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The following presents a detailed summary and analysis of Afghan civilians killed directly - so-called impact deaths - by U.S/NATO forces in Afghanistan during a single month, February 2010. The Obama killing machine left 80-86 dead Afghan and Pashtun civilians.
By contrast, the number in February 2009 was 50.
The intent here is to set the record straight as regards Afghans killed by the U.S/NATO, and in so doing challenge the UNAMA to move beyond its “faith-based” counting. Regrettably, data put out by the UNAMA gets widely cited less for its validity (which cannot be fact-checked given the organization’s refusal to publish disaggregated data) and more because of a vague public yearning to believe (have faith in) in the U.N’s alleged impartiality and credibility.
As I have
repeatedly demonstrated, the UNAMA data barely captures one-half of the
Afghan civilians killed by U.S/NATO direct actions and by so doing serves
Obama and the Pentagon in their news management effort.[1]
Veteran reporter, Kathy Gannon, with a record of independent reporting on Afghanistan going back to October 2001, noted that the Taliban fighting foreign forces in Marja are villagers.[2]
She also provided rare details on victims of foreign forces there: Musa Jan’s home was hit by an aircraft around February 16th killing five occupants inside including children; Sayed Lal was outside in a field with a friend when he was shot by foreign soldiers.
Assadullah, 22, was riding his motorcycle when the Americans fired at him shattering his arm; Abdul Hamid, 12, was in front of his home when raiding foreign forces arrived,
On 27 February, foreign soldiers killed three people, including two children, in Alasai district of Kapisa province. Mohammad Ashraf, a tribal elder of Kotki area of Alasai district, giving details of the incident, told AIP that,
The tribal elder added:
A man who identified himself as Hamidullah said he had been in the home as some 20 people gathered to celebrate the birth of a son when a group of men he described as "U.S. Special Forces" surrounded the compound.
Saying he witnessed one man's death, Hamidullah said,
Then they killed a second man, Hamidullah said. The rest of the group were forced out into the yard, made to kneel and had their hands bound behind their back, he said, breaking off crying without giving any further details.
A deputy provincial council member in Gardez, Shahyesta Jan Ahadi, said news of the operation has inflamed the local community that blames Americans.
Occupied Afghanistan, March 5, 2010. An Afghan horse cart approaches a U.S. occupation force Stryker armored personnel carrier near Shah-Wali-Kot, Kandahar
(photo by John Moore, Getty Images at
http://www.gettyimages.ca/detail/97456605/Getty-Images-News)
shot during U.S.
offensive near Marjah, February 14, 2010 An eight-year-old girl weeps while laying head on her knees as foreign soldiers handed over the bodies of her family members killed during the ongoing operation Moshtarak in southern Helmand province. The girl, resident of Marja district, lost her 10 family members in a NATO missile strike.
The Table demonstrates that close to three-quarters of all civilian deaths resulted from air strikes (including the rocket strike in Marja on February 14th).
U.S/NATO occupation forces killed civilians in the provinces of,
The average number of civilians killed in an air strike was ten, whereas in a ground attack it was 2.4.
But ground attacks are more deadly for foreign occupation forces. Some 46% of civilian casualties were accounted for by two deadly air strikes - the HiMars rocket strike upon a home in Marjah on February 14th and that by U.S. Special Forces in Dai Kundi, Uruzgan on February 22nd.
A Marjah resident noted,
And what is reported in the mainstream western press?
For the first two months of 2010, the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission’s Fareed Hamidi trumpeted a dip in civilian deaths, announcing for all those willing to listen that 71 civilians had died at the hand of Afghan and foreign forces.[5]
The UN naturally parroted this gross under-count. In fact, as I
reported, foreign forces alone killed 150-156 Afghan civilians during the
first two months of 2010.[6] In other words, the AIHRC only counts one in
two Afghan civilians killed by foreign forces. Another font of propaganda,
the Soros-bankrolled Open Society Institute, reassured its readers that
protecting civilians and protecting troops in Afghanistan was part of the
“new” counterinsurgency-style offensive.[7]
Sadly, ‘groupies’ like the
western media, peace groups and even the
World
Socialist Web Site (wsws) uncritically go about citing spurious UNAMA
figures, for example endlessly mentioning that Afghan civilian deaths caused
by “coalition forces” have declined: naturally they have since the UNAMA
missed only 30% of such deaths in 2008, but 60% in 2009.
Such trade-off is best captured by the ratio of Afghan civilians killed per dead foreign occupation soldier. This ratio was 4.97 in 2007, 3.19 for 2008, 1.94 for 2009, and for Jan-Feb 2010 it was 1.48.[9]
In effect, the Obama regimen
involved trading off US/NATO soldier deaths for fewer Afghan civilian ones
in order to placate critical NATO members.[10]
The absolute number
of Afghan civilians killed by foreign occupation forces is not
declining.[11] The mainstream western media with few exceptions and
organizations like UNAMA and the AIHRC de facto serve the Obama news
management effort by severely under-reporting Afghan civilians killed by
foreign forces.
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