The Taliban civilian casualty scam

Ralph Peters:

THE most effective weapon terrorists have found to wield against us isn't the headline-grabbing suicide bomber or even the deadly roadside bomb, the IED.

Such weapons can harm us, but they can't stop us. Terror's super-weapon is the lie.

Lying about civilian casualties is the one sure way to impede or even halt US (or Israeli) operations, to force such tight restrictions on our troops that they can't win.

The casualty con's so effective as both propaganda and tactic that terrorists everywhere have adopted the technique. It's been so successful that our enemies long ago transitioned to the next phase: creating civilian casualties and blaming us.

It works. The media love the charge. Our troops and pilots are always guilty -- even if proven innocent. Because so many on the left want us to be guilty.

Few journalists bother to investigate. If the Taliban, al Qaeda, Hezbollah or Hamas says it, it must be so. In Media Wonderland, terrorists never lie. Now every successful strike on a Taliban target generates the instant claim that the dead were all civilians.

And it isn't just the media who back the Taliban. The Obama administration -- a case study in instant foreign-policy ineptitude -- signs up, too.

This week, Taliban terrorists publicly beheaded three civilians in Afghanistan's Farah province, then herded women and children into compounds from which they fought government forces and US advisers.

With a vicious ground battle under way, the Talibs knew attack aircraft would appear. According to military sources, they set up the target. And, just in case, they slaughtered those women and children with grenades before any aircraft appeared. The entire massacre was a planned media event.

And who gets blamed? Not the Taliban. Before the smoke cleared, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton was apologizing. (Apologizing is one thing this administration does with real enthusiasm.)

Our SecState played right into the Taliban's hands. It was instinctive on her part. Clinton and her new Cabinet peers know that our military's evil. No need to say a single word about the Taliban's atrocity.

...

Instead of begging for forgiveness, Clinton needed to take a firm position. She should have said: "The deaths in Farah province were entirely the fault of the Taliban. To punish these terrorists and better protect Afghan civilians, we're loosening our rules of engagement. We will not tolerate this cynical use of women and children as unwilling weapons of war. These war criminals will be hunted down and killed."

Instead, Hillary blamed our military. Again.

This is war, Madame Secretary. Tragic mistakes happen, but the incident in Farah province wasn't an error -- it was a brutal, cynical set-up. And you stabbed our troops in the back. Again.

...

What made her mistake worse is that the Taliban even admitted before hand that there strategy was to create a victim facade following our air attacks. It was a planned victim offensive and information op and Clinton and the Obama administration helped the Taliban execute it.

It is clear that they do not understand the enemy or his tactics.