# Posted 12:41 PM by Ariel David Adesnik  

MORE GLOOM AND DOOM: My research on civilian casualties continues. (I apologize for the lack of permalinks, but I'm using Nexis-Lexis.) The most interesting conclusion from today is that landmines from Afghan's previous wars kill far more people every year than American airstirkes did in 2001. According to Agence France Presse (21 Sept. 2001):

“Explosions of landmines and left-over ammunition caused on average about 88 casualties a month in Afghanistan in 2000, and that was a sharp decline from the 1999 level.

About half of 2,812 casualties treated in an 18 month period were children and most were civilians, according to the ICRC, but it says the figure does not take into account those who die on the spot…

The United Nations and relief agencies in Afghanistan have cleared about 215,000 anti-personel mines in a decade, out of several million thought to be scattered over the Afghan landscape.”

Perhaps this isn't surprising considering that even Bill Arkin from Human Rights Watch reports that

“…what I've observed on the ground is that there was a battle against al-Qaeda that is actually more impressive than I thought. Here in Kandahar is an example. It's amazing how you can see one house that has bombed specifically because there were in Arabs in the house and yet the next door houses have not even been damaged at all. And all over the city, where there's very few civilian casualties in fact, it's amazing how you can pick out specific al-Qaeda houses that were bombed. And the neighborhood all knows that Arabs were there.” (CNBC -- Hardball, 22 Mar 2002)

Even the United States' notorious cluster bombs seem not to have caused much collateral damage. According to the Boston Globe (22 Feb 2002):

“The Pentagon, severely criticized for its widespread use of cluster bombs in Iraq during the Gulf War, has dropped far fewer of the munitions in Afghanistan and has largely avoided civilian areas, focusing instead on enemy troops, tanks, and airfields, according to initial investigations by the United Nations.

UN mine-clearing specialists, working with a Pentagon list of 188 sites hit by cluster bombs, have examined 20 so far and found only one site near a civilian area. The Globe has obtained the previously undisclosed site list.”

When comes to putting facts like this in context, I think Peter Beinart got it right in TNR (19 Nov 2001). Beinart starts with the assumption that Afghan civilian casualties may have reached the 500 mark in mid-November.

Then consider the events of August 8, 1998. On that day, the Taliban took Mazar-e-Sharif from the Northern Alliance. They entered a multi-ethnic city with a substantial population of Hazaras, a Persian-speaking, Shia minority clustered near the Iranian border. The Taliban despised the Hazaras --first, because the Hazaras had fiercely opposed their rule, and second, because the Sunni Taliban considered the Shia Hazaras to be infidels.

And so the conquering Taliban governor addressed the Hazaras from the loudspeaker of a city mosque. According to Human Rights Watch, Mullah Manon Niazi declared that, "Hazaras are not Muslim, they are Shia. They are kofr (infidels)... If you do not show your loyalty, we will burn your houses and we will kill you. You either accept to be Muslims or leave Afghanistan." With that, Taliban soldiers went door to door. They looked for people with Asiatic features, supposedly a Hazara characteristic. Hazaras were told to convert on the spot--and say a Sunni prayer as proof. Those who did not were killed immediately or taken to the city jail from which many were transported to the countryside and then executed. To teach the few remaining Hazaras a lesson, Manon Niazi decreed that the dead bodies remain on the streets for close to a week. Asiaweek estimated the dead at over 6,000.”

While the US may have invaded Afghanistanin order to stop Al Qaeda, its war of self-defense also became a war for freedom and human rights. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion