Taliban fighters treated next to British soldier

by Stuart Crawford

Reports that wounded Taliban fighters are being treated in the same hospital wards in Afghanistan as injured British soldiers has caused outrage in some sections of the British media this week.  Apparently servicemen in Camp Bastion think it is appalling that our troops are being forced to share wards with the enemy, who in some cases might have been responsible for their wounds or those of their comrades.

On the face of it this appears a reasonable complaint - if the reports are true.  Who wants to wake up next to the guy who was doing his damnedest a few hours ago to kill or injure you and your friends?

Well, the sentiments may be understandable, perhaps, but there’s more to this than meets the eye.  As the MoD has been quick to point out, it has long been standard practice in the British military to treat wounded servicemen and women of all sides in exactly the same way.

Just look back over the last century to conflicts like the First World War, where the archives contain many images of the wounded being treated together.  Photographs show British soldiers helping German wounded, and there is one well known image of British wounded being carried in stretchers by captured German soldiers through the Paschendaele mud. 

In  more recent conflicts like the Falklands War in 1982 or the two Gulf Wars of 1991 and 2003 exactly the same has applied.  So what seems to be happening in Afghanistan is hardly anything new.

In fact, this is more than just the British being kind to their enemies.  It is actually our legal duty to behave in this way.  In general terms, under the laws of war (yes, they do exist) and the Geneva Conventions, any combatant who ceases to be a threat either through wounds, capture or surrender must be treated as a non-combatant thereafter.  This means, amongst other things, that they must be protected from further harm and provided with food, shelter, and medical attention where required.

On the other hand, there are some differences here.  The Taliban are fierce and courageous fighters, but they are hardly a conventional army in the classic sense.  They have no distinguishing uniform and can melt into the civilian population at will.  They are also ruthless and seem to have scant regard for human life, their enemy’s or their own.  And they haven’t signed up to the Geneva Conventions.  Some would say they don’t have to be treated in the same way as soldiers from more conventional armies.

I beg to differ.  A major part of the coalition campaign in Afghanistan is based on winning the hearts and minds of the local population.  If we descend to treating our enemy wounded any differently from our own we run the risk of losing whatever little bit of the moral high ground we might retain after years of operations there.  It is absolutely imperative that we continue to treat the Taliban wounded with dignity and compassion, otherwise we descend to the level of terrorists and gangsters who respect no laws.  And, no matter how repulsive we might find their ideology and methods, it’s only what we would expect and demand from them.

Of course, if these wounded fighters still present a risk to our soldiers the appropriate steps have to be taken to ensure they can do no harm.  In such circumstances separate medical facilities for them alone would be ideal.  But the indications seem to be that there are not sufficient in British custody to warrant that effort, so treatment in communal facilities would seem to be the right thing to do practically as well.

Further, while for us sitting by the fireside at home it might seem a mite strange to have one’s deadly enemy being administered to in the next bed by the same doctors and nurses, to those actually engaged in conflict it may seem a little less unusual.  Of course there are those who disagree, and much of the media furore seems to have been whipped up by their (anonymous) comments.

In the final analysis there is often a greater affinity between battlefield opponents than there is between soldiers and civilians at home, as the British experience in the Great War undoubtedly showed.

Maybe Taliban fighter and British soldier in neighbouring beds is not so outrageous after all.

Stuart Crawford is a former Lieutenant Colonel in the Royal Tank Regiment and served in the first Gulf War.

© SWC 2000

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