Inevitable: Obama's Surge in Afghanistan Will Bring a Surge in Civilian Deaths

WASHINGTON, Feb 18 (IPS) - U.S. President Barack Obama announced Tuesday that he is sending two additional combat brigades to Afghanistan, marking the start of what many believe will be an escalation that will ultimately see the U.S. forces there double.

There are some 36,000 U.S. troops already in Afghanistan, and the additional 17,000 alone represent a nearly 50 percent increase.

"[T]he situation in Afghanistan/Pakistan demands urgent attention and swift action," Obama said in a statement. "To meet urgent security needs, I approved a request from Secretary [of Defense Robert] Gates to deploy a Marine Expeditionary Brigade later this spring and an Army Stryker Brigade and the enabling forces necessary to support them later this summer."

But an increased U.S. presence will likely result in more combat confrontations. That, in turn, leads to an increased risk to the civilian population of Afghanistan, human rights groups stress.

And those sorts of deaths, injuries and destruction of property have so far been demonstrably destructive to the U.S.-led international effort to stabilize Afghanistan and defeat the violent insurgency being waged by the Taliban and other militant groups.

Some modicum of harm to civilians is likely inevitable as long as massive numbers of foreign troops make war in Afghanistan, but there are steps that the international community can take to minimize the damage that this civilian toll will take on the war effort.

The Campaign for Innocent Victims in Conflict (CIVIC) says that one way to do this is by acknowledging the burden on civilians by, when appropriate, apologizing and compensating victims and their families.

In a report released Tuesday, CIVIC said that despite efforts already underway, the international community must do more to ensure that compensation reaches civilian victims of the conflict.

The recommendation is particularly acute as last year's death toll for the conflict shows a staggering increase in civilian casualties. The U.N. reported Tuesday that such deaths were up nearly 40 percent in 2008, to a total of 2,118 civilians killed. As a result, the popularity of the seven-year-old campaign is plummeting among Afghans.

A poll of Afghan public opinion released last week by ABC News, the BBC, and ARD said that a slight majority of Afghans view the U.S. unfavorably. In 2005, by comparison, the U.S. garnered an 83 percent favorable rating.

That news is daunting for Washington and its international allies as they continue to try to win over -- or, it seems, win back -- the affections of local populations. Winning "hearts and minds" is a central tenet of fighting a counter-insurgency war, as the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) is doing there.

The report, "Losing the People: The Costs and Consequences of Civilian Suffering in Afghanistan," puts the outlook in stark terms: "The international coalition in Afghanistan is losing public support, one fallen civilian at a time," reads the first sentence.

As a baseline for all its recommendations, the report insists that "all parties to the conflict in Afghanistan take all possible steps to avoid civilian deaths, injuries and property damage."

But, as with any conflict, sometimes those occurrences are unavoidable. In those cases, said the report, the victims need to be adequately compensated in order to prevent them from turning against the international forces.

The mechanisms for such compensation already exist - payment for a lost relative is usually between 1,000 and 2,000 dollars -- but the response of the international forces and community need to be drastically improved, the report noted.

"We just need to get better at programmes that already exist, and make sure they're fully funded," said Erica Gaston, a fellow with CIVIC and primary author of the report, discussing her findings Tuesday at the New America Foundation in Washington.