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NEWS > EVERYONE ELSE > NATO STILL RACKING UP CIVILIAN KILLS IN AFGHANISTAN
NATO STILL RACKING UP CIVILIAN KILLS IN AFGHANISTAN
February 23 2010
Kabul, Afghanistan – War is never pretty and likely, hopefully, never will be. It is the nature of war to destroy civilizations, to decimate the opponent’s will so thoroughly that he will never get back up again. While much has been done in recent years to
mitigate, and even rectify, the damage laid on a civilization in the midst of war, there is one goal and one goal only. Whether it was mass rape in ancient Greece, the Blitz during World War II, or he abuses at Abu Gharib, the face of war has always been ugly.
Attitudes towards the atrocities of war have changed dramatically over the last century. In the wake of the bloodiest conflicts the human race has ever seen, and multiple genocides being visited on innocent civilians, our sensitivity to the horrors of conflict have changed dramatically. It is however unavoidable that civilians will ultimately be killed in any major conflict, either as a result of errors or deliberate positioning as a tool to facilitate advantage. In truth it is often the deaths of civilians that can decide the outcome of a war with their deaths sapping the will of the opponent to continue fighting. That is exactly the attitude the United States and NATO appears to have taken in Afghanistan with yet another bombing adding to the already record setting numbers thus far in the war.
“Yesterday a group of suspected insurgents, believed to be en route to attack a joint
Afghan-ISAF unit, was engaged by an airborne weapons team resulting in a number of individuals killed and wounded. After the joint ground force arrived at the scene and found women and children, they transported the wounded to medical treatment facilities,” said the ISAF in a statement. “We recognize that there is a great deal of concern about the number of civilians being killed throughout the country but the numbers are still far below other conflicts. All armed forces, whether from the United States or NATO, continue to work hard to prevent civilian deaths and will continue to do so going forward.”
27 out of a possible 42 were killed in the airstrike in the Dutch controlled territory. No reason was given for the high survival rate.
“You look at other major wars waged by the United States and you see a pattern of decline in civilian causalities. You look at World War II and the attacks on Dresden, the firebombing of Tokyo, and the Atomic bombs in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, or Agent Orange and other issues in Vietnam and you see a major decline in the number of civilian deaths by American hands,” said Scrape TV International Conflict analyst Mario Martinez. “For NATO however, this is totally uncharted territory. Yes, they killed a bunch of civilians in the Balkans but nothing like the death toll that has been reached in Afghanistan. For NATO itself as well as a lot of these soldiers who didn’t get a chance to participate in Iraq, this escalation is just the bee’s knees.”
It’s expected that many more civilians will die before the Afghan forces are able to take over the killings themselves.
“Look, politicians and civilians frown upon innocent people dying but these guys are warriors, even the guys from countries like the Netherlands. They are built to kill and that is exactly what is going on here. The only real tragedy is that the Americans are doing so much of the killing that other people aren’t getting a fair shot, so to speak,” continued Martinez. “That’s going to mean more killings in the near future especially as some countries get ready to withdraw troops. You don’t want to take away the limited opportunities these men and women have. There just aren’t that many wars anymore and so they have to take full advantage when they can.”
With hundreds of millions of civilians killed during the Second World War, NATO officials admit that record may already be out of reach.
Emil Uliya, International Correspondent
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