ANALYSIS:AMID THE deluge of leaked US army files on the war in Afghanistan, one figure stood out: the sum of 100,000 Afghanis, equivalent to €1,760.
That is the amount paid out in what the military call “solatia” or compensation, in the case of a civilian death – the price of an innocent Afghan life.
In terms of long-term fallout, the most damaging aspect of yesterday’s leak was the extent to which it cleared the fog of war to reveal a toll of civilian deaths and injuries much greater than what had previously been made known to the public.
The army logs are threaded with accounts of undisclosed civilian deaths and injuries. More than 140 entries record a wide variety of assaults on Afghans, and show that the US-led forces have killed hundreds of civilians in unreported incidents. These range from the shooting of innocent individuals to mass fatalities as a result of air strikes.
The issue of civilian casualties has long been one of the biggest sources of friction between Nato and president Hamid Karzai’s government.
“Afghan life is not cheap and it should not be treated as such,” Karzai declared in 2007.
Loss of civilian life, particularly in air strikes, has had a deeply corrosive effect, causing support for the Afghan government and the war against the Taliban to fray among ordinary Afghans. It has also boosted insurgent propaganda and recruiting efforts.
According to human rights groups, the number of civilian deaths caused by Nato is vastly outnumbered by the number killed by the Taliban but, as Jim Dutton, then deputy commander of the Nato-led International Security Assistance Force (Isaf) put it in an interview with The Irish Timeslast year, "a single civilian casualty is one too many".
In 2008, Isaf set up a tracking unit to determine the number of civilian casualties and who or what caused them. A member of the Irish Defence Forces, one of seven Irish army personnel serving on a rotating basis with Isaf since 2002, worked in the unit until recently.
But human rights groups question if such efforts are enough. Amnesty International yesterday accused Nato of having an “incoherent process” in terms of accounting for civilian casualties.
Last year, the then newly appointed US commander Gen Stanley McChrystal tightened the rules of engagement in an attempt to minimise civilian deaths.
Most of the deaths described in the documents released yesterday occurred before McChrystal, who was dismissed last month, took charge.
The new policy of restraint has resulted in a substantial reduction in civilian casualties and few air strikes. There are concerns, however, that McChrystal’s successor, US General David Petraeus, may bow to pressure to ease restrictions amid complaints from troops that they are now taking far more casualties of their own.
Yesterday Afghan officials and Nato were making conflicting claims over the latest reports of mass civilian casualties. The Afghan government said at least 45 civilians, including women and children, were killed in a Nato rocket attack in Helmand last Friday – a report disputed by Nato. The question now, in light of Wikileaks’ damning data, is how many Afghans will believe such protestations?