This is the sort of thing I hate

There is a fine line between sympathetic reporting and outright propaganda. I would say this post at Long War Journal crosses that line:

At 9:40 PM local time, US officials declared the group posed an imminent threat to forces inside Afghanistan and the call to strike the compound was made. After the orders were given to launch a coordinated strike, fixed-wing and rotary-wing air support along with Predator surveillance and reconnaissance began scanning likely insurgent attack positions inside Afghanistan. US military officials confirmed no women or children had been seen in the targeted North Waziristan compound or in any structures near it over the last five days.

Nearly four hours later, a salvo of indirect fire targeting the compound hit its mark, completely obliterating the building and killing an unknown number of people inside of it. Several insurgents working sentry posts around the compound were observed by aerial surveillance leaving the area on foot. Initial intelligence reports on March 12 indicated three “high-level Haqqani network commanders” were killed and that “many” Chechen fighters also died in the blast.

First off, aside from solemn official assurances they keep running under our bombs, there is no evidence for any Chechens in Afghanistan, or anywhere nearby. Military officials admit they have no idea how many people died in the attack, just that no women and children were among them. Uh huh. The Pakistani military says several women and children were killed in the strike. The LWJ insists, despite credible evidence that firing artillery into a group of houses might actually kill innocent people, that “intelligence,” which is always 100% accurate, says no innocents were killed. Who to believe?

At least they’re not blaming the women and children for being in our way, which far too many do when they’re not claiming these fatalities are “Taliban propaganda.”

There remain, however, several problems with taking the military’s statements uncritically:

• The 82nd Airborne, which operates in Eastern Afghanistan, uses M198 155mm medium-towed Howitzers, which have a CEP of about 10 meters (i.e. there is a 50% chance the round will fall within 10 meters of its target). It’s not fair to call it inaccurate, but it also isn’t fair to brag about how it can take out a single house of baddies without harming anyone or anything nearby. You can never avoid ballistic weaponry being a rather blunt instrument. (**UPDATE** This bullet point has been called into question in the comments. When more information is available, it may change.)
• There will always be contradictory reports from strike sites. Unfortunately, given the terrain and the history of U.S. strikes in the area, it is still highly probable women and children were killed in the attack. Not seeing any for days at a time only means if any were present they weren’t allowed outside.
• How, one wonders, was this compound in Waziristan under constant, real-time surveillance for five days straight? Considering the acquisition demand and deployment schedule of MQ-1’s and MQ-9’s, I was unaware enough could be tasked with orbiting a single suspected compound in territory we don’t have permission to enter for five straight days. Again: not impossible, it just seems a little too miraculous.
• NATO ISAF didn’t have any knowledge of the incident even while US officials were discussing it with reporters.

That last bit is what truly concerns me. Aside from the rest of those points, which just indicate the usual fog of war type stuff that makes immediate after-action reporting so very useless, having the U.S. and NATO in such deep variance is bad news if we are all supposed to hold hands and lead Afghanistan to a brighter, democratic future. Anyone with a bit of military fluency will tell you that coordination is essential to avoid tactical and strategic incoherence. Unfortunately, we have tactical and strategic incoherence in Afghanistan. How can NATO be expected to do its job when it’s not even told of unilateral strikes on a third country?

The problem may be even worse. VOA is reporting that yesterday yet another compound in Waziristan was struck by an unknown party. No one knows who did it, or even if the explosions were deliberate, but since it’s Wana and that’s where some bad guys hid out once, it’s not unreasonable to think that maybe the U.S. threw some more missiles that way. At least that story gets it right that news of America bombing Pakistan would fuel “anti-U.S. sentiment.”

So is the U.S. now fighting a lower-intensity war inside Laos Pakistan?

It is a sticky situation: I’m all for killing the bad guys, but when crossing borders and violating territory you’re technically not permitted to, the ethics of the situation become a bit fuzzy. How credible is the determination that some men you can’t eavesdrop on in Pakistan pose an “immediate” threat to Coalition forces in Afghanistan? How precise* can weapons fired from miles away be? These are decisions I cannot make or even very strongly question from 8,000 miles away. But I do very strongly hope those in charge, even Bomber McNeill, do… just as I hope none of you take anything official sources claim at face value.

*I’m fully aware of the great P.R. campaign about precision weapons. And the U.S. does indeed have some of the most precise weaponry on the planet. But in the real world, there are so many exogenous factors that go into targeting and execution that precise weapons, in the way Colin Powell got us to thinking about them in Gulf War I, really don’t exist.