It's never as simple as a 3:31 piece on The National

Brian Stewart did a piece a few nights ago on accountability for "night raids" in Afghanistan by Canadian and allied special forces, and I've been meaning to write something about it ever since.

Stewart and Mansbridge ask a lot of questions, but don't provide many good answers. But that certainly doesn't stop them from making insinuations and giving inaccurate impressions to their viewers.

For starters, look at Mansbridge's introduction to the segment:

Canadians are told their soldiers are rebuilding Afghanistan, fighting to defend the lives of the Afghan people. But elite Canadian soldiers are also carrying out secret military raids, raids which have resulted in the deaths of Afghan civilians. The United Nations is demanding answers. But the Canadian military is neither talking nor offering any accountability...

There's so much spin packed into so few words, it's going to take some effort to unpack it. Stay with me, here.

First off, Canadian soldiers are rebuilding Afghanistan, and they are defending the lives of ordinary Afghans. Yet the CBC questions it, by prefacing their statement with "Canadians are told..."

They then attempt to juxtapose those facts against the reality of targeted raids, highlighting the idea of civilian deaths. What's missed in those two sentences is that, in killing or capturing key insurgents in those "night raids," the CF is actually rebuilding Afghanistan by systematically removing those who would destabilize and regress it and protecting Afghans by removing those who would subjugate and terrorize them.

Remember, the insurgents kill more Afghans than any other group operating in the country:

Tallying records from nongovernmental organizations and the media, Human Rights Watch counted 189 bombings in 2006 that killed 492 civilians. An additional 177 civilians were killed in other attacks including ambushes and executions.

"The insurgents are increasingly committing war crimes, often by directly targeting civilians," said Joanne Mariner, terrorism and counterterrorism director at the rights group, which is based in New York.

Even when targeting security forces, "they generally kill many, many more civilians than they do military personnel," she added.

It's also worth remembering that the CBC has also highlighted the obvious drawbacks to the main alternative to night raids, airstrikes:

The insurgents used civilian houses for cover, and in doing so, put villagers at risk, said ISAF spokesman Lt.-Col. Mike Smith.

The dead included nine women and three children, according to the provincial police chief, Mohammad Hussein Andiwal.

...

"A compound was assessed to have been occupied by up to 30 insurgent fighters, most of whom were killed in the engagement," a NATO statement said.

"We are concerned about reports that some civilians may have lost their lives during this attack," Smith said.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai criticized the mounting civilian toll from NATO and U.S.-led military operations as "difficult for us to accept or understand."

So if Canadian soldiers come in with overwhelming force - artillery or airstrikes - they're criticized for being too indiscriminate in their attacks. But when they send in special forces, which greatly increase the chances of hitting a specific insurgent target surgically, they're criticized for a lack of accountability.

Seems to me like they're 'damned if they do, damned if they don't' by Stewart and his newsroom cronies.

Back to Mansbridge's introduction, though, and specifically to his statement that the U.N. is demanding answers. It would be more useful to specify that the Special Rapporteur to the U.N. Human Rights Council, professor and lawyer Philip Alston, is demanding answers. The U.N. Security Council obviously has enough answers to support the U.N. mandate for the mission.

And finally, to the assertion that the CF isn't talking or offering any accountability, I can only say 'yes' to the first point and 'accountability to whom?' to the second. I wish the CF was given more free rein to address their own press demands, but unfortunately the government has decided to clamp down on the CF's ability to respond to even the most innocuous of requests, let alone those of this sensitivity. So yes, the CF isn't talking.

But the idea that the CF isn't accountable is not only ridiculous, it's flat out wrong.

The Canadian military is the most accountable organization in the Canadian government, and perhaps in the entire country. Every single person serving in uniform knows who they report to, and who reports to them. Although some responsibilities and missions are more clearly defined than others, CF personnel are far more likely to seek out a clear mandate from their superiors than just about anyone else I know, right down to the private carrying a rifle.

Just ask a soldier about the concept of 'arcs of fire' and what that means in terms of personal accountability.

Ask Rick Hillier or Walt Natynczuk who is accountable for the actions of any soldier, sailor, or airman in the CF, and if you give them a few minutes on the phone, they'll be able to tell you: "Pte Bloggins reports to MCpl Smith, who reports to WO Jones, who reports to Capt Black, who reports to LCol White, who reports to...who reports to me." Ask the Minister of National Defence or the Prime Minister whether or not the CF is accountable, and to whom.

No, what CBC is complaining about is that the CF isn't accountable to the press. Boo-frickin'-hoo.

And folks, that's just the first twenty-five seconds of the the clip.

Stewart takes over with even more incomplete information, implication and insinuation, and spin. I use the term 'spin' advisedly here, because I can't think of how a paid journalist with decades in his craft could put something so lop-sided together and present it on air if he wasn't deliberately trying to guide his viewers to a predetermined conclusion.

The best example of this in the piece comes at the 2:14 mark. Stewart shows a copy of Alston's report, and says that Alston "complains that 200 civilians have been killed in operations this year by NATO forces, some in raids."

Too true. Here's the report where the complaint is made (Word file).

But here's what Stewart doesn't tell you, on pages 5 and 6 of the document:

Taliban and other anti-Government elements

27. Over the past four months, the Taliban and other anti-government elements have killed approximately 300 civilians. Roughly three quarters of these civilians were killed in suicide attacks. While the majority of suicide attacks appear to target legitimate military objectives, many of these attacks are nonetheless unlawful because it should be obvious that they will result in far more civilian than military deaths.

28. Most of the other civilians killed by the Taliban die as a result of targeted assassinations. While these killings are fewer in number, they are significant in terms of intimidating and repressing the population. Often, killing one teacher will close an entire area’s schools, killing one proponent of the Government will intimidate many others, and killing one worker will end humanitarian access to a district. These assassinations are completely unlawful, and their consequences are dramatic. The Taliban have also engaged in a high level of unlawful killing of non-civilians. [Babbler's emphasis]

But hey, if Stewart says it's all about JTF 2 and international military forces, it must be true, right?

As I read the report, Alston saves his fiercest condemnation for the Taliban and those who kill women. In his own words:

I saw no evidence of widespread intentional killings in violation of human rights or humanitarian law by international military forces.

Stewart also gets himself into trouble speaking with Mansbridge at the end of the story:

M: Well, who controls Canada's JTF 2?

S: Well, Canada, of course, overwhelmingly does control it. The problem is it's a very unclear line of command all the time. It serves with the Americans in Operation Enduring Freedom, and it goes on special operations but it also has told parliament, insisted to parliament it does OK every mission with the senior Canadian officer in Afghanistan. And that's about all it's prepared to tell parliament right now.

M: Who are they accountable to?

S: Really, the Canadian government. But as again, it goes around working through the Americans, working with various international groups, so by the time the reports get to the Canadian government, it could be some time, it could be rather unclear.

If Stewart knew more about the military, he'd know that the line of command is crystal clear to those in the chain of command - it has to be. When he says it's "very unclear," what he's really saying is that it's unclear to him. And that makes him uncomfortable, since journalists are supposed to have clear access to everything. Just ask them, they'll tell you.

Again, boo-frickin'-hoo, Brian.

The truth is that JTF 2 is fully accountable to the CF chain of command, and the civilian government. The truth is that there is no easy way to fight a counterinsurgency war. And the truth is that the CF, including its special operators, is doing a commendable job of it, despite the difficulty of the task.

And, I might add, despite the misguided attentions of Brian Stewart and the CBC.