Gaza and Afghanistan: 'War Crimes' versus 'Hearts and Minds'
25 February 2010
Colonel Richard Kemp, a former British Army commander in Afghanistan, described on Monday what he regarded as the different responses in the international media to the military actions of British and Israeli forces. Speaking at an event in London, and quoted the next day by the BBC, Col Kemp argued that Israel faces greater and more instinctive criticism of its military operations than Britain does.
‘When we go into battle we do not get the same knee-jerk, almost Pavlovian response from many, many elements of the international media and international groups, humanitarian groups and other international groups such as the United Nations which should know better... of utter automatic condemnation. We don't have to put up with that.’
Reports from Afghanistan this week make a good test case for Col Kemp’s assertion. At least 27 civilians were killed in a NATO air strike in the Afghanistan province of Uruzgan on Sunday 21 February. Airborne units opened fire on what was believed to be a group of insurgents, but which was actually a travelling party of civilian ethnic Hazaras, prompting a personal apology from General Stanley McChrystal, Commander of NATO forces in Afghanistan. Separately, 12 civilians and three Taliban were killed in a strike in Marja as part of Operation Moshtarak – NATO’s latest offensive in neighboring Helmand province.
‘Hearts and minds’
Characteristic of the UK media's response to these reports has been a widespread concern about the negative impact civilian casualties might have on support amongst the Afghan people. However, none of the recent news reports have raised questions about the legality of these actions. In particular, references to International Law’s requirements of proportionality and the need to distinguish between combatants and civilians have been absent in the coverage of these strikes, in clear contrast with the way similar actions by the Israeli military have traditionally been treated. Rather, the possible effects on the popularity of the military campaign seem to have taken precedence.
The Independent’s Julius Cavendish opened his report on Tuesday by writing that: ‘A bungled airstrike in Afghanistan has dealt NATO's effort to woo hearts and minds the third such blow in a week, with Kabul claiming the bombing killed 27 civilians, including women and children’. Similarly, The Guardian news reporters Mathew Weaver and Jon Boone in Kabul concluded their report the day after the incident in Uruzgan with: ‘The continued loss of civilian lives will make it harder for NATO as it attempts to win the support of local Afghans against Taliban militants in the south.’ Nick Paton Walsh ended his broadcast for Channel 4 news with: ‘Whatever progress NATO makes, both against the Taliban and in cleaning up its own tactics, it’s these enduring mistakes that still threaten to loom large in Afghan minds.’
The emphasis on this feature suggests that many journalists are more focused on the levels of support for the war in Afghanistan than on the deaths of civilians themselves. This focus was also observed in the reporting of what may have been the deadliest NATO attack involving Afghan civilians. This took place in May 2009 in the Farah province and, according to the Afghan government, killed as many as 140 people in misdirected airstrikes on three villages. Patrick Cockburn reported at the time for The Independent: ‘The killing of so many Afghan civilians by US aircraft is likely to infuriate Afghans and lead to an increase in support for the Taliban in the bombed area.’ And Martin Patience echoed this sentiment in an analysis for the BBC news website: ‘Ultimately, the international community and the Afghan government need to win over ordinary Afghans. Every time there is an incident like this, it sets back the whole agenda.’
Israel also appears to have an interest in communicating the purpose of its operations to local civilians as well as the international community, and its potential failure at convincing these civilians about its objectives can be considered damaging for Israel. Then Prime Minster Ehud Olmert stated in December 2008: ‘You - the citizens of Gaza - are not our enemies. Hamas, Jihad and the other terrorist organisations are your enemies, as they are our enemies.’ But when the country’s military operations harmed civilians, the consequences on the operation’s popularity were sidelined, as many journalists focused instead on the legal implications of the harmful incidents. In this respect, the media’s response does appear to be different in the two contexts.
Operation Cast Lead
The circumstances of the conflict in Gaza and southern Israel between December 2008 and January 2009 obviously differ from those in Afghanistan, and respective conditions in which the media can operate in the two regions vary. However, the distinctive media focus on issues of legality where Israel is concerned is not clearly explained by these differences.
The Guardian notably published the results of a month-long investigation in Gaza in March 2009. Diplomatic editor Julian Borger and correspondent Clancy Chassay claimed to have ‘compiled detailed evidence of alleged war crimes committed by Israel during the 23-day offensive in the Gaza Strip’. A key claim of the investigation concerned the use of drones in military operations:
‘Israel has pioneered a new type of all-seeing precision weapon: the armed drone. The capabilities of this hunter-killer, which can track a person walking along a street and strike with precision, are a military secret. To use these weapons against civilians is a war crime. But a Guardian investigation has uncovered evidence from the Israeli military themselves, that proves just how clearly these weapons can see. So why did one of these drones kill an entire family having tea in their courtyard?’
Yet during the same month as the investigation in Gaza, the Guardian also reported about civilian deaths caused by the US military’s use of drones in the border regions between Afghanistan and Pakistan - but without raising the spectre of war crimes in news reports in that context, let alone embarking on an investigation. William Dalrymple wrote in the newspaper’s G2 supplement:
‘The tribal areas have never been fully under the control of any Pakistani government, and have always been unruly, but they have now been radicalised as never before. The rain of armaments from US drones and Pakistani ground forces, which have caused extensive civilian casualties, daily add a steady stream of angry foot soldiers to the insurgency.’
Another example of the inconsistent focus on legality relates to the question of military incidents’ proportionality and the distinction between civilians and combatants. The BBC’s Heather Sharpe, reporting in the midst of the Gaza Conflict last January, explored in detail the questions surrounding Israel’s efforts to distinguish civilians from combatants, and the proportionate use of force, offering both the Israeli perspective, and that of other contributors who voiced criticism of Israel’s operation (‘Gaza conflict: Who is a civilian?’). In this context the journalists discussed the Israeli strike on Gaza police stations that killed at least 40 trainees, and the deaths of members of the Balousha family in a strike on a nearby Hamas-linked mosque in the Jabaliya refugee camp.
By contrast, the BBC’s report on last September’s NATO airstrike on two fuel tankers that had been commandeered by Taliban did not raise these concerns. The airstrikes reportedly killed at least 90 people, including civilians and Taliban, prompting a statement from Afghan President Ahmed Karzai that ‘targeting civilians in any form is unacceptable’. Despite making clear that civilian casualties were numerous, even if ‘Taliban leaders were among at least 90 killed’, the BBC did not raise the legal questions that were asked about Israel’s offensive in this report nor in any of the recent reports about civilian casualties since Operation Moshtarak began earlier this month.
Objectivity
These examples suggest that Col Kemp may be correct in his assessment of the differences between the media’s reaction to British and Israeli military campaigns. Concerns about the legality of the civilian deaths in Afghanistan do not materialize in the reporting of that conflict. Rather, the primary focus of the media is on the degree to which incidents involving such deaths are damaging to the way the campaign is perceived by local people. Whether or not the media’s response to Israel’s Operation Cast Lead was ‘knee-jerk’ and ‘almost Pavlovian’, the scrutiny did focus extensively on the legal implications of cases of civilian deaths.
This raises questions about the objectivity of the British news outlets and their international news coverage. If journalists have a goal of identifying illegal military malpractice in the reporting of other conflicts, as seemed evident during the Gaza conflict, then the coverage of the present NATO operations underway in Afghanistan may not be penetrative enough. If civilians are harmed or killed in war, the same questions should be asked - irrespective of the parties involved.
Note: With respect to newspapers cited, Just Journalism examined only news articles that appeared in print. Blogs and editorials (either online or print) were not taken into account for the purpose of this analysis.