America's dangerous trigger finger

Why the killing of civilians by U.S. Marines in Afghanistan and Iraq could have profound strategic consequences.

By David J. Morris

Read more: Iraq, Taliban, Army, Osama Bin Laden, Opinion, Abu Ghraib

Photo: AP/Rahamt Gul

Afghan police officers inspect a vehicle the day after it was allegedly shot up by U.S. Marines who were targeted by a suicide attacker March 4 in Nangarhar province, Afghanistan.

April 26, 2007 | On March 4, a U.S. Marine convoy in the Nangarhar province of eastern Afghanistan was attacked by a suicide bomber driving a minibus, wounding one American. Exactly what happened next remains unclear. According to an investigation by an Afghan human rights group released on April 14, the Marines, who said they came under small-arms fire after the bombing, went on a rampage, shooting at vehicles and pedestrians along 10 miles of road. At least 12 civilians were killed and another 35 were injured, including one infant and three elderly men. A 16-year-old girl, newly married and carrying a bundle of grass to her family's farmhouse, was shot in the back. A 75-year-old man was shot so many times that his son had trouble recognizing him when he reached the scene.

A few hours after the shootings, the Marines returned to the primary site of the carnage, cordoned it off, and allegedly began removing evidence that it had occurred. Seven journalists representing multiple media outlets complained that the Marines confiscated their equipment and forcibly deleted photographs taken by Afghans working for the Associated Press. According to a protest letter later filed by the AP bureau chief for Pakistan and Afghanistan, one Marine raised his fist at the photographers, warning them that he did not want to see any photos of the scene published anywhere. One journalist said he was told, "Delete the photos or we'll delete you."

After conducting an initial inquiry into the matter, the American military command in Afghanistan found no evidence that the Marines had come under small-arms fire after the bombing and took the highly unusual step of expelling them from the country. "The unit responded to the ambush," according to a military spokesman, "and the local population perceptions of that response have damaged the relationship between the local population and the Marine special operations company."

We have seen a story like this unfold before in Haditha, Iraq, where Marines stand accused of killing 24 Iraqi civilians in 2005 after an improvised explosive device killed one Marine. While there is no direct connection between Haditha and Nangarhar, the incidents are troublingly similar: an insurgent attack followed by a gross overreaction by American forces (specifically Marine units), a bumbling coverup, and an eventual investigation by American military authorities -- one that seldom if ever holds anyone genuinely accountable above the level of foot soldier.

As with so many issues in war, the closer you look into a situation, the harder it can be to judge. As a former Marine officer, my first impulse is, somewhat predictably, to sympathize with the troops. Judgments come easy when you're sitting in the comfort of your living room, but when you are taking fire from seemingly every direction, the finely wrought laws of war start to seem like the dreams of a war college professor. I've interviewed hundreds of soldiers and Marines who have served in Iraq and Afghanistan and I'm repeatedly struck by the weighty, almost metaphysical, overtones of modern combat, in which soldiers have a half second to make the right decision and many years to live with the results of making the wrong one. (And those are only the scenarios, of course, in which the soldiers live to tell the tale.)

But one of the great tragedies of incidents like Haditha and Nangarhar is that no matter how they are adjudicated by the Pentagon, they are resounding defeats in a global conflict whose battlefield is ever media-oriented. They draw dark comparisons in the U.S. media with the My Lai massacre in Vietnam, provide fodder for anti-U.S. sympathizers elsewhere, and fit conveniently into the larger meta-narrative of quagmire and American perfidy overseas.

As Abu Ghraib demonstrated so starkly, American military atrocities are more than localized moral failures: They are events with deep and troubling strategic implications. They help perpetuate the image of the American war on terror as a genocidal crusade against Muslims, providing insurgent Web site operators with ammunition in the ongoing propaganda war against the United States and its allies. They undermine the international credibility of the U.S. military, making it that much harder to attract allies to work alongside American forces. And they destroy any hard-won trust of U.S. troops among civilian populations: More than the actual, complicated facts behind the killing of civilians, it is frequently the perception of the locals that matters most.

The similarity between the events in Nangarhar and Haditha underscores the fact that the war in Afghanistan has grown increasingly Iraq-like in terms of the overall fight between insurgents and American forces. Since 2005, Taliban attacks have grown more savage and suicidal, and they have targeted the civilian populace. The United States has responded by ratcheting up offensive operations, including those in the provinces bordering Pakistan where Osama bin Laden is rumored to be holed up. Every year since 2002 has been deadlier than the last in terms of conflict-related casualties. President Bush just pledged another $10 billion to stabilize and rebuild Afghanistan. But the Taliban has vowed a spring offensive, and as one recent Salon report showed, there is not enough military manpower to stabilize the country.

Some U.S. troops, including the Marine unit in question, may not be adequately prepared for the challenges of a counterinsurgency in Afghanistan, which depends on winning the trust and loyalty of the local populace. Part of the problem no doubt is the scarifying institutional experience of the Marine Corps, the military branch that prides itself on its singular ferocity in battle, and which of late has been almost exclusively focused on conducting high-intensity combat operations in the restive Anbar province of Iraq. (Over the course of the Iraq war, casualty rates in Marine units have run roughly twice that of comparable U.S. Army units.) In this respect, I found the general mindset telling when I embedded with Marines who were training Iraqi security forces in Anbar in 2006. "The reason I joined the Marine Corps was to get into gunfights," one Marine stationed near Fallujah told me. "I hate all this nation-building bullshit."

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