globe article

On Sunday the Boston Globe ran a front-page article with the headline 
"Civilian toll in US raids put at 1,000: Bombing flaws, manhunt cited". 
While this was certainly a victory for those (like me) who hope to 
enlighten others in the country as to what's actually going on, the 
article was still strife with hesitant statements (from the writer 
himself) and assurances from the Propaganda Machine known as the 
Pentagon.  A few things I found interesting (emphasis is always mine):

"The US war in Afghanistan may be responsible for more than 1,000 
civilian deaths, *though defense officials insist such casualties have 
been kept to a minimum*."

Of course, our planes bombing from 30,000 feet up were able to 
selectively target Taliban and al Qaeda fighters (who were, naturally, 
directly responsible for the WTC attacks, as the mountain of evidence 
produced by the US shows...giggle) inside huts and villages where men, 
women, and children lived, to keep casualties "at a minimum"; and of 
course, so long as we try to keep casualties to a "minimum", it doesn't 
matter how many we kill.

"The estimate of at least 1,000 civilian deaths in Afghanistan--and 
perhaps many more--is drawn from accounts of villagers and local 
commanders, as well as visual evidence, at the 14 sites visited.  That 
information, as well as tallies by nongovernmental groups, accounts for 
830 civilian lives lost.  Because the 14 sites represent only a small 
fraction of the total sites targeted by the 18,000 bombs, missiles, and 
ordnance fired by US forces since October, the total is estimated at 
1,000 or more."

Well, right off the bat, you've got the blatant 
we-don't-know-how-to-do-math-and-we're-proud-of-it.  If 14 sites 
represent a "small fraction" of total sites bombed, and if 830 civilians 
died there, you estimate a total of "1,000 or more"?!?  Of course, the 
article doesn't explain the "tallies by nongovernmental groups", but 
there is nothing to imply that those tallies were of sites other than 
the 14 visited by Globe reporters.  Also interesting is the 
give-and-take between slight indignation ("and perhaps many more 
[civilian deaths]") and slight hesitancy (the need to almost *apologize* 
for the thesis claim).

For more on how many may have actually been killed, an extremely 
well-documented source is Marc Herold's article  "A Dossier on Civilian 
Victims of United States' Aerial Bombing of Afghanistan: A Comprehensive 
Accounting", found at <http://www.zmag.org/herold.htm>. In mid-December, 
he estimated the death toll at 3,767; though he may have erred on the 
high side (then again, this is better for two reasons: one, everyone 
else in the US errs on the very very low side, or simply ignores the 
issue; two, whenever you're talking about innocent people dying, I don't 
see how (unknowingly) exaggerating the number is ever a Bad Thing). 
Personally, I imagine the death toll at the point is somewhere between 
three and six thousand.  Funnily enough, the WTC death toll is hovering 
somewhere below 3,000 at this time, I believe.

Okay, the rest of the article is interviews and case-studies of a few of 
the villages hit.  The author doesn't hesitate to remark when children 
were killed (which is rather often, it seems) or when entire families 
(and these are big families--10, 20 people) are wiped out.  The full 
text follows.

Don, if you want to forward this to your usual group mailing list, I'd 
appreciate it.

--------

Civilian toll in US raids put at 1,000

Bombing flaws, manhunt cited

By John Donnelly and Anthony Shadid, Globe Staff, 2/17/2002

CHUKAR KARIZ, Afghanistan - Bad intelligence, errant bombs, and the 
changing nature of the war in Afghanistan have led to the deaths of a 
thousand or more civilians in US attacks since October.

A Globe examination of 14 sites bombed by US warplanes - in residential 
neighborhoods of Herat and Kandahar as well as isolated, abandoned 
villages such as Chukar Kariz - found that civilian deaths in some 
attacks exceeded Taliban and Al Qaeda deaths. That, analysts say, calls 
into question the effectiveness of bombing as the sole strategy to 
target a relatively small group of individuals.

