With the timeline in the war in Afghanistan slowly ticking by there may be a new change in tactics in the Kandahar area of operations. It is said by some that General Petreaus is looking at the success in the defeat of the insurgents in destroying an entire village as a way to move the process forward. The idea is that locals will be less likely to accept Taliban influence if their homes and their villages are under direct threat.... This goes against most counterinsurgency doctrine but does not have its own merit. The Japanese were forced to surrender when two nuclear bombs were dropped in 1945 to a villager from the town of Tarok Kolache the results are the same.I am of the opinion that a hard fist is needed with a fascist group like the Taliban but the destruction of civilian homes is never worth it in the long run.... public opinion locally and internationally is at stake.If one is to have a moral war then one must fight in a moral way. Even at the risk of losing the war. For its not the war you lose but your soul.There is fight for the afghan soul and the coalition and Canadian soul when villages burn it can only be a propaganda coup.
Could the insurgents that held this small village have been forced out in other ways?Tear gas (is considered a Chemical Weapon).. starvation and encirclement and most importantly ensuring the Afghan National Army was the one to destroy the village not the "west". All these could have been done. Most likely should have been done.
The village of Tarok Kolache in the Arghandab Valley, destroyed by US forces, no civilian casualties were reported
"Taliban militants had taken control of the village and battered the coalition task force with homemade bombs and improvised explosive devices. And after two attempts at clearing the village led to casualties on both sides, Lieutenant Colonel David Flynn, commander of the Combined Joint Task Force 1-320th gave the order to pulverise the village. His men were 'terrified to go back into the pomegranate orchards to continue clearing [the area]; it seemed like certain death', writes West Point graduate Paula Broadwell on the Foreign Policy blog. Instead of continuing to clear the tiny village, the commander approved a mine-clearing line charge, which hammered a route into the centre of Tarok Kolache using rocket-propelled explosives. The destruction only escalated, however, with '49,200lbs of ordnance' dropped on the village via air strikes and ground-launched rockets, which saw it swiftly blown off the face of the earth. Jan 21 2011
"Disregarding human rights norms and the rule of law makes it harder to successfully carry out the already difficult work that a counter-insurgency (COIN) campaign requires. Gen. Petraeus made it very clear that he understood that and that any behavior to the contrary was unacceptable."David Levine, Law and Security Program
Afghan village destroyed by the Soviets
"The villagers of Sar Cheshma say 30 Taliban fighters swept in at dawn on Tuesday, then spent several hours pouring canisters of gasoline into the 120 courtyard houses and setting them on fire.Sar Cheshma lies barely five miles from the northern outskirts of Kabul, the capital, where the Taliban forces are fighting a village-by-village battle with the forces of Ahmad Shah Massoud, a less conservative Muslim leader whose troops used Sar Cheshma briefly on Monday as a base to fire on the Taliban.A Bloody Robe, A Koran in AshesAn Afghan Village, Destroyed at the Hands of Men Who Vowed PeaceBy JOHN F. BURNSPublished: October 27, 1996
The village of Tarok Kolache in the Arghandab Valley, destroyed by US forces, no civilian casualties were reported |
"Taliban militants had taken control of the village and battered the coalition task force with homemade bombs and improvised explosive devices. And after two attempts at clearing the village led to casualties on both sides, Lieutenant Colonel David Flynn, commander of the Combined Joint Task Force 1-320th gave the order to pulverise the village. His men were 'terrified to go back into the pomegranate orchards to continue clearing [the area]; it seemed like certain death', writes West Point graduate Paula Broadwell on the Foreign Policy blog.
Instead of continuing to clear the tiny village, the commander approved a mine-clearing line charge, which hammered a route into the centre of Tarok Kolache using rocket-propelled explosives. The destruction only escalated, however, with '49,200lbs of ordnance' dropped on the village via air strikes and ground-launched rockets, which saw it swiftly blown off the face of the earth.
Jan 21 2011
"Disregarding human rights norms and the rule of law makes it harder to successfully carry out the already difficult work that a counter-insurgency (COIN) campaign requires. Gen. Petraeus made it very clear that he understood that and that any behavior to the contrary was unacceptable."
David Levine, Law and Security Program
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