I’m no military strategist but this seems like a dangerous overreaction to a public relations issue.

Afghan Commander Gen. Stanley McChrystal has issued a new “Tactical Directive” aimed at reining in U.S. and NATO night raids on Afghan homes, two days after the command acknowledged the accidental killing of five innocent civilians on February 12 during a bungled special operations night raid.

McChrystal’s rising frustration with the killing of innocent civilians in Afghanistan by U.S. and NATO troops was evident in a virtual town hall meeting with troops last month where, referring to checkpoint shootings, he said: “We’ve shot an amazing number of people and killed a number and, to my knowledge, none has proven to have been a real threat to the force.”

Which is all really tragic, and we should discuss ways that reduce civilian casualties without compromising our mission. But how has the general responded? By hampering nighttime raids.

The directive urges troops to consider alternatives to a night raid on Afghan homes and urges prior notification of Afghan government and military officials, and “local elders,” before a raid. Afghan security forces should be included in all night raids, it says, and “should be the first force seen and the first voices heard by the occupants of any compound entered.”

While we’re at it, let’s send the Taliban a quick email and maybe even text message prior to attacking their positions. And let’s only attack between 8 AM and 5 PM, you know just so we don’t interrupt them in the middle of their beauty rest.

Seriously, we’ve got the president of Afghanistan openly talking about joining the Taliban and the Afghan government is known better for corruption than anything else. And we’re going to notify not only the government but “local elders” prior to carrying out already-restricted nighttime raids? And even then we’re more concerned with Afghan security forces leading the charge than actually accomplishing the mission.

One commenter at DefenseTech writes:

I understand why we need to put strict limits on night raids, and I agree fully with what is in place. But night ops are a key strong point for our forces, the enemy can’t see in the dark, we can. In day time it’s any ones game. We got to be careful we don’t tie our hands too tight, cause if we do the enemy is going to walk all over us.

That seems to be exactly what we’re doing. Civilian casualties suck but they’re an unfortunate side effect of war. Instead of mourning their loss we’re tying hands and insisting on being politically correct at the expense of our mission. And holy fuck, we’re even going to email our special operation information to a government run by a guy talking about joining the Taliban.

Very disappointing, general, very disappointing.