Along with faulty intelligence and the imprecision of aerial warfare, a 
large number of deaths can be attributed to the selection of targets in 
civilian areas. One high-profile example occurred during the war at Tora 
Bora when a US warplane hit the home of an associate of Osama bin Laden 
at the suggestion of Afghan commanders who knew he was not there. That 
attack in Pachir Agam killed an estimated 70 villagers.

The conflict's very nature, analysts said, played a role as well. When 
the war shifted from the dispatch of the Taliban to the narrower hunt 
for bin Laden, Mullah Mohammed Omar, and a few top cohorts, the task 
became more difficult. In at least three such targeted attempts, US 
bombs killed scores of villagers - many children among them - who had no 
connection to the top terrorists or their associates.

In past weeks, the Pentagon has faced questions from the media as well 
as some Afghan officials about the military decisions that resulted in 
civilian casualties.

General Tommy R. Franks, the commander of the war in Afghanistan, 
defended the campaign as ''the most accurate war ever fought'' in US 
history. Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld has steadfastly maintained 
that the war has cost relatively few civilian lives.

''If one were to take this activity in Afghanistan and rank it as to the 
number of civilian deaths'' and the care taken by US forces to avoid 
them, Franks said, ''I can't imagine there's been a conflict in history 
where there has been less collateral damage, less unintended consequences.''

But one need look no further back than the estimated 500 civilian deaths 
in the 1999 Kosovo war to undercut that claim.

The estimate of at least 1,000 civilian deaths in Afghanistan - and 
perhaps many more - is drawn from accounts of villagers and local 
commanders, as well as visual evidence, at the 14 sites visited. That 
information, as well as tallies by nongovernmental groups, accounts for 
830 civilian lives lost. Because the 14 sites represent only a small 
fraction of the total sites targeted by the 18,000 bombs, missiles, and 
ordnance fired by US forces since October, the total is estimated at 
1,000 or more.

The deaths have angered many Afghans. ''How can I convince the Americans 
that none of Al Qaeda and Taliban are here? You have to be sure,'' said 
Mawla Jan, as he dug through the rubble of what was once his home along 
the Pakistani border.

''If I saw any Al Qaeda people, I would shoot them myself.''

Chukar Kariz, Oct. 22

Nasir Ahmad and his family arrived in this small southern village in the 
evening, along with about 15 other people fleeing the heavy bombing in 
Kandahar. They brought a generator, and with it powered several lights 
in the village, which is 15 miles from the nearest electricity line. 
Some played cards into the evening.

A few were still awake when the bombing started at 2 a.m. Ahmad and 
about 30 others ran from the village, over an irrigation ditch and took 
shelter in nearby tunnels, he said. ''We were just families, children, 
women, and we tried to run out.''

In his family, only he, his wife, and niece Alia survived. Twenty 
relatives died. The survivors fled the ruins. When US special forces 
helicoptered in after the bombing, said Mahmood Khan, a local elder, 
they found just one person alive amid the rubble at ground zero - a 
badly bruised 2-year-old Alia.

The number killed here ranges from 36 to 52. Ten graves, including those 
for eight children, were dug here. Twenty more were at a Kandahar 
cemetery. Other bodies were taken to ancestral villages.

The village is 3 miles from the nearest settlement of cuchis, or 
gypsies. Nearby elders say they believe the site was bombed because of 
the lights from the generator. They can find no other reason.

''People thought it was a safe place,'' Khan said as he walked around 
the village, where the only sound was visitors' footsteps. ''The US 
planes must have seen the lights.''

Today, the site is silent, uninhabited; the only motion comes when the 
wind rustles the bits of fabric that decorate the graves. ''I haven't 
gone back to the village. I think if I went I would get very, very 
angry,'' said Ahmad from the Kandahar machine tool shop where he works. 
''All my family has died.''

The Pentagon confirmed it bombed Chukar Kariz on Oct. 22. It was a 
confirmed Taliban and Al Qaeda base, Lieutenant Colonel Martin Compton, 
a spokesman for US Central Command, said in an interview last week, 
adding, ''It was destroyed.''

