A Miscarriage of Civilian Protection?

I have previously written about the value of General McChrystal’s July 2009 Tactical Directive in Afghanistan with respect to civilian protection. But as I discovered last weekend at the workshop, I had missed this report from UNAMA last August that demonstrated civilian killings spiked January-June 2010 relative to the same six-month period just prior to the establishment of those rules.

This doesn’t mean McChrystal was entirely wrong, or that his values were in the wrong place. But it may suggest a perverse side effect in human security terms from an otherwise well-intentioned policy. Apparently, civilian deaths from airstrikes did go down 64% (as McChrystal expected) but at the same time civilian killings by anti-government elements increased 53% in the same period, for an overall increase in civilian deaths of 31%.

Now this is just a correlation, and I’m interested in knowing if readers know of a causal story that explains this other than the one the USAF is now drawing – that more airstrikes hitting Taliban saves the lives of more civilians that would otherwise be targeted by the Taliban than does limiting the use of airstrikes due to risks of collateral damage. I for one am withholding judgment on that until I have time to scrutinize the March 2011 UNAMA report, which covers the period since Petraeus took over for McChrystal. But certainly it’s food for thought.