Potential Memorial Day Pardons

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(11-18-2019, 08:25 PM)Dill Wrote: "Terrorist" to us might be Uncle Musa or Cousin Bashir to them. Hence my sense is that they do care a great deal about US "methods," especially drones, targeted assassinations, special operations raids and the like. They certainly raise up a storm when civilians are killed and/or the wrong target is struck.

My curiosity was not whether the average Afghan might share US understanding of and sensitivity to international law and human rights issues.  I.e., I was not wondering whether Afghans might think it improper for people "wearing the uniform" to murder randomly and with impunity. They have experienced people in power doing that for over four decades now.

Rather, I was wondering how you thought they might respond to US soldiers going unpunished for war crimes, and at the intervention of the President at that. We are always telling them how important rule of law is (partly in fighting corruption); and in a few cases we have put our money where our mouth is, prosecuting our own when they've misbehaved. We can count on "westernized" Afghans registering anger and amazement, but I was wondering if you thought rank and file types you worked with would see any further implications for or risks to themselves. Or would they just not bother to think that far, if their own tribe/relatives/valley were not victimized?

You asked how they would react to "this" and each of the examples quoted in the pardons showed the individuals killed were terrorists, had ties to terror organizations, or at an absolute minimum participated in bomb making (aka terrorists). And I will tell you again: they care a whole lot less about how we kill them than we do.

Please don't move the goalpost now and suggest you were talking about innocent causalities of war. Because that's a whole separate issue.