Karzai wants end, US won't budge

By Rachel Oppenheimer

Local officials and the Red Cross announced that US airstrikes killed dozens of Afghan civilians – including women and children – during a battle in Western Afghanistan last Monday and Tuesday. As concerns mount over noncombatant casualties in the war against the Taliban, the top US commander in Afghanistan said the US military suspects the incident started when Taliban militants entered the area and beheaded three civilians.

Afghan officials see things quite differently. Afghanistan's leading human rights organization is investigating claims that US forces used white phosphorous – a chemical which causes severe burns – in the firefight in Bala Baluk, a district in the Western Province of Farah. Dr. Mohammed Aref Jalali, the head of an internationally-funded burns hospital in Herat, said villagers taken to the hospital after the incident had “highly unusual burns” on their hands and feet.

In an interview with NBC's “Meet the Press,” President Hamid Karzai said that the US risked losing a “moral” fight against the Taliban if too many civilians died in American attacks. On Friday, Karzai told CNN that “airstrikes are not acceptable,” adding that they had killed nearly 125 to 130 civilians in the past week. But the US military called the figure of over 100 people killed “exaggerated.”

Six days after Afghans blame United States airstrikes for the deaths of hundreds of civilians, President Obama's top national security advisor, General James L. Jones, apologized for the civilian casualties and said that American officials are investigating the incident. Jones then went on to announce that the United States would likely continue airstrikes against Afghanistan extremists despite a warning from Mr. Karzai that civilian casualties have an increasingly negative effect on US-Afghanistan relations. U.S. officials say that an end to airstrikes in Afghanistan would deprive Afghan troops of vital protection.

In the midst of decreased trust and increased violence, can the Obama administration still make progress in regional peace-making? Washington may want to listen more carefully.

“We demand an end to these operations,” Mr. Karzai said. “The air strikes, especially, and sudden bursts into homes at night are not in any way good for this war.”