Afghan civilian toll rises due to insurgent attacks: UN

[Thomas]

If your point it invading forces are friendly to the countrymen far more than the defending forces of the same country than I cannot change this assumption with reason. Taliban could be bad but they are Afghans and they cannot be in power and rule 83% of Afghan territory without any backing from the public. If Taliban are bad, they are backed by same "bad" Afghan public.

Also killing those Afghans has produce 100 times more of these people. Re-enforcing the failure is only going to bring bigger failure. If Afghans are bad, council them, talk to them, bring international mediators from Muslim world who Taliban listen to. If correcting these bad Taliban was the real objective, I don't see reason why Obama is sending more money and troops to the country. Washing blood with blood won't work. Think who's wrong here.

The coalition is only considered invading forces by the Taliban and the 3 - 4 countries of the world that actually recognized the Taliban as the legitimate Government. They enjoy support from many of the Afghan people only becuase of the widespread Government corruption. Which by the way the Taliban have become corrupt as well with their drug dealings. If the Government corruption can be brought under control which definitely is a monumental task. You would see support for the Taliban evaporate. Or if the Taliban become even more barbaric then they already are. Their support could dry up as well, Just like it did for Al Qada in Iraq

 

[TorontoNoctis]

If your point it invading forces are friendly to the countrymen far more than the defending forces of the same country than I cannot change this assumption with reason. Taliban could be bad but they are Afghans and they cannot be in power and rule 83% of Afghan territory without any backing from the public. If Taliban are bad, they are backed by same "bad" Afghan public.

Also killing those Afghans has produce 100 times more of these people. Re-enforcing the failure is only going to bring bigger failure. If Afghans are bad, council them, talk to them, bring international mediators from Muslim world who Taliban listen to. If correcting these bad Taliban was the real objective, I don't see reason why Obama is sending more money and troops to the country. Washing blood with blood won't work. Think who's wrong here.

War is not waged through statistics but with principles. For example, I would rather live in a country with motor vehicle accidents than one which bans cars. This is why its wrong to compare numbers alone with no context.

Your "analysis" is wrong because it ignores that the vast majority of people are unable to defend themselves. Just because the Taliban controlled 80% of the territory before doesn't mean 80% of the population agreed with them or even a majority. All it means is they were the most brutal, had the most weapons, etc.

You can use statistics to prove nearly any ideological position. You can compare atrocities committed by the Taliban to the ones by the Americans all you want, but there is a very real difference between an open policy directed from the top and one not. The 14 year old girl in Iraq whose family were killed and raped, the soldiers involved got the harshest sentence possible and nearly the death penalty and now they are in military prison with no possibility of ever getting free doing hard labor for the rest of their lives. Meanwhile the Taliban condone stoning of women in stadiums and the executioners are endorsed by the state. Intentions matter, and so do principles.

Education cannot work without safety. If girls are getting acid splashed in their faces if they go to school, how can they be educated? Can you seriously expect negotiation with these types? Obama is sending more troops and money to Afghanistan because he knows this, and he also knows South Korea, Germany and Japan took decades. I know exactly who is wrong, and it is not the USA.

 

[ejaz007]

Afghan civilian toll up by 31pc in 2010: UN

* Insurgents seen behind most civilian casualties

* More Afghans being killed to stop cooperation

KABUL: Civilian casualties have risen by 31 percent in the first half of 2010, the United Nations mission in Afghanistan said on Tuesday, a much sharper rise than that estimated by an independent Afghan human rights body.

The United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) said in its mid-year report that 1,271 civilians had been killed in conflict-related incidents in the first six months of 2010 and that insurgents were behind most of the casualties.

“We are very concerned about the future because the human cost of this conflict is being paid too heavily by civilian Afghans and that’s why this report is a wake-up call,” Staffan de Mistura, the special representative of UN secretary general Ban Ki-moon, told a news conference.

There were a total of 3,268 civilian casualties over the period, with 1,997 wounded, he said.

Deaths and injuries among children attributed to insurgents were up 55 percent from 2009, the report said, noting the use of more sophisticated improvised explosive devices throughout the country and a 95 percent increase in assassinations, most likely to scare ordinary people from cooperating, de Mistura said.

“Afghan children and women are increasingly bearing the brunt of the conflict,” de Mistura said. “They are being killed and injured in their homes and communities in greater numbers than ever before.”

The Taliban and other insurgents, described collectively in the UN report as “anti-government elements”, were responsible for 76 percent, or 2,477, of deaths.

The report found that there were 386 casualties attributed to “pro-government forces”, down to 12 percent of the total from 30 percent the year before.

This was attributable mainly to a 64 percent fall in the number of deaths and injuries caused by aerial attacks, it said.

The Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission on Sunday put the number of civilian deaths over the first seven months of the year at 1,325, a rise of what it said only about six percent over the same period in 2009.

Mirroring the UN, it said about 68 percent of those deaths were caused by insurgents and about 23 percent by Afghan and international forces.

Civilian casualties caused by US and other foreign forces have long been a source of friction between the Afghan government and its Western backers. reuters

Daily Times - Leading News Resource of Pakistan

 

[ejaz007]

Germany Pays $430,000 To Afghan Strike Families
AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
Published: 10 Aug 2010 11:52

BERLIN - Germany said Aug. 10 it has paid out $430,000 to the 86 families of 102 Afghans killed or injured in an airstrike called in by a German commander on two hijacked fuel tankers last September.

"Every family affected received $5,000. This measure is however not about compensation in the legal sense but constitutes humanitarian assistance," according to a statement from the defense ministry in Berlin.

The Sept. 4, 2009, bombing by U.S. planes near the northern Afghan city of Kunduz on two fuel tankers stolen by insurgents prompted outrage in Germany, where polls suggest a majority of people are opposed to the Afghan mission.

The defense minister at the time resigned, while the armed forces chief of staff and another senior defense official quit after pressure from the minister's successor, Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg, who called the strike "militarily inappropriate."

A report by the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission (AIHRC) put the number at 91 killed and 11 injured, the ministry said. A spokesman told AFP it was not known how many of these were insurgents.

NATO said at first 142 people were killed, reportedly including dozens of civilians. The operation has also been the subject of a parliamentary inquiry in Germany.

Germany is the third-largest contributor of foreign troops in Afghanistan after the United States and Britain, with about 4,500 troops in the relatively peaceful north. Thirty-nine soldiers have died.

Germany Pays $430,000 To Afghan Strike Families - Defense News

 

[GUNNER]

KABUL, Aug 12, 2010 (AFP) - Afghanistan's Taliban on Thursday dismissed as "propaganda" a UN report that said the insurgents were responsible for the bulk of more than 1,000 civilians killed in the first half of the year.

The UN Mission for Afghanistan (UNAMA) said this week that 1,271 civilians lost their lives in violence between January and June, and the Taliban were responsible for 76 percent of the deaths.

The Taliban, the main group behind an increasingly deadly insurgency now in its ninth year, dismissed the report, blaming the world body for taking the side of US-led troops.

"Observing the statistics issued by UNAMA, it appears crystal-clear that the report is based on political expedience, exaggeration and propaganda instead of surfacing the facts," a Taliban statement posted on their website said.

"Every observer would easily determine the truth of such reports as this and assess how authentic and spurious such reports may be."
The Taliban are waging an insurgency to regain power after they were thrown out in a US-led invasion launched in retaliation to the September 11, 2001 attacks.