The air attack on Afghanistan began at 8:57 p.m. local time on October 7.
The following day, Reuters carried an interview with a 16-year-old ice cream
vendor from Jalalabad who said he had lost his leg and two fingers in a Cruise
missile strike on an airfield near his home:
"There was just a roaring sound, and then I opened my eyes
and I was in a hospital," said Assadullah, who had been taken
across the border to Peshawar for medical help. "I lost my leg
and two fingers. There were other people hurt. People were running
all over the place."
Multiply this scene by two or three hundred and you begin to approximate
the reality on the ground in Afghanistan. A reality that is blithely
dismissed by the Pentagon and the compliant U.S. corporate media
with the statement, "the claims could not be independently verified."
November 24, 2001, seven weeks into the war, Los Angeles Times reporter
M.H. Paul Richter could write without shame, "...although estimates
are still largely guesses, some experts believe that more than 1,000
Taliban and opposition troops have probably died in the fighting,
along with at least dozens of civilians."
Dozens? Hundreds? Thousands, as we shall document.
In fact, a careful analysis of published reports shows that Afghanistan
has been subjected to a barbarous air bombardment, which has killed
an average of 60-65 civilians per day since October 7. When the sun
set on November 23, at least 3,006 Afghan civilians had died in U.S.
bombing attacks.
In tabulating these totals I have relied upon Indian daily newspapers
(especially The Times of India, considered the equivalent
of The New York Times), three Pakistani dailies, the Singapore
News, British, Canadian, and Australian (Sydney Morning Press and Herald
Sun) newspapers, the Afghan Islamic Press (AIP) based in Peshawar,
the Agence France Press (AFP), Pakistan News Service (PNS), Reuters,
BBC News Online, al-Jazeera, and a variety of other reputable sources.
Apparently, the only casualty reports considered "real" by
the mainstream U.S. press are those either issued by a western enterprise
or organization, or "independently verified" by western
individuals and/or organizations. In other words, the high levels
of civilian casualties reported elsewhere (for example reports by
Robert Fisk, Justin Huggler, and Richard Lloyd Parry of The Independent and
Tayseer Allouni of al-Jazeera.) are simply written off as "enemy
propaganda" and ignored.
For a typical example of minimization consider: "Truth and
Lies About Taliban Death Claims" published in a major British
newspaper, (The Sunday Telegraph, November 4, 2001. Authors
Macer Hall and David Wastell solemnly declare that "far fewer
Afghan civilians have been killed by American bombs than is claimed
by Taliban propaganda." Citing "an intelligence report
obtained by The Sunday Telegraph," which purportedly
employed data gathered by satellite and unmanned reconnaissance aircraft,
they allege that most Taliban claims are falsehoods and propaganda.
They then present a list of Taliban claims and counter it with "the
Truth," as per the intelligence report, NOT their own independent
research!
I publish below both the Taliban claims and the "truth" as
per the intelligence report, followed by my own assessment in the
last column. Five bombing incidents that occurred during October
2001 are examined, showing, in my assessment, a civilian death toll
of at least 239!
| Date of U.S bombing |
Taliban 'claim'
as stated in the 'report' : |
Pentagon/State Department
'truth' : |
My assessment : |
| October 11 |
Bombed Karam village,
200 killed. |
Hit military base on
hillside. While possible civilians killed, Taliban claims are
predictably exaggerated |
Two jets bomb the mountain
village of Karam comprised of 60 mud houses, during dinner
after evening prayer time, killing 100-160 in Karam alone.
