Razing villages to save them is a war crime and the Afghans are rightly "extremly angry" about this. General Petraeus excuse, "the Taliban made me do it!", is not valid. It only shows that his campaign is failing. The combatant that can make the other side do something obviously still has the initiative.

In this BBC video we find evidence for additional war crimes being committed by the Marines in Sangin, Helmand. A Marine sniper is shooting at and killing an unarmed person because that same person had earlier be seen "talking on a radio". With no phones in Sangin district, there are good reasons for civilians to use radios. Talking into a radio does not prove any intend to harm anyone. As the BBC describes the scene:

"Come on, come out come and play," said the Marine sniper.

He spoke as he looked through his telescopic sight at a Taliban "spotter" who had just jumped behind a wall some 800m away. The man was not armed but was talking into a radio.

"Got P-I-D [positive identification]," said the sniper. "Cleared to engage." There was the suppressed crack of a silenced sniper round. The man fell to the ground.

"Enemy KIA (killed in action). Doin' the dead man dance."

"Good shooting, bro," came the reply.

It was the 50th kill for this sniper team.

In the video the scene is described the important detail somewhat differently:

[narrator] They are about to kill a man identified as a Taliban spotter.

…[the killing]..

[narrator] He wasn't armed. How did they know he wasn't a civilian?

[sniper:] He was talking on a radio and eh then he came back out and presented himself trying to be inconspicuous and that's when we dropped him.

As the distance to the man was some 800 meters, it is unlikely that he even knew that the snipers were there.

In the following scene at a side of a field a stash of freshly harvested corn, several feet high, is waiting to be brought in. The Marines burn it down:

They burn piles of corn, so that the Taliban can't hide weapons there. That isn't popular …

Burning the food the people in Sangin grow to survive is a scorched earth policy. When the Nazis did this in Russia, it was a war crime. What is it when the Marines do it in Sangin?

But again and again, the Marines come across locals who say that a brother, a son or a cousin has been shot by the international forces.

"We don't want your help," said a group of elders going to pray for a relative who had been killed. They refused the offer of compensation from the platoon's lieutenant.

"We don't want your money. You shouldn't kill us. You shouldn't destroy our property. You even shot one of my cows yesterday. What sin did the cow commit?"