McChrystal's support for raids belies new image

Gen. Stanley McChrystal has recently acquired the image of a master strategist of the population-sensitive counterinsurgency, reducing civilian casualties from airstrikes and insisting that troops avoid firing when civilians might be hit during the recent offensive in Helmand Province. One recent press story even referred to a "McChrystal Doctrine" that focuses on "winning over civilians rather than killing insurgents." But there is a glaring contradiction between McChrystal's new counterinsurgency credentials and his actual policy toward the politically explosive issue of night raids on private homes by Special Operations Forces (SOF) units targeting suspected Taliban. Since he took over as top commander in Afghanistan, McChrystal has not only refused to curb those raids but has increased them dramatically. And even after they triggered a new round of angry protests from villagers, students and Afghan President Hamid Karzai himself, he has given no signal of reducing his support for them. McChrystal approved a more than fourfold increase in those operations, from 20 in May to 90 in November. Then McChrystal deliberately protected night raids from political pressures to reduce or even stop them altogether. As a result of McChrystal's decisions, civilian deaths from night raids have spiked. According to United Nations and Afghan government estimates, night raids caused more than half of the nearly 600 civilian deaths attributable to coalition forces in 2009.