COIN, Accidents and the Rumor Factory

By Steve Hynd

Ouch, this could hardly have come at a more unfortunate time. It's been confirmed by both US officials and local media reports that the truck which swerved to avoid a pothole, hitting the Zimbabwean prime minister's car and killing his wife, was under contract to USAID. "The truck, which had a USAID insignia on it, was purchased by US government funds and its driver was hired by a British development agency."

Let the conspiracy theories begin:

rumours flew around the country, and its million-strong diaspora, on Friday night that the accident was in fact an assassination attempt on the prime minister, who was sworn in as co-leader of a unity government with President Robert Mugabe just three weeks ago.

There is still huge mistrust between both sides of the fledgling coalition.

Movement for Democratic Change leaders in neighbouring South Africa said they suspected the head on collision with a lorry which left Prime Minister Mr Tsvangirai injured and his wife Susan dead was not a genuine accident.

In a statement released on Friday night, they said: "We suspect that this is not a genuine accident and we appeal to Zimbabweans in South Africa to remain calm as facts continue to surface.

"We strongly believe that these are the evil acts of a few individuals bent on derailing the progress of the Inclusive government.

"We are, however, alive to the fact that a lot of Robert Mugabe's opponents died in suspicion road accidents involving army trucks."

Accidents can happen, even in the middle of a series of similiar non-accidents. But when they do, you'll have the devil of a job convincing locals that they were truly un-meant. This is just one such, and the conspiracy theories have started already - feeding mistrust and uncertainty about the motives of big powers at a crucial time. That ends up hurting everyone, especially those most in need of help.

Imagine how much worse it is when there's a series of accidents that are almost non-accidents themselves simply because the perpetrators don't care enough to make sure accidents don't happen. The rumors of conspiracies, of punishment by evil people, of colonial meddling, become a primary source of insurgency and illwill that no amount of careful "information management" can spin.

The US-led coalition has been finding that out in Afghanistan, where airstrikes keep killing civilians and the usual military response of "deny everything until its proven by outside agencies" has fed mistrust. Thankfully, Gates has issued instructions that the military must be far more proactive in apologising and paying compensation for such events - but that hardly goes far enough.

Too many of the airstrikes which have led to civilian deaths have come from Afghans using US planes as proxies to settle old tribal feuds or individual grudges. Just claim the gathering in the next valley is a Taliban war party rather than a wedding then sit back and watch the US enact your vengeance - and collect a sizeable cash reward into the bargain! There's one man being tried by an Afghan court for just that right now and reports on previous incidents show it has happened plenty of times. The practise of paying for information used to plot airstrikes without checking out the information thoroughly first must end. It's as simple as that.

The US has apparently made a decision that it will still carry out airstrikes in Afghanistan and Pakistan even knowing innocents will die, if it is sure "enough" bad guys will die too. There's plenty of evidence of this calculus in recent strikes. Rumors allege that the magic figure is 20% - if the collateral civilian deaths will be less than 20% of the death toll then the strike proceeds even if planners know there will be innocents killed. Whatever the reasons or actual decision-making process, the death toll of innocents from Coalition airstrikes in Afghanistan has risen to a quarter of all those killed and has become a major recruiting tool for the Taliban as well as a major driver of mistrust among the population. Lose the population's goodwill, and you can never, ever win a COIN war by either military or non-military means.

Like the Israelis in Gaza, the phrase used to defend this practise is "human shields" - that the terrorists are hiding behind their families and their neighbours and that this shouldn't prevent them being attacked. But it should. Even killing Osama Bin Laden himself isn't sufficient to justify the war crime of knowingly targeting civilians. The deliberate and knowing killing and maiming of women and children cannot be excused by any expedient metric or explained away by better COIN-informed PR campaigns - especially to their mothers, husbands and brothers. This too should end. There'll be another time to get each high-value target when they aren't in amongst innocents.

Comments

[zenpundit]

"Like the Israelis in Gaza, the phrase used to defend this practise is "human shields" - that the terrorists are hiding behind their families and their neighbours and that this shouldn't prevent them being attacked. But it should. Even killing Osama Bin Laden himself isn't sufficient to justify the war crime of knowingly targeting civilians"

No. Under the laws of war Bin Laden is the target, not the civilians. Deliberately targeting civilians is blowing them up in the absence of a military target - a tank, an ammo dump, an enemy commander, a power station etc. That's international law as far as it applies to the United States ( European countries have signed a more restrictive supplementary protocol to the Geneva Convention but the US has not). Killing the people who happen to be standing around Osama bin Laden when a predator missile or a B-52 500 lb bomb hits is not a war crime. If they are helping Bin Laden in any material way ( i.e. not his prisoners or passers by but employees and followers) then they are fair game themselves, legally speaking, just like a military contractor driving a supply truck.

What you are arguing for is a policy of no retaliation against terrorists or guerillas or presumably conventional military forces, if civilians are present. As civilians will always be present except in naval battles, you are arguing that we pretty much cannot fight land wars. That's not international law nor is it a sensible policy.

[Steve Hynd]

Zen,

"Deliberate" as in knew exactly and attacked anyway. Not collateral damage, deliberate murder.

"That's international law as far as it applies to the United States ( European countries have signed a more restrictive supplementary protocol to the Geneva Convention but the US has not)."

Do you think it's a good thing the US hasn't? If so, do you also think that anyone who hasn't signed on to any law should be held guiltless under that law?

(Remember, we liberals get accused of moral relativism by conservatives!)

"nor is it a sensible policy."

Nor is it sensible COIN policy to signal to a populace that you don't care enough to be really discriminatory in targeting.

Regards, Steve