Afghan killing fields
Wednesday February 13, 2002 The Guardian
Your article on civilian casualties in Afghanistan (The unfinished war, February 12) criticises my study as "incomplete", evidence for which being that I erroneously listed 19 civilians killed in Wazir Akbar Khan hospital on October 7-8. A quick check of my publicly available data base shows I put [13-19] - the parentheses meaning I was sceptical of the sources I cited. The bombing attack on Mowshkeyl is reported in my dossier as having occurred on December 9, and killing 13-16 innocents.
The other three incidents cited - in Khair Khana (Kabul), Tarin Kot and Herat - are all listed in my dossier. The civilian deaths are, respectively, 9-13, 20-32, and 11-100. The January 24 attack upon Qadam Hazar was correctly described by Dario Lopez of Associated Press on January 26 as "killing at least 15" civilians. Why was this not reported in the mainstream corporate press until recently?
My revised overall death toll (October 7 to February 6) is 3,000 to 3,600. The US air war in Afghanistan is best characterised as being of low bombing intensity and high civilian casualty intensity, precisely the opposite of the Gulf War.
You cite the Human Rights Watch figure of 500 deaths for Nato bombing in Yugoslavia, a number about one-third of that mentioned by other credible sources (eg Fred Kaplan, Michael Parenti and Nato's own internal assessment).
In closing, I see no reason why you found it necessary to comment upon my political views. Should we then not mention that George Soros monies finance Human Rights Watch? Prof Marc Herold University of New Hampshire