More disturbing reports are filtering out of Afghanistan now that the fighting is mostly over. The problems are many and varied.
During the bombardment of Taliban forces, it would appear that while most of the targets hit were Taliban ones, Air Force and Navy planes also hit villages, cars and fuel trucks that had nothing to do with the Taliban, but were simply innocent civilians going about their daily lives. Some of the targeting errors were due to bad intelligence, some were due to a swiftly changing combat environment, and others because many of the vehicles in use by civilians and the Taliban look alike.
The third of the issues is probably the worst. It implies that U.S. aircraft were attacking vehicles with bombs, missiles, and cannons, even if they weren't positively identified as the enemy. Reports have said that military officers have returned to villages and other areas inadvertantly bombed to apologize and promise rebuilding assistance, but what good does that do for the dead? This is the sort of thing that is minimized when actual troops are used on the ground. Yes, it exposes our guys to casualties, but it also minimizes the "collateral damage" among people we are ostensibly helping.
Another problem recently brought to light is the refusal by U.S. commanders to do two things, both of which may have made the world a safer place. First, even though officers from the 82nd Airborne and 101st Air Assault Divisions requested to be put in place between Afghanistan and the Pakistani border to prevent the escape of Tliban and al-Qaeda fighters, the American commanders in the region refused to do so, saying that the elite Airborne units might take casualties.
These units were drpped behind German lines during the D-Day invasion, and were placed in Saudi Arabia to deter Iraqi forces during Operation Desert Shield. All of the men a volutnteers twice over. Firts they volunteered to join the Army, and then they volunteerd again for Airborne training. They signed up for dangerous jobs in elite units so that they could fight the hard battles against dangerous opponents. The whole reason they existis to perform the important missions. They should have been allowed to do so. It would have prevented some of the problems we are likely to see in the future.
Next, the British SAS had identified a valley that they believed Ossama bin Laden coul be trapped in. They requested permission to block off the exits to the valley and raid it. The American commanders delayed until American Delta Force units were in position to attempt the capture, not for any reasonable military reason, but because they wanted to be able to make the poitical statement that bin Laden had been captured or killed by Americans. If the purpose of our military operations in Afghanistan was to bring Ossama bin Laden and his fellow conspirators to justice (or even to seek revenge), it shouldn't matter if we our our allies capture or kill him, as long as it gets done. This should be about getting the job done, not politics.