But Yusuf Pashtoon, an engineer and a top aide to the Kandahar governor, 
Gul Agha Shirzai, said yesterday that he took a group of about eight US 
special forces troops dressed in civilian clothes along with relatives 
of the dead to the site last month for a ceremony in which the Americans 
apologized for killing innocent people.

''The Americans said they were very sorry about the bombing,'' Pashtoon 
said.

Then, he said, the soldiers took out a small piece from the World Trade 
Center and buried it in the village's graveyard.

''They also took a small part of a building in the town, and they said 
they would bury it in New York,'' Pashtoon said.

Kandahar, Oct. 27

US warplanes in October and November struck several sites inside the 
city of Kandahar. Some were uncannily accurate, including a bomb that 
went through the roof of the World Food Program office and destroyed two 
rooms in which lived Al Qaeda squatters, according to UN officials here. 
The bombing also destroyed several Taliban ministry offices on Oct. 26 
in the Argistan district.

But the next night, Oct. 27, a bomb hit a home of tailors, who lived 
across the street from the Ministry for the Promotion of Virtue and 
Prevention of Vice. Five people were killed - two passersby and three 
brothers inside the house.

Central Command acknowledges that some bombs targeting the ministry 
failed, and that at least one and possibly two hit adjacent commercial 
buildings.

''They were hitting the places of the Taliban, but they missed here,'' 
said Taj Mohammed, 18, sitting on a stoop next to where his family's 
house once stood. He lost his brothers Agha Mohammed, 19; Bashir, 22; 
and Saeed Ahmad, 24.

The brothers worked together in a shop in the house. ''Whenever I think 
of them, I think of us in the shop together,'' Taj Mohammed said.

Every day, he sits near the empty lot. ''We hope the Americans admit 
they made a mistake,'' he said. ''Up to this day, they did not ask about 
us, or help us. We need help to rebuild our home. We also need them to 
apologize for the heads of my brothers who have died.''

Ishaq Suleiman, Nov. 1

The villagers of Ishaq Suleiman, a warren of mud huts perched outside 
the western city of Herat, had the misfortune of having a Taliban base 
as their neighbor just a mile away. And the Taliban fighters 
headquartered there did not hesitate to use the nearby village as cover 
for their tanks and artillery.

Fearing the consequences, villagers put stones in the streets to keep 
Taliban vehicles from entering. ''But we didn't leave our houses,'' said 
Ghaus-u Din, a 45-year-old villager - even when the Americans broadcast 
warnings to get out. ''If we left, thieves would come and steal all our 
belongings.''

On Nov. 1, residents say, the bombing began.

Ghulam Nabi said he ran through the smoke trying to find his 12-year-old 
son and 7-year-old daughter. ''I saw a body in front of me. I went up to 
it but there was smoke, dust, and it was dark. I went closer and I 
touched the face and I saw it was a man with a gray beard,'' he said.

''I was running like a madman. Then I saw my wife running toward me. 
When I got to her, she told me our son and daughter were wounded and 
they were in another village.''

His brother, 60-year-old Hajji Mohammed, did not survive. His house was 
wrecked by a bomb that landed in the dirt street outside. Its target was 
a Taliban truck that villagers say had driven off a half-hour before.

The bombing continued, off and on, for almost two weeks. In all, 
according to AREA, an Afghan nongovernmental organization funded by the 
German government that tracked civilian casualties, 12 people were 
killed and 14 wounded.

Pentagon spokesman Compton, asked about its target, said that even in 
villages, the trucks and equipment ''were still authorized military 
targets.''

Khakriz, Nov. 10

Under tall pine trees, families for years have spread out blankets and 
enjoyed picnics in Khakriz, a village about a two hours' drive northwest 
of Kandahar. Here people pray at the shrine to Shah Agha, a renowned 
Sufi mystic.

On the night of Nov. 10, several families had checked into a row of 
small guest houses near the shrine. Then, around 9 p.m., on a hillside 
about a half-mile northwest of the village, Taliban antiaircraft fire 
shot at US planes overhead, several villagers said.

The response was almost immediate. US bombs and cruise missiles flew 
into the village, destroying more than two dozen homes and shops. 
Villagers said they ran south into the desert, stumbling in the night.

