Bad Policy
In regards to David Ignatius Washington Post Sunday 9/21/08 column titled "The Plain Vanilla Revolutionary" on Sec Gate's new policy of "the United States will adopt a new approach of compensating the victims of such accidents first and then investigating the details."
This bad policy on so many fronts.
First, he is creating a market to be a "victim of American air strikes". That is to say the civilian population will now be incentivized to make victim claims knowing full well that America will simply pay first and then investigate their fraudulent claims later. Its economics 101: supply and demand. Sec Gates is now enticing the demand with American supplied money.Second, we should expect that the Gates Doctrine will actually make matters worse not better as more and more civilian deaths and victims will be broadcast by the more than willing "blame America first" media. It will hurt the US effort in the all-important propaganda battlefront.
Also, what are the chances that once the Pentagon get around to investigate a claim and then finds that particular claim was without merit the Pentagon will be able to get the money back? Not likely.
It might be seen by some as a "small change in policy" but it will have detrimental effects on both the US war-on-terror effort and US taxpayer money