The US has killed more than 3,767 Afghans
...more deaths than in World Trade Centre
By Paul McGarr
GEORGE W Bush and Tony Blair have murdered more innocent
civilians in Afghanistan than were killed in the 11 September attack on
the World Trade Centre. That fact is the stark conclusion of an
authoritative investigation by US professor Marc Herold.
The study
on the civilian death toll came as the bombing continued at the start of
this week, and as new reports of US and British forces committing war
crimes emerged. Marc Herold is based in the US University of New
Hampshire's School of Business and Economics.
He has meticulously
investigated reports of civilian casualties of US bombing in Afghanistan.
He writes, "Afghanistan has been subjected to a barbarous air bombardment
which has killed an average of 62 civilians per day since Sunday 7
October. When the sun set on 6 December at least 3,767 Afghan civilians
had died in US bombing attacks."
The detailed cataloguing of each
incident, and the zealous caution with which Herold treats figures, make
his report all the more convincing. All deaths after 6 December are
excluded, as are any reports which Herold has not been able to
corroborate.
He says, "Our tabulation represents a serious
underestimate of actual civilian casualties." Professor Herold's account
shatters all US and British claims about careful targeting and precision
bombing.
"In the incident where four nightwatchmen died when the
offices of a United Nations de-mining agency in Kabul was bombed," he
writes, "the Pentagon said it was near a military radio tower. UN
officials said the tower was a defunct, abandoned medium and short wave
radio station that hadn't been in operation for over a decade and was
situated 900 feet away from the bombed UN building."
A few
examples illustrate how, day by day, incident by incident, Herold builds
up a picture of the civilian death toll caused by US bombing.
11
October: "The farming village of 450 persons of Karam, west of Jalalabad
in Nangharhar province, is repeatedly bombed, 45 of the 60 mud houses
destroyed, killing at least 160 civilians."
18 October: "The
central marketplace, Sarai Shamali in the Madad district of Kandahar is
bombed, killing 47 civilians."
25 October: "A US bomb hits a fully
loaded city bus in Kabul Gate in Kandahar, incinerating ten to 20
passengers."
27 November: "Attracted by the lights of a vehicle,
US bombers hit a hamlet of five houses between Kandahar airport and the
city, killing Mohammed Khan's entire family of five, and ten others."
Herold also documents the lengths to which the US and Britain have
gone to cover up their murder of Afghan civilians. The US bombed the Kabul
offices of the Al Jazeera TV station, which was broadcasting reports on
the impact of US bombing.
The US also "bought up all commercial
satellite imagery", a decision taken "on 11 October after reports of heavy
civilian casualties from overnight bombing of Darunia near Jalalabad. The
Pentagon bought exclusive rights to all Ikonos satellite pictures from the
Denver-based Space Imaging Inc."
Not a single mainstream British
newspaper has seen fit to report Professor Herold's study.
Full
report ("A Dossier on Civilian Victims of United States Aerial Bombing of
Afghanistan: A Comprehensive Accounting") is available at http://pubpa
ges.unh.edu/~mwherold/
'Trying to cover up the
slaughter'
JOURNALIST Justin Haggler this week accused
the US of covering up a war crime in Afghanistan. Haggler's reports on the
war for the Independent newspaper have been generally reliable and
excellent.
"The Americans and their Afghan allies", he wrote last
Saturday, "appear to be trying to cover up the slaughter of around 280
foreign Taliban fighters." The alleged massacre of the prisoners came as
the US and its allies took control of Kandahar airport last week.
Huggler reports, "One of the Afghan soldiers who took part in the
fighting said that he was ordered to report a day after it was captured,
where he says he helped bury the bodies of about 280 mostly Arab fighters.
"Two other witnesses, Abdul Basir and Abdul Kadim, said they saw two
bulldozers dumping earth into what they believe was a
mass grave at
the airport."
Huggler reports witnesses to specific cases of
captured prisoners who have since disappeared. "Mr Ahmad Gul said he
handed over two ethnic Arab prisoners of war he helped to capture to some
Americans, presumably members of the CIA, who interrogated them on the
spot then took them away. There has been no word on them since."
Huggler tried to investigate further the claim of a massacre, but
"the Americans have sealed off the entire airport site, making it
impossible to reach the alleged grave." The allegations of a massacre came
as Amnesty International renewed its call for an inquiry into the killing
of hundreds of Taliban prisoners in the northern Afghan city of
Mazar-e-Sharif.
"By blocking an inquiry," says Amnesty, "the UK
government and others are adding to a suspicion that something seriously
untoward took place." Hundreds of prisoners were killed in the incident,
when US bombers were called in to support Northern Alliance forces. They
wanted to stamp out a rebellion by the prisoners, who feared they were
going to be executed.
Channel 4 News last week showed new
video footage which underlined British forces' involvement in the Mazar
massacre. It showed British troops firing machine-guns at targets in the
fort, and one British sniper shooting at targets indicated by a Northern
Alliance fighter.
Patients pile up in hospital
THE GLINT in the sand caught seven year old Ali
Mohammed's eye. He picked up the shiny metallic object to show it to his
brother and sister. But when he hit his new-found toy with a rock, it
exploded, blowing his hand off, ripping his brother's leg apart, and
tearing a hole in his sister's abdomen.
That is what Ali Mohammed
said, according to the Reuters news agency. The three children now lie in
the Chinese Hospital in Kandahar. In what passes for an emergency room
nurses change the dressing over the bloody stump where Ali's hand used to
be, and fumble to find a vein to inject his sister, four year old Gul
Bibi, with painkillers. The children's chances of survival are slim.
The hospital, one of Kandahar's best, lacks proper equipment and
medicine to treat the 60-70 patients who arrive every week with injuries
from bombings and gunshot wounds.
The US military has dropped
thousands of the BLU-97 cluster bombs, made by the Aerojet and Honeywell
multinationals in Afghanistan. The bombs scatter 202 bright yellow
bomblets across an area. Those that
don't explode are left lying like
landmines.
United Nations mine clearing officials in Afghanistan
estimate that up to 30 percent of the bomblets have not exploded and are
scattered around. Yet Tony Blair and his international development
secretary Clare Short defend the use of these cluster bombs.
Deadly prison
THE RED Cross is
investigating reports that captured Taliban soldiers were suffocated to
death in shipping containers in northern Afghanistan. The Red Cross is
interviewing some of the 3,000 prisoners being held at the Shibarghan
detention centre.
The New York Times reported Northern Alliance
commander General Jurabek in charge of the Shibarghan centre saying that
43 prisoners suffocated while being held in a container.
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