Destroying Afghanistan to save it

Unlike the Defense Department – or the mainstream media – University of New Hampshire economics professor Marc Herold has been looking closely at the human "collateral damage" in Afghanistan. Last week Herold released a study estimating more than 3,700 innocents have been killed in Afghanistan – about as many as were killed in the World Trade Center attacks. His stats are based on foreign press reports and firsthand accounts. The White House has downplayed the civilian deaths, proclaiming that no nation "has worked so hard to avoid civilian casualties."

But it looks like Herold may be right. Consider this account by Global Exchange staffer Deborah James, who witnessed the carnage up close. She returned Dec. 3 from a four-week fact-finding mission to Pakistan and Afghanistan. "We met with a woman named Ramsir," James told the Bay Guardian. "She's 24 years old. Not only did her neighbor's house get bombed, and all nine family members were killed, but the park where she was playing with her 5-year-old daughter was bombed because it was near the Kabul airport and [U.S. planes] missed. Her daughter now is in a total state of shock. There were kids in the playground who were killed."

James continued, "We talked to a 12-year-old girl who was out with her father one day and came home and found her house in a pile of rubble with her mother and siblings dead inside. Her father went crazy and now this 12-year-old girl is the head of the household."

What does James think of the media's portrayal of the conflict? "I believe the media is doing us a tremendous disservice" by ignoring the civilian casualties. "Most people in the U.S. cannot name one person who's been killed in the bombing."

She also expressed disgust at the United States' paltry aid offers. "The latest proposal is $200 million. We've just spent a billion dollars a month bombing Afghanistan, and we're talking about $200 million reconstructing it – and $65 million is just for the American embassy. That's not even going to address the damage we've done." (A.C. Thompson)

A brave new humanitarian mission

During a Nov. 30 press briefing Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld informed the world that U.S. forces are doing far more than simply kicking terrorist ass. Culled from transcripts posted on the Pentagon Web site (www.defenselink.mil), here's a choice comment:

Q: Mr. Secretary, as General Pace outlined early on, that we're continuing to go after the cave and tunnel complexes, how do we know who's in the caves that we're trying to seal up in these hits? How do we know who's there?