Reported by: DAWN, the Guardian, the Independent, International
Herald Tribune, the Scotsman, the Observer, and BBC News. |
| October 13 |
Missile hits civilian
homes in Kabul, killing civilians |
Pentagon acknowledges
a stray missile accidentally struck a populated Kabul area,
killing or injuring civilians. |
In early a.m., F-18
drops 2'000 lb JDAM bombs upon the dirt-poor Qila Meer Abas
neighborhood, 2 kms. south of Kabul airport, killing 4. Reported
in : Afghan Islamic Press, Los Angeles Times, Frontier Post,
Pakistan Observer, the Guardian, and BBC News. |
| October 21 |
Bombed Herat hospital,
killing 100+ civilians. |
Pentagon admits missing
military barracks, but says hospital is "considerable
distance" from where bomb landed and bomb blast unlikely
to cause civilian deaths. |
F-18 dropped a 1'000
lb cluster bomb on a 200-bed military hospital and mosque,
missing the target by 500-1000 meters. Reported in Afghan Islamic
Press, Pakistan News Service, Frontier Post, the Guardian,
Times of India, Agence France Presse, and by the U.N. |
| October 29 |
Hit mosque in Kandahar,
killing civilians. Note; I have NOT been able to find this
Taliban claim. |
No air strike in the
general area. Claim is a lie. |
A pre-dawn bombing
raid and 8-9 cluster bombs fell on October 24th on
the mosque in the village of Ishaq Sulaiman near Herat, killing
20. Reported in : Agence France Presse, Reuters, DAWN, the
Herald, etc. |
| October 31 |
Red Crescent clinic
in Kandahar hit, killing 11. |
A military target was
hit and a Red Crescent hospital was in vicinity---100s of meters
away and was undamaged. |
Pre-dawn raid,F-18
drops a 2'000 lb JDAM bomb on the clinic, killing 15-25. The
clinic is reduced to a mangled mess of iron and concrete [photo].
Reported in : DAWN, the Times, the Independent, the Guardian,
Reuters, and Agence France Presse |
Who is lying?
To make the war on Afghanistan appear 'just', it becomes imperative
to completely block access to information on the true human costs,
and the actions of Bush-Rumsfeld-Rice speak eloquently to this effort:
For example, calling in all the major U.S. news networks to give
them their marching orders, buying up all commercial satellite imagery
available to the general public, sending Powell to Qatar to persuade
the independent al-Jazeera news network, and, when that fails, targeting
the Kabul office of al-Jazeera for a direct missile hit. For the
most part, the major U.S. corporate media appear to have obeyed the
Pentagon directives and given sparse coverage to the topic of civilian
casualties.
When faced with the indisputable "fact" of a civilian
hit, the Bush team's standard response was that a nearby military
facility was the real target. In almost every case we can document,
this turned out to be a long-abandoned military facility. For instance,
in the incident where four night watchmen were killed at the offices
of a United Nations de-mining agency in Kabul, the Pentagon claimed
it was near a military radio tower. U.N. officials, however, say
the tower was a defunct medium-and short-wave radio station, situated
900 feet away from the bombed building, and hadn't been in operation
for over a decade.
On October 19, U.S. planes circled over Tarin Kot in Uruzgan early
in the evening, then returned after everyone had gone to bed and
bombed a residential area, two miles away from the nearest Taliban
base. Mud houses were flattened and families destroyed. The first
round of bombs killed 20, and as some of the villagers were pulling
their neighbors out of the rubble, more bombs fell, killing 10 more.
One of the villagers recalled: "We pulled the baby out, the
others were buried in the rubble. Children were decapitated. There
were bodies with no legs. We could do nothing. We just fled." Richard
Lloyd Parry, "Families Blown Apart, Infants Dying. The Terrible
Truth of This 'Just War'," The Independent (October 25, 2001).
On October 21, planes apparently targeting a Taliban military base--long
abandoned--released their deadly cargo on the Kabul residential area
of Khair Khana, killing eight members of one family who had just
sat down to breakfast. Sayed Salahuddin, "Eight Die From
One Family in Kabul Raid," at XTRAMSN (October 22, 2001.
The following day, planes dropped BLU-97 cluster bombs (made by
Aerojet/Honeywell) on the village of Shakar Qala near Herat, completely
missing the Taliban encampments located five to seven hundred yards
away and destroying or badly damaging 20 of the village's 45 houses. "Cluster
Bombs Are New Danger to Mine Clearers," The Times (October 26,
2001) Fourteen people were killed immediately and a 15th died
after picking up the parachute attached to one of the 202 bomblets
dispersed by the BLU-97.
