[Fresh Ink] Civilian Death Toll Soaring In Afghanistan

[Richard Menec]

http://www.countercurrents.org/cogan030809.htm

Civilian Death Toll Soaring In Afghanistan

By James Cogan

03 August, 2009 WSWS.org

A report issued late last month by the Human Rights Unit of the United 
Nations Assistance Mission to Afghanistan (UNAMA) sheds light on the rising 
number of innocent Afghan men, women and children who are being killed in 
order for the US and its allies to consolidate their neo-colonial occupation 
of the country.

The UNAMA report contrasted the number of officially recorded civilian 
deaths for the first six months of 2009 with the number in previous years. 
>From January 1 to June 30, it registered 1,013 civilian fatalities, 
"compared with 818 for the same period in 2008, and 684 in 2007". In other 
words, as the Obama administration has escalated the war and sent thousands 
of additional troops and aircraft to Afghanistan, the number of civilian 
deaths has soared by 24 percent.

The military activities of both the Taliban-led insurgency, dubbed in the 
report "Anti Government Elements (AGEs), and the operations of the so-called 
Pro Government Forces (PGFs)-foreign troops and Afghan government security 
forces-contributed to the body count.

Insurgent roadside bombings and suicide bombings were blamed for 595 deaths 
or 59 percent of the casualties. In many cases, civilians were killed during 
attacks on occupation military targets. American and NATO forces drive 
convoys through residential areas and have established bases inside Afghan 
towns and villages in order to prevent them coming under the direct control 
of the Taliban.

Included in the number of civilian deaths caused by the insurgency are also 
a number of pro-occupation government officials and employees who were 
assassinated.

The occupation forces killed 310 of the civilian deaths recorded by UNAMA, 
or 30.5 percent. "Unknown" or unconfirmed parties were held responsible for 
the remaining 108 fatalities, or 10.5 percent.

Air strikes were the main cause of fatalities inflicted by the US and allied 
forces. UNAMA recorded 40 air attacks that, combined, caused 200 deaths. In 
June alone, six air strikes killed 51 people, suggesting that the rate is 
climbing despite proclamations by American generals that greater care is 
being taken to avoid what the military still calls "collateral damage".

UNAMA's assessment of the impact of air strikes would be challenged by many 
in Afghanistan. The report accepted, for example, the official figure that 
63 civilians died in the hours-long May 4 aerial assault on the village of 
Bala Baluk, in the western province of Farah. Locals continue to insist that 
the number who died was at least 144. It also accepted that the hundreds of 
alleged Taliban killed in remote areas of the country by air strikes were in 
fact combatants.

According to a tally compiled by Associated Press, American and NATO forces 
claimed to have killed more than 2,310 Taliban this year. In 2008, the tally 
was over 3,800. With the scale of fighting escalating, the new commander in 
Afghanistan, General Stanley McChrystal, ordered occupation forces in 
mid-June to stop giving any estimates on alleged Taliban casualties.

The air strike figure also does not count the hundreds of men, women and 
children who have been killed this year by missile strikes launched from 
unmanned US Predator drones over the border in the tribal agencies of 
Pakistan. The anti-occupation insurgency is supported by the ethnic Pashtun 
population of the region. In retaliation, the US military is waging a 
systematic campaign of killings and terror against them.

On June 23, a single US attack on a funeral procession in South Waziristan 
killed over 80 people. In just two days in July, Predator strikes killed 
another 80.

Other civilian deaths that may not have been counted, or been falsely 
reported as Taliban fatalities, are those inflicted during the regular raids 
conducted by special forces' units on the homes of suspected insurgent 
leaders, fighters or financiers.

The report noted: "Implementation of search and seizure operations 
(including night time raids) are also of concern, and there have been 
reports of a number of joint Afghan and international military forces 
operations in which excessive use of force has allegedly resulted in 
civilian deaths." Agencies such as UNAMA rarely have the ability to 
independently verify who, and how many, are killed in such actions.

Overall, the UNAMA report makes a pessimistic estimate of the situation 
facing the US-led occupation in Afghanistan. Far from Obama's surge curbing 
Afghan resistance to the presence of foreign troops, the Taliban and other 
insurgents are gaining support and expanding the territory in which they 
operate.

UNAMA noted: "As the conflict has widened and deepened throughout 2007, 2008 
and into 2009, almost a third of the country is now directly affected by 
insurgent activities with differing intensity. Armed conflict is 
particularly prevalent in the South, South-East, East, Central, and Western 
regions of the country. It is also spreading into areas formerly relatively 
tranquil, such as the North and North-East."

The occupation forces, in response, are "attempting to quell the insurgency 
and responding to insurgent activity within civilian areas, [and] are also 
conducting more operations in areas where civilians reside. These factors 
have resulted in a rising toll in terms of civilian deaths and injuries and 
destruction of infrastructure, including homes and assets, which are 
essential for survival and the maintenance of livelihoods."

The result will be greater numbers of Afghan civilians losing their lives, 
particularly in the continuing air strikes against alleged Taliban targets. 
On July 30, the Los Angeles Times reported that McChrystal had instructed 
that the Predator drones previously used for hunting for Al Qaeda leaders in 
remote mountainous areas of the country be focused instead on operations in 
"major insurgent strongholds"-i.e., areas with large civilian populations.

McChrystal has also requested that at least another dozen of the unmanned 
aircraft be dispatched from the US to Afghanistan. Central Command has 
further ordered the redeployment of U2 spy aircraft, combat engineer units, 
road-clearance teams and helicopters from Iraq to the burgeoning war in 
Afghanistan.

Underscoring again the fraudulent character of the "war against terrorism", 
an unnamed official told the Los Angeles Times: "We might still be too 
focused on Bin Laden. We should probably reassess our priorities."

McChrystal himself declared in a recent interview: "I don't think there is 
enough focus on counter-insurgency. I am not in a position to criticise 
counter-terrorism, but at this point in the war, in Afghanistan, it is most 
important to focus on almost classic counter-insurgency."

Far from being against terrorism, the war is against the Afghan people. The 
consequence of the rising death toll among both civilians and insurgents 
will be wider hostility toward the occupation forces and greater sympathy 
for the armed resistance to their presence.

At the same time, the surge is leading to a rise in US and NATO casualties. 
In July, foreign occupation forces in Afghanistan suffered their worst 
casualties of nearly eight years of war, with 75 losing their lives. In just 
the first two days of August, nine US and NATO troops have been killed-a 
rate as high as the worst days of fighting in Iraq.

The UNAMA report predicted that a sharp upsurge in violence would take place 
over the next several weeks, as the Obama administration and its allies 
attempted to hold a stage-managed presidential election in the 
country-including in areas controlled by the Taliban, where Afghan President 
Hamid Karzai is viewed with contempt.