Civilian Casualties: A Stain on the American Moral Credibility
Vineeth Jarabana, Online Branch, Staff Writer and Assistant Editor
March 2022
It is a story that we hear too often. The United States (U.S.) military conducts a strike on terrorists. Sometimes, these terrorists are killed. Sometimes, they are not. Most of the time, however, there is “collateral damage.” When one hears the term, they may visualize infrastructure that was destroyed as a result of targeting terrorists. Perhaps it was a residential building that was turned into rubble. Generally speaking, “collateral damage” goes far beyond that, often meaning civilian casualties. Lives permanently altered or even ended. Throughout the War on Terror, the U.S. has consistently adopted a fatally flawed approach to civilian casualties, tarnishing its moral reputation along the way.
First and foremost, a significant deficiency in the U.S. military’s efforts to mitigate civilian casualties is the lack of accountability. For example, in the midst of a U.S. military withdrawal from Afghanistan, an ISIS-K suicide bomber detonated outside of Hamid Karzai International Airport, killing multiple U.S. Marines and Afghan civilians. In response, the U.S. conducted a drone strike in Kabul on an individual who was supposedly planning another suicide attack against American military forces. Months later, reporting from The New York Times revealed that the U.S. drone strike actually did not kill any terrorists, but instead resulted in the deaths of ten civilians. Rather than holding to account those responsible for this deadly mistake, the U.S. military decided not impose any consequences and attributed the civilian deaths to a “procedural breakdown.” This drone strike is just an example of a broader pattern of American unaccountability when it comes to the civilian impact of its operations in the Middle East. If there are no actual repercussions for needlessly causing civilian casualties, what is deterring people such as drone operators from doing so? The Kabul drone strike also set the precedent for blaming procedural issues rather than reprimanding people in the chain of command, signalling that they can order reckless strikes with impunity.
Furthermore, another shortcoming in the U.S.’ management of civilian casualties is its opacity. This opacity was reflected in the Trump administration’s decision to rescind an Obama-era executive order mandating the reporting of civilian casualty numbers outside of declared war zones. For instance, if the U.S. had decided to conduct air or drone strikes in a region that is not a declared war zone, there would be no requirement for the federal government to publish the number of civilian casualties caused by these strikes. This situation has played out many times in countries such as Somalia. This opacity in the form of not reporting civilian death tolls leaves the general public uninformed and unaware of the human cost of the U.S.’ foreign military interventions that they fund through their tax dollars. American opacity also manifests in the refusal to cooperate with independent investigations. When the International Criminal Court (ICC), an international tribunal, launched a formal war crimes investigation into the U.S. for its conduct in Afghanistan, the Trump administration responded with sanctions on ICC officials. While the U.S. military occasionally conducts self-investigations, it is difficult to trust the findings of these self-investigations given the track record of opacity.
The War on Terror is a distant thought for many, despite the fact that it has been ongoing for over two decades with trillions of American taxpayer dollars having financed it. Given the significant impact on innocent people, it is clear that the United States has much work to do with respect to its approach to civilian casualties. Some potential reforms include mandating the reporting of civilian casualties, expanding cooperation with independent investigative bodies, and implementing enforceable penalties for those who recklessly cause civilian casualties. The Biden administration has taken significant steps forward such as dramatically scaling down American use of drones in war. However, as evidenced by the botched Kabul drone strike last August, there remains room for more progress.