U.N. mine-clearing officials in the region have noted that 10-30%
of the missiles and bombs dropped on Afghanistan have not exploded,
posing a lasting danger. Pakistan News Service - PSN (October
20, 2001) and Amy Waldman, "Bomb Remnants Increase War Toll," New
York Times (November 23, 2001). On November 26, following
days of heavy bombing of Shamshad village in Nangarhar province,
there are reports of up to three Afghan children being blown up and
at least seven wounded by a cluster bomb while they were collecting
firewood and scrap. " Afghan Children Killed Amassing Scrap
of American Bombs," Pakistan News Service (November 26, 2001), "One
dies, six injured as cluster bomb explodes," The Frontier
Post (November 27, 2001).
There are several instances of bombs being dropped on areas of no
military significance. On October 25, a bomb hit a fully loaded city
bus at Kabul Gate, in Kandahar, incinerating 10-20 passengers. Owen
Brown, "'Bus Hit' Claim as War of Words Hots Up," The
Guardian (October 26, 2001)Then, on November 18 and 19, U.S.
planes bombed the mountain village of Gluco--located on the Khyber
Pass and far away from any military facility--killing seven villagers. Phillip
Smucker, "Village of Death Casts Doubts over U.S. Intelligence," The
Telegraph (November 21, 2001).
A reporter for The Telegraph who visited Gluco, noted: "Their
wooden homes looked like piles of charred matchsticks. Injured mules
lay braying in the road along the mountain pass that stank of sulphur
and dead animals..."
Noor Mohamed, a wheat trader who travels the Chaman to Ghazni highway
on business, recalls seeing the bombed-out, twisted, and still smoking
remains of a 15-lorry fuel convoy just north of Kandahar during the
week of November 29. He says he was sickened by the sight of the
charred remains of the drivers and all the dozens of unfortunate
souls who had bargained for a ride to Chaman. Paul Harris, "Warlords
Bring New Terror," The Observer (December 2, 2001).
Upon arriving at a refugee camp on the Pakistan border, Abdul Nabi,
told the A.F.P. on October 24 that he had seen two groups of bodies--of
13 and 15 corpses-- of civilians near bombed out trucks on the road
between Herat and Kandahar. "UN Says Bombs Struck Mosques,
Village as Civilian Casualties Mount," Agence France Presse
in Kabul (Oct. 24), cited in The Singapore News (October 24,
2001).Our data reveals that this attack was carried out on October
22, against four trucks carrying fuel oil.
The U.S. Air Force's use of weapons with enormous destructive capability--including
fuel air bombs, B-52 carpet bombs, BLU-82s, and CBU-87 cluster bombs
(shown to be so effective at killing and maiming civilians who happen
to come upon the unexploded "bomblets")--reveals the emptiness
of its claim that the U.S. has been trying to avoid Afghan civilian
casualties.
"Even though civilian deaths have not been the deliberate goal
of the current bombing--as they were for the attackers of 9/11--the
end result has been a distinction without a difference. Dead is dead,
and when ones actions have entirely foreseeable consequences, it
is little more than a precious and empty platitude to argue that
those consequences were merely accidental." Tim Wise, "Consistently
Inconsistent: Rhetoric Meets Reality in the War on Terrorism," at
ZNET (November 15, 2001)
The U.S. bombing campaign has also directly targeted certain civilian
facilities deemed hostile to its war success:
--On October 13, bombs destroyed Kabul's main telephone exchange
[Civilian casualties unreported.]
--On October 15, bombs destroyed Kabul's power station, killing
12. Mentioned in BBC News Online (October 23, 2001).
--In late October, U.S. warplanes bombed the electrical grid in
Kandahar, knocking out all power, but the Taliban were able to divert
some electricity to the city from a generating plant in Helmand province,
but that, too, was later bombed. From "Bombing Alters Afghans
Views of U.S.," Pakistan News Service-PNS (November 7, 2001).
--On October 31, the U.S. launched seven air strikes against Afghanistan's
largest hydroelectric power station adjacent to the huge Kajakai
dam, 90 kilometers northwest of Kandahar, raising fears that the
dam might break. Richard L. Parry, "U.N Fears 'Disaster'
Over Strikes Near Hydro Dam," The Independent (November
8, 2001)
--On November 12, a guided bomb scored a direct hit on the Kabul
office of the al-Jazeera news agency, which had been reporting from
Afghanistan in a manner deemed hostile by Washington. See "U.S
Targeting Journalists Not Portraying Her Viewpoint," The
Frontier Post (November 20, 2001), at: www.frontierpost.com.pk
--On November 18, planes bombed religious schools (Madrasas) in
the Khost and Shamshad areas.
