Truth of Afghan conflict

Bit by bit some of the truth of the current Afghan conflict is coming out. Reporting in The Washington Post on March 22 under the title Intended U.S. target mystifies villagers, John Ward Anderson records an attack on a tractor and trailer which left 20 dead, among them 10 women and girls and seven boys under 11. This incident took place south of Kandahar on Dec. 1. "This was the wrong target -- the Taliban were in another village", says Noor Ahmad Azimi, field supervisor of the Mine Clearance Planning Agency, an independent Afghan demining group quoted by Anderson.

This is unacceptable "collateral damage", to use that egregious euphemism. Article 57 of the 1977 Additional Protocol 1 to the 1949 Geneva Convention states that "constant care shall be taken to spare the civilian population, civilians and civilian objects". Will the Allies now pay full compensation to those who lost their families and relatives in this incident, and in others already reported? Or will Power just turn its stony face away yet again?

If Washington and London had any sense, let alone morality, they would move quickly to identify all those who have lost relatives and property in "collateral damage" incidents and compensate them. That way they might win back some goodwill.

DAVID JARDINE

Jakarta