Wherever you start looking, the same excuses crop up over and over again. From the NATO Media Operations Centre’s socalled “master narrative“, as leaked by Wikileaks, come the following points its P.R. people should push when talking about civilian casualties in Afghanistan:
Militants deliberately force civilians into situations where they are either killed or are at risk of being harmed by NATO/ISAF or coalition forces in order to undermine support for NATO/ISAF in Afghanistan and in the International Community.
Militants tactics are to launch attacks from civilian areas, retreat to civilian areas and use civilians as human shields. Militants want civilians caught up in the fighting, because they think this will undermine support for NATO/ISAF in Afghanistan and in the international community and weaken the legitimate Afghan government.
Where have we heard this before?