Utilities, news organizations, educational institutions--all seem
to be "fair" targets in this war.
Afghan civilians living in proximity to alleged military installations
will die--must die--and are part of the "collateral damage" in
the U.S. efforts to conduct military operations in the sky and on
the ground without U.S. military casualties. From the point of view
of U.S. policy makers and their mainstream media lackeys, the "cost" of
a dead Afghan civilian is zero (as long as these civilian deaths
are hidden from the public) but the "benefits" of preserving
U.S. military lives is enormous, given the U.S. public's aversion
to returning body bags in this post-Vietnam era. The absolute need
to avoid U.S. military casualties requires flying high up in the
sky, greatly increasing the probability of killing civilians.
As John MacLachlen Gray of The Toronto Globe & Mail writes: "...better
stand clear and fire away. Given this implicit decision, the slaughter
of innocent people, as a statistical eventuality is not an accident
but a priority--in which Afghan civilian casualties are substituted
for American military casualties." ('Working the Dark Side,'
October 31, 2001.)
It is clear that the military strategists intentionally target missiles
and drop bombs upon heavily populated areas of Afghanistan. A legacy
of Afghanistan's 10 years of civil war in the 1980s is that many
military facilities are located in urban areas where the Soviet-backed
government had placed them for better protection from attacks by
the largely rural Mujahideen. Successor Afghan governments inherited
these emplacements. To suggest that the Taliban used "human
shields" is more revealing of the historical amnesia and racism
of those making such claims, than of Taliban deeds.
Any heavy bombing of these military emplacements must necessarily
result in substantial civilian casualties, a reality exacerbated
by the admitted occasional poor targeting, human error, equipment
malfunction, and irresponsible use of outdated Soviet maps. The most
notable element here, however, is the very low value put upon Afghan
civilian lives by military planners and the political elite. Why?
I believe race has something to do with it.
The Afghanis are not "white," whereas the overwhelming
majority of pilots and elite ground troops are. This "fact" serves
to amplify the positive benefit-cost ratio of sacrificing the darker-skinned
Afghanis today (like the Indochinese and Iraqis of former wars) so
that "white" American soldiers may be saved tomorrow. In
other words, when the "enemy" is non-white, the scale of
violence used by the U.S. government to achieve its state objectives
at minimum cost knows no limits.
One may point out that the mass bombing of Serbia just a couple
of years ago, contradicts this view. But the Serbs, it should be
noted, were tainted (read "darkened") by their Communist
past--at least, in the views of U.S. policymakers and the corporate
media--hence were fair game. Otherwise, there is no instance (except
during World War II) of a foreign Caucasian state being targeted
by the U.S. government.
The Afghan War is anything but a "just war," as James
Carroll has adroitly pointed out in an essay in (The Boston
Globe November 27, 2001) Firstly, the disproportionate
nature of a response that makes an entire other nation and people "pay" for
the crimes of a few is obvious to anyone who seeks out the real "costs" exacted
upon the people of Afghanistan. Secondly, this war does little to
impede the cycle of violence of which the World Trade Center (WTC)
attacks are merely one manifestation. The massive firepower unleashed
by the Americans will no doubt invite similar indiscriminate carnage
in the future. Injustices will flower. Thirdly, calling the U.S.
attacks a war, rather than a police action, without providing a justification
for war, renders the action unjust. As Carroll writes, "...the
criminals, not an impoverished nation, should be on the receiving
end of punishment."
It is simply unacceptable for civilians to be slaughtered as a side-effect
of an intentional strike against a specified target. There is no
difference between the attacks upon the WTC, whose primary goal was
the destruction of a symbol, and the U.S.-U.K. coalition's revenge
bombing of military targets in populated urban areas. Both are criminal.
Slaughter is slaughter. Killing civilians, even if unintentional,
is criminal.
Marc W. Herold Is a Progfessor at the Departments of Economics
and Women's Studies
University of New Hampshire Durham. |
