Reason for civilian casualties in Afghanistan

CNN:

NATO Supreme Allied Commander Gen. James Jones promised Afghan President Hamid Karzai at a news conference Saturday that a full investigation of an incident involving the unintended death of around 70 Afghan civilians would be launched.

Karzai has already assembled a team to investigate reports of civilian casualties caused by NATO air operations in southern Afghanistan.

On Thursday, Karzai issued a presidential decree to look into reports stemming from incidents in the Panjwayi and Pashmul districts of Kandahar province.

The team is made up of tribal and community elders from various districts of Kandahar province.

"The team has been asked to prepare a full and complete account of the incident and identify its causes and victims," Karzai said in a news release.

"The team will investigate the reports of civilian casualties and damages inflicted in this operation. They will also present their suggestions to the president on how such unfortunate incidents could be prevented in the future."

Also, NATO's International Security Assistance Force said it and the Afghan Defense Ministry are conducting a joint investigation into a Tuesday incident "in the Panjwayi district of Kandahar province, in which a number of civilians were killed along with a large number of insurgents."

ISAF commander Gen. David Richards, speaking to reporters in Kabul Saturday, said "in the night in the fog of war, mistakes were made."

ISAF has said they were "satisfied" that they "identified and targeted a group of insurgents," but said they were uncertain how many civilians were killed as a result but believes it to be about 70 individuals.

ISAF said it has consulted local elders and other citizens "who have indicated that the great majority of those killed were Taliban."

The International Committee of the Red Cross said Friday that civilians are being caught in the crossfire.

...

The primary reason mistakes like this are made is that the Taliban is violating the Geneve Conventions requirement that they wear readily identifiable uniforms, and they are compounding this violation by positioning their forces where they can use civilians as human shields which also a violation of the Geneva Conventions. Organizations like CNN and other media help perpetuate these problems by failing to report the violations and the way these violations endanger civilians. Rather they tend like this story to focus on our sides failure to identify the civilians, without ever considering the real reason why that failure may occur. The media is quick to assert perceived violations by our side of the Geneva Conventions, but the compliantly give the enemy a pass when it comes to much more egregious violations.

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