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Afghan civilian casualties increase under Petraeus

Published: 03 September, 2010, 03:27
Edited: 03 September, 2010, 10:10

Afghanistan, Arghandab: US soldiers enter an anti-mortar attack shelter inside a fortified US base in Kandahar province's Arghandab Valley on August 11, 2010. The number of civilian casualties in the Afghan war rose by a third in the first six months of 2010, with insurgents killing seven times more civilians than NATO-led troops, a UN report said August 10. (AFP Photo / Yuri Cortez)

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TAGS: Conflict, Military, NATO, Afghanistan, USA


United States Secretary of Defense Robert Gates is flying to Afghanistan to meet with Afghan President Hamid Karzai to discuss a NATO airstrike that killed 10 civilians.

Karzai is reportedly outraged over the incident in a region that had previously been peaceful. The airstrike is leading many to question whether or not General David Petraeus is changing the rules of engagement in order to win in Afghan.

Under General Stanley McChrystal the rules of engagement were very strict to ensure a lower number of civilian casualties. The primary reason behind the strict rules was to win over the hearts and minds of the Afghan people.

Jake Diliberto of Rethink Afghanistan argued that under Petraeus there will likely be a large increase in violence, similar to the increase of violence during the troop surge Petraeus orchestrated in Iraq.

When General Petraeus took over during the surge in Iraq starting in 2006 violence increased, it did not decrease and it maintained increasing violence until sometime in late 2007-early 2008,” said Diliberto.

He argued that unlike Iraq, the people of Afghanistan are not ready to address a peace settlement. He said the people are too separated to begin coming together any time soon.

They really don’t know what a peace negotiated settlement with the Karzai government would look like,” he said.

Diliberto also argued that violence would inevitably go up as troop numbers increase. As troop number increase the resistance will increase, he said.

It’s my experience that Afghans do not want to trust the United States, they certainly don’t want to trust the Karzai government, it’s extremely corrupt,” said Diliberto. 

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PR101 September 03, 2010, 06:38
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The U.S will not stop killing Afghans. Nothing will not change until the U.S is forced to leave Afghanistan. It can also be said despite the American delusional believe to the contrary , the U.S has not won the hearts and minds of the Japanese, the Koreans, Iraqis, Vietnamese, or the people of Latin America. Now let me speak about a concrete example of what it means to win the hearts and minds of a people. In WWII, the Soviet Army of liberation invaded Japan occupied China’s Manchuria. In 1946, the Soviet Union left Manchuria in triumph as cheering locals through flowers and good wishes to the Red Army soldiers. Today, I read in RT that China is planning to build a huge memorial park dedicated to mark both the Japanese aggression against China and to honour the Soviet Soldiers who liberated their land from Japanese occupying forces. As we enter in a new multi-polar global order, Russia stands to benefit from the great deeds of the Soviet liberation of Manchuria. This is a sharp contrast to the continuation of the U.S military occupation of Japan, Europe and South Korea. The U.S is in Iraq, Afghanistan as occupation force and it will never win the hearts and minds of the occupied people. I do hope that RT will drop in the future any reference the false assertion that the U.S is in Afghanistan to win the hearts and the minds of the local occupied people.