Friday, February 05, 2010
The caring U.S. military
Could it be...good news?
The U.S. military has reprimanded an unusually large number of commanders for battlefield failures in Afghanistan in recent weeks.Reprimanded for killing too many Afghan civilians? Dropping bombs without sufficient investigation of the targets?
Uh, no:
...reflecting a new push by the top brass to hold commanders responsible for major incidents in which troops are killed or wounded.U.S. troops killed? Official reprimand which can "scuttle chances for promotion and end a career." Civilians killed? Tsk, tsk. If that. Indeed, this kind of reprimand only increases the chances that U.S. commanders will take even fewer chances with the lives of U.S. troops, which means even more Afghans are likely to be killed. I started to write "innocent Afghans," but as I've written before, that only gives credence to the idea that Afghans resisting the foreign occupation of their country are "guilty" and somehow deserving of death. They are not.
