Keep your friends close

The United States has a problem: We’re killing off our allies.

If you blinked, you might have missed the story that has infuriated Britain: The leak of a videotape from the cockpit of the U.S. A-10 plane responsible for a “friendly fire” bombing of a British ground patrol in Iraq in 2003. The voices of the American pilots on the tape change from glee as see their target catch fire to pathos when they learn that they’ve killed a friendly. “I’m going to be sick,” says one of the pilots. And then: “We’re going to jail, dude.”

Their instant remorse might have made it easy for the British public to have forgiven the young pilots on their first combat mission—if only the U.S. had come clean. But now it’s accused of a cover-up, with approval of “lapdog” British authorities who told the widow of the soldier killed in the attack that no video ever existed.

Now, all this might well have been explained at first by the natural reticence to disclose classified details of an investigation. But when more than three years pass and the British relatives are still not told the truth, one does suspect a goof, a coverup, or both. It’s unlikely the British press and public will now accept the more benign explanation. “The incident itself was terrible enough, but this is not what has done most damage to Anglo-American relations,” fumed The Observer of London. “Not for the first time, Britain is made to look like a subservient satellite taken wretchedly for granted by the country that is supposed to be its closest ally.”

The irony is that the U.S. military has been trying hard to reduce “friendly fire” deaths. According to Sarah Sewell, director of Harvard University’s Carr Center for Human Rights Policy, fratricide accounted for 24% of all combat deaths during the first Persian Gulf War, but only 11% of deaths in the first combat phase of Iraqi Freedom.

But the U.S. won’t get credit for any of the things it does right, because each time our bullying and withholding of information from our allies reinforces the ever-stickier stereotype of American arrogance. The Bush administration has grown so accustomed to shooting itself in the foot that it doesn’t seem to feel the pain anymore.

When other countries—even our closest allies—complain about U.S misdeeds, the administration seems to shrug, as though such complaints are only to be expected. And the complaints keep coming. Last week, a U.S. soldier was indicted on homicide charges in Italy for the fatal shooting of Italian intelligence agent Nicola Calipari in 2005 at a checkpoint in Iraq. Calipari had just helped rescue kidnapped journalist Giuliana Sgrena, and was driving her to the airport when U.S. soldiers opened fire on their car at a checkpoint. The U.S. investigation found the Italian car was speeding and refused to stop at the checkpoint, but the Italian investigation disputed those findings. Meanwhile in Germany, arrest warrants have been issued for 13 alleged CIA operatives in the kidnapping of a German terrorism suspect.

It is not defeatism to insist that our government and the U.S. military handle our European allies with more care and respect. These are the countries whose soldiers are dying alongside ours in Iraq and Afghanistan, who are bombed by al Qaeda along with us. They have large Muslim populations, among whom al Qaeda operatives lurk, and much of the intelligence about attacks planned on the U.S. homeland has come from Europe. In a struggle against violent Islamism that may last for decades or generations, quite simply, we need them.

Many European governments did not agree with the U.S. on Iraq—and for that, in hindsight, we cannot blame them—but all have bent over backward to help the U.S. fight terrorism. For this, all are now facing a stiff backlash from their increasingly anti-American publics. As the United States ponders an attack on Iran, it’s worth asking whether we’ll still have any friends left to join us in that adventure.

Sonni Efron is a member of The Times’ editorial board.