Days later, when they returned, they found much of the village in rubble 
and pieces of bodies everywhere. A US cruise missile still lies 
undisturbed in the middle of one home. The toll, which Afghan reporters 
erroneously first said was 300 dead, was about 70 killed, according to 
villagers, who provided a nearly complete list of names.

''We spent the whole next day collecting parts of bodies,'' said Baran, 
a hotel owner who like many Afghans uses one name. ''We saw heads, feet, 
everything.''

Among the dead were a shopkeeper, a driver, two bakers, a farmer and his 
family, several unemployed men and their families, more than two dozen 
visitors, and 19 relatives living in the house of Aji Shah Mohammed, a 
wealthy businessman, villagers said. It took 16 days to retrieve some of 
the bodies, as many were buried by falling mud bricks. Still missing are 
two men and a woman.

Villagers said no members of Al Qaeda or Taliban leadership lived in 
Khakriz; the Taliban's central office also was bombed, a half-mile from 
the row of shops and homes hit, but the local Taliban leader escaped, 
they said.

Bekhere, Dec. 20

Much attention has been paid to the bombing attack on a convoy in Paktia 
province that the US military said carried Taliban leaders - but that 
survivors said carried tribal elders en route to the inauguration of the 
interim prime minister, Hamid Karzai.

Less attention has been paid to what happened that same day to a cluster 
of homes nearby, and the village, about 6 miles away.

Ten minutes after hitting the convoy, warplanes struck a house on a hill 
where members of the Khan family were gathered.

''Everybody was climbing up the mountains, trying to hide,'' said Musa 
Khan, 22, who watched what happened from the field where he was tending 
sheep and goats.

Twelve people were killed - Khan's four brothers and three sisters, plus 
two cousins and three aunts.

By 3 a.m., the attack was broadened to the village of Bekhere, a 
half-hour drive away along a riverbed in a sheltered valley. It lasted 
until noon. Villagers say 63 people were killed; an Afghan 
nongovernmental group that tracked casualties in the region put the 
number at 44.

The village was targeted, residents say, because the convoy stopped in 
front of it, trying to leave the valley by another road. The route, they 
say, was snowed in, forcing the convoy to turn around and go back out. 
They blame the headlights for bringing on the attack.

As for the hillside homes, said Khan, there were no Al Qaeda or Taliban 
forces hiding there. ''We are just poor people,'' said the young 
shepherd, whose home stands split by a 20-foot crater.

Compton, the Pentagon spokesman, describes the area as ''an active 
staging and coordinating base for Al Qaeda activities and preparations 
for escape from Afghanistan.''

Zhawar Kili, Jan. 4-15

The bombing of a vast complex of caves tucked in a dusty ravine near the 
Pakistani border was the last sustained attack in the US air war. If 
villagers are right, it also represents a defining example of the 
failure of US intelligence.

They say that by the time the US bombs fell, the base was effectively 
abandoned - by Arabs before the air war even began, by Afghans within 
days of the first air assault.

Yet the bombs rained down on what the Pentagon continued to call a ''a 
staging point for escaping Al Qaeda members'' - as well as on the 
civilians dangerously exposed in villages perched atop the cliffs that 
sheltered the base. At one point during the attacks, the bombing was so 
fierce that villagers embarked on a 20-mile trek through ravines and 
over hilltops to Khost. By loudspeaker, they pleaded in the market for 
help in digging out the dead.

The task of counting the dead will be long and perhaps impossible.

Among the obstacles: Imposing mountains and regions cut off in winter 
mean many sites remain beyond reach. Impassable roads make that task 
harder. Muslims bury their dead quickly - by tradition before sundown on 
the day of death - making a tally difficult days after bombs land.

The Pentagon has investigated few cases and has insisted it will not 
track the numbers of civilians killed. The Afghan government is 
unwilling and unable to conduct its own investigation.

This story ran on page A1 of the Boston Globe on 2/17/2002.
© Copyright 2002 Globe Newspaper Company.


-- 
-sean o. | [email protected]
when the power runs out, we'll just hum.