Afghanistan - Study (The Horror)

TALIBAN propagandists currently have one of the easiest jobs going, remarked a Western official after news reached Kabul of a shooting spree in rural Kandahar, in which an American staff sergeant killed 16 sleeping civilians. “If I were the Taliban spokesman I’d just sit back in a cave and do nothing, and leave it all to us,” the official added.

The massacre, or “assassination” as Hamid Karzai, the president of Afghanistan, described it, is but the latest disaster to befall the NATO-led coalition. The shootings on March 11th in Panjwayi district come less than three weeks after the inadvertent burning of Korans in a rubbish pit at Bagram airfield. That caused days of nationwide protest which left around 30 Afghans dead and more than 200 wounded. Reprisal attacks killing American soldiers led to the temporary withdrawal of advisers from Afghan ministries. In January a trophy video emerged of American soldiers urinating on Taliban fighters they had killed in battle. These incidents come on top of the usual round of civilian casualties from coalition airstrikes, which are less frequent now but no less resented.

The aftermath of each incident follows a similar trajectory.  NATO is profuse in its apologies or condolences. Mr Karzai rages, trying to strike a balance between domestic populism and the need to work with the foreign allies he relies on. Diplomatic assets are deployed to smooth relations. The Taliban, which itself kills many civilians, seeks to capitalise on the crisis with inflammatory statements about Western invaders. Countries with soldiers deployed in Afghanistan brace themselves for revenge attacks on their troops.

In the case of the Panjwayi shootings, a day after the killings the area was relatively calm. Elders in the area have shown admirable restraint. Villagers did not want their anger to be manipulated or misused, one elder told this newspaper.

For while many lost faith in foreign soldiers long ago, that is not the same as wanting chaos, or the Taliban, back. An attack on a village in rural Kandahar also does not have the power to galvanise a fractured nation in the same way as an attack on their holiest book did last month.

In fact, the political impact of the latest shootings may be strongest in America and Europe. Officials in Kabul fear the incidents give a damaging portrayal of a hapless mission, lurching from one disaster to another. Each incident also feeds perceptions of an Afghan public exasperated with, or even hostile to, the help being given. Nothing is as toxic to support for a difficult overseas campaign as the feeling the recipients are ungrateful.

According to a Washington Post-ABC News poll conducted just before the shooting in Panjwayi, 55% of Americans believe most Afghans are opposed to what  NATO is trying to accomplish there. 54% said America should pull its troops out even if Afghan forces are unprepared to replace them. Barack Obama and his counterparts are due to meet in May at  NATO's summit in Chicago, where they will discuss the scale of continuing support and the pace of the troop withdrawal. Any more self-inflicted wounds would speed up the alliance's exit.