Afghans Protest New Rules of Engagement

The Afghans know the score when it comes to how to fight the Taliban and al Qaeda. They understand there can never be a war without civilian causalities, especially as it's a Muslim terrorist trait to hide among the civilian population.

Until the West stops cringing and whining over civilian losses, we'll never bring Islamic terrorism under control. War is hell for a reason. If it was fun, it would truly never end. The surest, quickest end to a war, with minimum loss of life on all sides is to wage it totally, and without reservation, to the point of unconditional surrender.

The Obama administration's strategy in the war on Islamic terrorism is a failure that is unnecessarily costing lives on both sides.

FROM STRATEGYPAGE.COM:

Afghans Protest New Rules of Engagement

September 28, 2009: The U.S. is increasingly encountering angry Afghan civilians, who demand that the Americans act more decisively in pursuing and killing Taliban gunman. Even if it puts Afghan civilians at risk. This is an unexpected side effect of a change, three months ago, of the U.S. rules of engagement (ROE) in Afghanistan. This was in response to popular (or at least media) anger at civilians killed by American smart bombs. As a result of the new ROE, it became much more difficult to get permission drop a smart bomb when there might be civilians nearby. Now American commanders have to decide who they shall respond too; Afghan civilians asking for relief from Taliban oppression, or Taliban influenced media condemning the U.S. for any Afghan civilians killed, or thought to be killed, by American firepower. What to do?

Taliban propaganda, and the enthusiasm of the media for jumping on real, or imagined, civilian deaths caused by foreign troops, made people forget that far more civilians (about four times as many) had been killed by the Taliban. But because Afghans have been conditioned to expect more civilized behavior from the foreign troops, much less media attention is paid to the civilians killed by the Taliban and al Qaeda.

Of course, Afghan civilians are aware of who is killing most of the civilians, and that's why the Taliban and al Qaeda are moving down in the opinion polls. But the media, hammering foreign troops get every time they kill a civilian, or are simply (often falsely) accused of doing so, led to the ROE becoming far more strict than it ever was in Iraq. Thus one Taliban victory you don't hear much about is how they turned their use of human shields into a powerful, and very successful, propaganda weapon against NATO and U.S. troops, and an excellent way to avoid getting attacked.
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