An American soldier exited his base in Afghanistan while carrying weapons, stormed the homes of safe civilians, killed some and injured others then returned to his base to relate what he had done. Prior to that incident, American soldiers burned copies of the Koran in their base, and so that this action generates the required impact, posted images of it online. Before that, American soldiers urinated on the corpses of dead Taliban elements in a scene which did not lack disdain and disparagement toward Afghans they killed in an armed confrontation. The American political and military command still perceives all these actions as being individual ones carried out by soldiers who will be subjected to investigations and accountability. Moreover, it is emphasizing that this is not the way the Americans deal with the Afghans. But this denial – in addition to the political failure to ensure reconciliation and the military failure to annihilate the Taliban strongholds – does not annul the questions related to the nature of what the US soldiers have started doing in Afghanistan. True, Afghan soldiers who were trained at the hands of the NATO troops and were supposed to be on their side in the battle against the Taliban, opened fire on their trainers and killed some of them. However, this behavior is at the heart of the armed confrontation with the extremist Afghan movement, i.e. an actual part of the war against NATO whose withdrawal from the country without any restraints or conditions is being demanded by the Taliban. Nonetheless, what the American soldiers recently did – and before them soldiers from other states participating in ISAF – exits the context of the war and the military confrontation with a known enemy, i.e. the Taliban and its allies, and reaches the level of targeting sacred Afghan symbols and civilians. Let us put aside the alleged behavior of a professional army which should, based on all international laws, protect the civilians under occupation, treat the enemy prisoners in a humanitarian way, tend to the wounded and respect the human character of this enemy, especially after he is killed in battle. Such morals were exceeded by the situation in Afghanistan and their absence is not concealed by the flow of statements issued in regard to the care given to the Afghans, the insistence on the strategy to fight the Taliban and the provision of support to the authority in Kabul so that it is able to protect the country. And let us put aside the United States' and NATO's political and military failure to rearrange the rule in Afghanistan in a way allowing the achievement of the goals behind the occupation of the country, its cleaning from the Taliban and its allies and the establishment of a democratic state, but also the attempts to ensure an honorable withdrawal for the foreign troops with all the complications that this withdrawal features, and take a look at the field behavior of these troops. These soldiers' mission should be to earn the trust of the Afghan people and fight the Taliban. However, the failure in both missions backfired on them, and their hostility toward the Taliban turned into one toward the Afghan people. To those soldiers, the Afghans have become the opponent and the enemy. They generalized the hostility that went from targeting a portion to targeting the whole, which undermines any political foundation for the handling of the situation. We thus saw the direct provocation of the Afghans, the public dismissal of their beliefs and sanctities and the targeting of their civilians. In other words, the targeting of the Afghans and their religious and social beliefs that vary from the ones prevailing in these soldiers' countries is the basis of the current confrontation, which eliminates the disciplined military character of those troops and renders them a militia fighting in the context of a civil war in which the opponent is an entire group and not just the fighters. What the American soldiers and the NATO troops are doing in Afghanistan could be described as being an engagement in civil war with the Afghans. They have become armed militias in the face of the Afghan people. At least, this is what the Afghans are now convinced of and should be looked into by the ISAF member states instead of the justifications related to individual acts.
