by Devon Williams
Azmat Khan’s New York Times series shocked me with how flippantly America seemed to measure foreign lives. The number of civilians killed by avoidable airstrikes, the way the ‘best’ technology could be so extremely wrong, and how little officials seemed to care about the cost of their mistakes showed another side of American militarism than what is broadcast to the general population. After reviewing thousands of casualty assessments and seeing a “pattern of impunity” rather than isolated mistakes, Khan emphasized that these losses are more than a simple discrepancy or even negligence. This military is capable of taking responsibility for this harm yet intentionally avoids it, instead using the excuse of video limits or technological errors that cannot be disputed yet are still indirectly the fault of operatives. The same branches that committed these grave mistakes are the same ones who investigate it, and it is no surprise that they don’t want to be the ones held accountable.
The ideas of “transient” civilians and heat maps of the traffic of public areas struck me because surveillance itself usually still identifies innocents like women and children, yet the people operating the machines still accept the strikes. The fact that people are moving and ‘could’ get out of the way or there ‘may not’ be as many people as their could be within a space is enough plausible deniability for the US to dismiss the lives likely to be extinguished, and even when these decisions are challenged, the military stands by their flawed techniques.
Technological obscurity is continuously employed as a scapegoat, as children are called “unknown heavy objects” within rubble or in buildings, cars entire colors are mismatched, or men on motorcycles are seen as possible attach formations all because of an easy moral escape and intentional confirmation bias. Even when external analyses reveal extremely high death toles like the 120 civilians following the Tokhar strike, the existing policies and practices are seen as acceptable for continued operations. Where is the line where countless innocent deaths are acceptable for the possibility of striking one or two select targets? The obscurity and instability of technology and decision-making before a strike can justify action due to the possibility of harm while also acting as a system to take the fall when that inference is wrong or miscalculated. It seems like there is no way that the operatives themselves are ever held accountable for their actions or actually accept that they are the ones to take the blame.
This led me to consider how institutional responsibility continues after conflict is over or when mistakes are retroactively recognized by internal or external bodies; even the withdrawal from Afghanistan was a ‘mistake’ to some, with Abdul Wahid Wafa calling it “hasty” and “irresponsible” when it jeopardized careers and institutions built alongside American presence and protection. Despite America being the institution to cause much of the unnecessary harm aforementioned, the shadow of retaliation and strength still deterred harm for many within the country. Germany’s suspension of the programs accepting Afghans into the country was parallel in its haste and self-interest, leaving people stranded in Pakistan seeking their deportation (Reuters) or at risk of being sent back to the country that was already violent enough to force them to escape, with EuroNews reporting that “Afghanistan is not safe” even when Europeans want it to be for deportation. The countries and institutions that cause this harm both directly and indirectly still never seem to feel like they have blood on their hands, and through technological errors, miscalculations, or straight-up refusal of wrongdoing it doesn’t seem like anything can force them to recognize their role as the aggressor in addition to the self-proclaimed ‘protector.’
