University of America, where he is also director of the Latin American and Latino Studies Program. He is also a former Senior Fellow at the United States Institute of Peace.