This week the Senate Foreign Relations Committee approved the Syria Transition Support Act, authorizing arming and training vetted Syrian rebels. Across the Atlantic, the United Kingdom and France are similarly pressing the European Union to lift the arms embargo for Syria. Donor governments, however, need to ensure this “lethal” aid does not pose more risk…
By Trevor Keck In January, Afghan forces shot grenades and bullets at a remote village in Nangarhar province, in eastern Afghanistan. One civilian died, and villagers rushed six other injured residents to the hospital in Jalalabad. Nasir saw it all happen. He then had to beg $11,000 from friends and relatives to cover medical care…
KABUL — Afghan officials said Monday they demanded the pullout of U.S. Special Operations forces from an insurgency-wracked province because the U.S.-backed NATO command here for months has ignored residents’ allegations of severe abuses committed by the elite American troops and armed Afghan irregulars working with them. But NATO said its past inquiries found no…
Editor Gideon Rose speaks with Sarah Holewinski, executive director of the Center for Civilians in Conflict, about the issue of inadvertent civilian harm in conflict, its implications, and how the U.S. military can effectively address the problem. Holewinski asserts that civilian harm is a strategic loss in war and argues that, in light of the…
The president’s pick for CIA director — John Brennan — is one of a handful of U.S. officials who understands America’s covert drone campaign inside and out. Nearly everyone else is in the dark about the whos, wheres and whys of the program, including most members of Congress. But Brennan is also one of the…
Civilians harmed by Afghanistan’s security forces rarely receive assistance of any kind. Why that might soon change. A UN Dispatch interview. Source: Making Amends for Civilian Casualties in Afghanistan | UN Dispatch
KABUL — A report released Monday accuses Afghanistan’s army and police of failing to address civilian casualties as the country’s newly built forces assume responsibility for security during NATO’s military withdrawal. The Center for Civilians in Conflict, a Washington-based research organization, said in its report that “the capacity of the Afghan government and security forces…
President Obama is quite literally writing his legacy on the use of force during his second term. According to media reports, the administration is codifying the hows and whys of its drone policy in a handbook. The assumption is that the United States will put into doctrine what it has already created in practice: new rules…
The Afghanistan and Iraq wars taught the United States painful lessons about the need to limit harm to civilians and compensate victims for their suffering. Now Washington must turn that ad hoc progress into a permanent policy, followed not only by its military but also by those of its partners as well. Read the article in…