The US drone killing of an Afghan family in Kabul was just bad luck

After an investigation of the drone strike on a car in Kabul soon after the horrific suicide bombing at the Hamid Karzai airport in August, a report into the incident has basically said no one was to blame and it was all a terrible mistake. I think it goes without having to say it that no one involved in the killing of ten members of one Afghan family, including seven children, will have done it knowing or even suspecting that it was the wrong target and that innocent people were about to lose their lives. But the terrible error is one of the worst recent examples of panic action generated by a rising expectation, based on intelligence, that a vehicle-borne suicide bomber was going to attack the airport and killing more people than had died at the earlier attack which led to the deaths of 169 Afghans and 13 American servicemen, mostly Marines. There would have been an atmopshere of desperation and intense pressure to find the vehicle and eliminate it. Thus this Toyota was spotted and it looked suspicious and the movement of people and the putting of packages into the boot, all gave the impression that a bomb was being made ready. All totally understandable. The trouble is that it's a bit like when detectives believe they have got the criminal suspected of murder and even when doubts arise there is such a conviction that they have got the right man all evidence to the contrary is shoved to one side. Even worse, they start to focus only on the evidence that seems to point in his direction, ignoring the vital information that should tell them the man is innocent. It may be an unfair analogy but I am sure that once that Toyota and the suspicious movements were spotted, there was a driving momentum that led to the chain of command authorising go go go. Before it was too late. Even though a child was seen in the vicinity, the pressure was so great to avoid a second suicide bombing that the strike went ahead. In hindsight, whatever the pressures and fears, there should not have been a decision to press the button until it was 100 per cent certain that it was an Isis car with an Isis suicide driver and no civilians around. None of those criteria were met. It was a genuine mistake but such an awful one that it will forever cast doubt on the efficacy of these long-range drone strikes carried out without the aid of ground forwrd air controllers located not far from the target and able to provide up-to-the-minute intelligence.