EDITORIAL - Making their own enemies

In a rare admission of error, the US military has admitted that it killed the wrong persons when a drone strike obliterated a compound in Kabul, Afghanistan, last August 28.

The strike was supposed to kill the man who allegedly planned the suicide bombing outside the Hamid Karzai Airport two days earlier that killed 13 US servicemen and dozens of Afghans. But now US forces admitted that those killed in the drone strike, including seven children, had nothing to do with ISIS-K.

"This strike was taken in the earnest belief that it would prevent an imminent threat to our forces and the evacuees at the airport, but it was a mistake and I offer my sincere apology," said Gen. Frank McKenzie, the top general of US Central Command.

Was the US acting on faulty information when it targeted the compound? Apparently so. According to reports, one of the men living there, a service worker, was seen repeatedly loading and unloading items from a vehicle into the compound and driving off with them. Analysts thought the items were explosives and explosive ingredients, but it was later found out these were just water containers.

Fresh from the debacle that was the hasty pullout from Afghanistan and practically handing over to the Taliban an entire armory plus vehicles, the US suffers another black eye to its credibility.

Blunders like these don’t just give the US and foreign peacekeepers in general a bad name, there is more than just their reputation at stake here.

It is blunders like these that make the US enemies. Chances are that someone who lost a loved one in that drone strike, or other similar attacks where innocent lives were needlessly lost, is now plotting to take up arms.

It is blunders like these that compel certain people to rally behind a cause, no matter how twisted that cause may actually be. Sometimes the US is responsible for creating its own enemies.

The failure to kill the planner of the bombing also means that that person is likely still out there, and laughing as the most advanced military in the world was forced to admit that they killed innocent people, including several children.

That also means that another retaliatory strike is most likely still in order. Let’s hope this one gets the real McCoy and doesn’t waste innocent lives again, or make the US even more enemies.