The General Defends Killing Civilians

David Petraeus, the non-stellar general of the American forces in Afghanistan, still insists on justifying premeditated attacks by NATO and the invading forces against innocent civilians in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Gen. David Petraeus, commander of the American and NATO troops in Afghanistan, has defended the ever-increasing lethal attacks on civilians in the country and refused to apologize for the killings. This occurs at a time when most casualties are women and children. Petraeus — famous for his garrulousness on U.S. foreign policy and his blind backing of the policies of both Republican and Democratic administrations — maintains that the new strategy in combating Taliban militia in Afghanistan has been successful.

The commander of U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan claims that the increasing number of air raids — resulting in ever more civilian casualties — has hindered Taliban activities in Afghanistan! Meanwhile, the Taliban attacks against the invading forces have continued unabated. Since the Vietnam War, American generals have maintained that they cannot continue a war without the full support of the American public — an important lesson Americans learned during the Vietnam War. Despite this precedent, Obama stands by his policies, viewing them as the right course of action. These are policies with which even his top foreign policy adviser, Brzezinski, disagrees.

On June 23 of this year, Petraeus was appointed by Obama to replace Gen. Stanley McChrystal as commander of the American and NATO forces in Afghanistan. This replacement took place following the publication of a candid interview with Gen. McChrystal in Rolling Stone magazine about the war in Afghanistan in which he also made derogatory comments about Joe Biden, Obama’s vice president.

Obama disregarded McChrystal’s concerns and eventually fired him. Many of the experts and analysts of the region view Petraeus’ policies — compared to those of McChrystal — as belligerent. In any case, Petraeus, like McChrystal, is doomed to fail in Afghanistan eventually. Meanwhile, the governments of Karzai and Zardari in Afghanistan and Pakistan, respectively, have repeatedly protested the killings of civilians. But these objections are clearly not enough.

Recently, the president of Afghanistan strongly condemned NATO’s unilateral attacks, which were not coordinated with Afghanistan, in the Shinvar district of the Nangarhar province as an infringement on Afghanistan’s national sovereignty. Hamid Karzai demanded an explanation from NATO Command on its joint operation with Russia in combating drug trafficking in the Shinvar district of the Nangarhar province, located in the eastern side of his country. In a joint operation, the NATO forces teamed up with Russian counter-narcotics agents and raided a narcotics lab in Shinvar. These operations are being executed unilaterally without any coordination with the Afghan government. One the one hand, the great powers emphasize the importance of the strengthening the Afghan government and the police force, yet on the other hand, they themselves are causing the weakening of the country’s central government. Karzai has made it clear that no organization or institution shall conduct any such operations without the permission and consent of the Afghan government. The Afghan government condemns NATO for its action, arguing that the raid breached Afghanistan’s sovereignty and international law, and if it happened again, it would be dealt with accordingly by the Afghan government.

The people of Afghanistan, in the meantime, expect the Afghan government to take a more decisive stance. Issuing statements condemning the incident in general terms is not satisfactory to the Afghan people.

The raid that Karzai criticized was only a few kilometers away from the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan, and three heroin labs and one morphine lab were destroyed. Nine U.S. military helicopters were involved in this attack, during which between $25 million to $1 billion worth of heroin was destroyed. Ultimately, Kabul and Islamabad must resort to their domestic and international means and leverages to find a solution in dealing with these attacks.

This is the minimum the Afghan and Pakistani people could expect from their presidents — to at least be spared from the killings by the invading forces.

Editor’s note: This article was published on Gen. Petraeus’ birthday.