Funeral Nearly Becomes Disaster for U.S. and Afghans

Sept. 10, 2009— -- Gen. Stanley McChrystal's post-election reassessment of the U.S. military's Afghanistan strategy will call for both a surge in U.S. troops and a change in military culture, striking a better balance between the use of military force and peaceful interaction.

We saw how U.S. forces can get that balance wrong in a bizarre – and nearly devastating – encounter between U.S. forces and Afghan civilians in Logar province this week. It didn't make the news, but it speaks volumes about the challenges facing U.S. forces here as they prepare for a lengthening occupation.

It began with the family tragedy of a colleague and friend. On Tuesday, his brother died suddenly of a heart attack. In keeping with tradition, he and his family brought his brother's body to his family's village in Logar to be buried. Thousands of residents turned out for the funeral. He was extremely well-respected – a hero of the anti-Soviet mujahedeen and, more recently, an aspiring politician. For my friend, the moment was bittersweet: sorry for his loss, proud that his brother had touched so many lives.

The mood changed when he heard the drone of American helicopters overhead, and in the midst of the crowd, the loud rumbling of several giant MRAP armored vehicles as they surrounded the mourners. U.S. forces blocked the streets, preventing the crowd from reaching the cemetery. A dozen soldiers got out of the vehicles, their weapons drawn. My friend's stomach dropped. As a journalist, he'd covered dozens of U.S. operations and their aftermath. He was certain he and his family had unwittingly become targets.

As the mourners grew angry, shouting at the soldiers, my friend worked his way to the front of the crowd. He introduced himself to the commander, in English, as the brother of the deceased and a member of the staff of ABC News. The commander demanded to see his press ID, which my friend had left at home. For two hours, my friend negotiated with the soldiers to let the funeral procession go own. Finally, he offered to take the commander into his family home to see his brother's body – to prove this was a funeral and nothing more.

U.S. Troops Feared A Funeral Procession Was the Taliban

Once he had viewed the body, the commander relented and apologized, but only after a demeaning intrusion for my friend's family. He heard the commander say into his walkie-talkie, 'We f***ed up.'

When I described the encounter to Admiral Gregory J. Smith, who heads strategic communications for the U.S. military in Afghanistan, he was disturbed.

"It shows a lack of cultural understanding and sensitivity," Smith said. "We show up, all heady with our body armor on, to something as benign as a funeral procession, and we end up frustrating more people."

Smith told me he'd just returned from a conference in which commanders were instructed on how to avoid confrontations like this one, on everything from raids to simply driving down the highway. He said that McChrystal's upcoming report will demand that a change in attitude "take place in the mind of every soldier."

Encounters like this one happen every day here. The vast majority end without incident, but others – not a large number, but enough to enter Afghans' collective memory – do not. They're often based on a misunderstanding: mistaking celebratory gunfire at a wedding for hostile gunfire, for instance.

They're also based on real danger. In the area where the funeral took place, the Taliban had recently taken over the governor's mansion, though it is not clear how a funeral procession resembled an operation by the Taliban, who tend to lurk in the shadows here.

"We go in purely focused on the military objective but that just doesn't work," said Smith. "It creates a lot more animosity, and also generates more insurgents."

Navigating encounters like this will require better judgment and a better understanding of local culture. And the cost of poor judgment may not be measured in lives but in good will. Eight years after the U.S. invasion, not even the most experienced commanders with multiple tours here will avoid every misunderstanding. Still, as thousands more U.S. troops arrive, the greatest challenge for them may not be where and when to fight, but where and when not to.