The lasting legacy of the Vietnam War, it is often said, is Americans' demolished tolerance for body bags filled with U.S. men and women.

True enough. But Vietnam also demolished faith in the top brass, who misled the American people about the mayhem happening half a world away. In the end, it was the acid of deception, not defeat, that dissolved the public's trust.

Today the battleground is Afghanistan, not Vietnam, and the motives are nothing like those that led millions of U.S. soldiers into Southeast Asia. Today's is a different cause, a different enemy, a different military, a different time, a different public. Yet America is still America -- a democracy -- and thus the need for truth is the same today as it was 30 years ago.

So let's have the truth about U.S. military actions that have killed hundreds of Afghan civilians in the war against terrorists.

A New York Times report Sunday raised questions about the targeting intelligence and methods used in U.S. air attacks in Afghanistan, suggesting that flaws in military policy are contributing to the civilian deaths.

What's troubling about the report is not simply the occurrence of civilian fatalities; they are a fact of war. What's disturbing is the sense, from the report, that innocent Afghan villagers, alive or dead, have been insufficiently acknowledged by the U.S. military.

"American commanders say they have not kept track of civilian deaths in Afghanistan," the Times noted. Worse, the report said, military commanders have often denied the civilian casualties "despite evidence on the ground."

The humanitarian conventions of the civilized world insist that warring nations at least try to distinguish the innocent from the enemy. It is not always possible to do so, but the attempt must be made.

Is the U.S. military making an adequate attempt? Are the fatalities in the Afghan villages unavoidable? Are they militarily necessary? Have the deadly attacks achieved any headway against Osama bid Laden or his minions?

The American public deserves the truth, because in a democracy it is ultimately the people who direct military policy. As a nation, we cannot divorce ourselves from our military's successes or failures, because in the end they are our own. That's another lesson from the Vietnam experience -- gone but not, we hope, forgotten.

© 2002 Sarasota Herald-Tribune

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