At a meeting on Wednesday, President Hamid Karzai demanded an end to night raids – U.S. military operations in which Afghan homes are raided in the middle of the night – as one of the conditions for a security partnership with the U.S. that would keep American troops in Afghanistan through at least 2024.
The Pentagon, as it has for years, dismissed Karzai’s concerns that the night raids are abusive and often end in the killing or detention of Afghan civilians. “Frankly we share those same concerns,” said Pentagon spokesman Captain John Kirby, “nobody wants to see innocent civilians hurt,” but night raids “are effective, and they don’t result in a great number of civilian casualties.”
Karzai expressed his concerns at a loya jirga, or a grand council, with tribal elders, while laying out his proposed conditions for signing deal with the U.S. to remain in the country for a decade beyond Obama’s superficial 2014 date for withdrawal.
A recent report by the Open Society Foundation found that Obama’s increased nighttime military raids have fueled resentment and undermined the mission to quell the insurgency in Afghanistan.
“An estimated 12 to 20 night raids now occur per night,” according to the report, “resulting in thousands of detentions per year, many of whom are non-combatants.” And many of the associated tactics, like “mass detention operations, holding entire villages for questioning on site for prolonged periods of time,” may violate international law, the report found.
Civilians bear the brunt of these hardline tactics. As one man from Nangarhar, interviewed in the report said, “They claim to be against terrorists, but what they are doing is terrorism. It spreads terror. It creates more violence.”
According to senior commanders in the Joint Special Operations Command, these various nightly raids get the wrong person 50 percent of the time. For a war-torn population living through a decade of US military occupation, ninety-two percent of whom have never even heard of 9/11, many regard the raids as counterproductive.
He can't be serious! Doesn't he know that SWAT terror raids are a beloved American institution?
Once again the country which claims to have a manifest destiny to spread democracy around the world imposes its wishes on another (supposedly sovereign) country.
How is the US occupation of Afghanistan any better than the Israeli occupation of the West Bank?
Regards, Alex
Trotskyites spreading the revolution. Republican neo-cons worked for the Israeli right before moving into the Pentagon with Bush. The Clintonista's carry on the fight.
Doesn't like night braids….. but wants the night raiderz to stay there till 2024… What a guy…..
Off the conflicted varmin…!!!
“They claim to be against terrorists, but what they are doing is terrorism. It spreads terror. It creates more violence.”
If you replace the word "on" with "of" then all of a sudden things like the War "on" Terror and the War "on" Drugs start to make a lot more sense.
The proud tribesman wont like armed strangers intruding into his home at night, shouting and ordering him around in front of his terrified wife and children. Unbearable for an afghan man and I bet many a man would seek to join the insurgents after this expierance.
The US Military and DOD had the same sort of cavalier attitude and arrogance in Iraq and they were forced out of the country. I would like to think that the military doesn't want to stay and State is forcing the issue. It is hopefully a sef-defeating ploy by the Generals.