By Marc W. Herold
ICH
February, 02, 2009 — “RAWA”
“Change” Afghans Should Look Upon with Skepticism
Simple arithmetic reveals that the eleven days under the Obama clock were 18-50% more deadly for Afghan civilians than the twenty days under the Bush regime
The New Year’s first Afghan civilian killed by U.S/NATO action was a boy named Marjan (tr. Coral), killed on January 2nd. (1)The boy had allegedly wandered into a prohibited area in the Deh-Sabz district of Kabul. Marjan was walking home with friends when “international forces” gunned him down. The occupation soldiers got out of a white vehicle, shot Coral and sped away. Marjan is only one of 73-88 civilian Afghans or tribal Pashtuns killed by the U.S/NATO occupation forces during January 2009. Three days later, eight Afghan women, two children and two civilian men were killed by Australian forces in the Chora district of Uruzgan Province.
Much official ado has been made in Washington D.C. and in the U.S. corporate press about how the new Administration will be taking far greater care as regards Afghan civilians. Data analyzed below for January 2009 suggests that the deadliness of the Afghan war for civilians under the Obama clock significantly exceeds that registered under the outgoing Bush regime. Boys, women, girls, tribal leaders all have perished at the hands of the foreign occupiers.
During January 2009, twelve U.S/NATO forces’ actions (including one road accident where a MRAP military armored vehicle crushed an Afghan civilian car) resulted in 73-88 dead Afghan civilians (including five Pashtun tribes people in North Waziristan killed in a U.S. drone strike). The following table presents details:
[…]
FAIR USE NOTICE: This blog may contain copyrighted material. Such material is made available for educational purposes, to advance understanding of human rights, democracy, scientific, moral, ethical, and social justice issues, etc. This constitutes a ‘fair use’ of any such copyrighted material as provided for in Title 17 U.S.C. section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond ‘fair use’, you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.
see
Afghanistan and Pakistan’s “Salvador Option”, by Tom Burghardt
Bill Moyers Journal: Bombing Civilians + The Cost of Ignorance
US air raid fuels Afghan anger
Dandelion Salad 
Pingback: Obama set to launch military “surge” in Afghanistan « Dandelion Salad
Pingback: Gareth Porter: Why you should know Gen. Jack Keane « Dandelion Salad
Pingback: Change (in rhetoric) we can believe in, by William Blum « Dandelion Salad
Pingback: Gareth Porter: US military leaders are pressuring Obama to cancel his Iraq withdrawal promise « Dandelion Salad
As another post points out, due to the wrong type of aircraft, bombing from high altitude, it is impossible to take care. This civilian death is not acceptable “collateral” damage.