Old story - no fire discipline.

One would think that they'd learn - in a guerilla war one cannot shoot everyone in sight when one comes under attack. (Do they have copies of Petraeus' paper in Afghanistan, one wonders.) Will you take more casualties that way? Probably. Will you fulfill the mission? Probably.

If coming home alive is more important than the mission, then one shouldn't be over there. If the mission is important, then one should do what's necessary to complete it. And sometimes that means NOT shooting until you know what the hell you are shooting at.

Can you complete your mission if you kill civilians indiscriminately? Nope. Absolutely cannot. You just create the hatred upon which insurgents absolutely thrive. And the US has done that superbly well.

"Afghan President Hamid Karzai has pleaded repeatedly for Western troops to take care not to harm civilians, and in December wept during a speech lamenting civilian deaths at the hands of foreign forces.

"The U.S.-based Human Rights Watch estimates that more than 100 Afghan civilians died as a result of NATO and coalition assaults in 2006. An AP tally, based on reports from Afghan, NATO and coalition officials, puts the overall civilian death toll in 2006 at 834, most from militant attacks."

As the Americans fled, they treated every car and person along the busy, tree-lined highway as a potential attacker, said Mohammad Khan Katawazi, the district chief of Shinwar in eastern Afghanistan's Nangarhar province.