The innocent dead in a coward's war

The Guardian ^ | Thursday December 20, 2001 | Seumas Milne

[wideawake]

But what has been cruelly demonstrated is that the US and its camp followers are prepared to sacrifice thousands of innocents in a coward's war.

LOL!!! The more we wins, the bitterer they gets.

[Bommer]

Now, for the first time, a systematic independent study has been carried out into civilian casualties in Afghanistan by Marc Herold, a US economics professor at the University of New Hampshire. Based on corroborated reports from aid agencies, the UN, eyewitnesses, TV stations, newspapers and news agencies around the world, Herold estimates that at least 3,767 civilians were killed by US bombs between October 7 and December 10. That is an average of 62 innocent deaths a day - and an even higher figure than the 3,234 now thought to have been killed in New York and Washington on September 11.

So an ECONOMICS PROFESSOR who is an EXPERT in ECONIOMICS collected UNSUBSTANUATED reports from HIGHLY UNRELIABLE SOURCES to come up with definative death count, that is still only an ESTIMATE! Wonder if this goober was also used by the Democraps to calculate the number of black disenfranchised Florida voters! Call Jeff Cohn from F.A.I.R. This is the kind of crap he uses to back up acurate reporting by liberals!

[End Times Sentinel]

Based on corroborated reports from aid agencies, the UN, eyewitnesses, TV stations, newspapers and news agencies around the world, Herold estimates that at least 3,767 civilians were killed by US bombs

Why do I think this number was arrived at via: “Hmmm… let’s see. ABC says 2 were killed, CBS has it at 3, NBC has 2, CNN 4, the Taliban claims 28. 2+3+2+4+28 is 39! 39 innocent civilians were killed yesterday.”

[Numbers Guy]

A quick check of the web shows that Professor Herold is involved in various peacenik groups and thus has a bit of an axe to grind.

He uses newspapers as his sources for his estimates, but the reality is that just about all the estimates were either directly from Taliban sources or hearsay from relief people who talked to Taliban sources.

So, basically, it's Taliban garbage in and Taliban garbage out. And 62 civilian deaths per day actually would represent a mellowing of the Taliban regime.

Quaker Website that mentions the prof prior to his study

[tallhappy]

Putting it simply, Herold's figures are highly suspect.

[Squantos]

Good Comments He He He .........

Stay Safe and have a great Christmas

[Clinton's a rapist]

Marc Herold is Associate Professor of Economic Development & Women's Studies at the powerhouse University of New Hampshire. A Berkeley graduate, he lists his interests as: Third World Development, Women and Development, Multinational Enterprises, Postmodernism, and Development Philosophy.

Sounds like a really credible authority for civilian casualties in the US bombing campaign, eh?

[caisson71]

We learned from the Vietnam war. Liberals don't like body counts.

[Publius6961]

It has instead been paid by ordinary Afghans, who had nothing whatever to do with the atrocities, didn't elect the Taliban theocrats who ruled over them and had no say in the decision to give house room to Bin Laden and his friends.

It is hard to imagine being so divorced from reality as this Seumas Milne fellow and the Guardian.
Milne seems to to be totally unaware that culturally and morally, the Afghans are as different from westerners as martians.
Their culture and their morality where it comes to the value of human life makes it absurd to talk about them as if they were the neighbors down the block.
They are brutal on the family level and it escalates from there.

They "feared" (and respected) the Taliban more that they feared us.
And they paid they price; They actually judged us as erroneously as Milne judges them. And saw the result of our anger as ordinary as another primitive tribe's.
Big mistake. And lesson not yet learned. They are actually negotiating away the leaders of the Al Qaeda for money!

Innocent? I don't think so.
Debt paid? Not even close...

[cardinal4]

Shouldnt there be a barf alert?This guy is a liberal peacenik with some kind of agenda,Ive read his stuff before.People die in war,its too bad,but its war.Perhaps he should be asked about all the innocent Germans killed in Dresden and Cologne by British bombers.Or the Argentines for that matter.Jeez,I guess libs are everywhere.

[zandtar]

It has instead been paid by ordinary Afghans, who had nothing whatever to do with the atrocities, didn't elect the Taliban theocrats who ruled over them and had no say in the decision to give house room to Bin Laden and his friends.

Gee, the colonists didn't elect the British Empire and took care of business themselves in 1776.

[zandtar]

Gee, where was Marc Herold and all of this "concern" about innocents when the Taliban slaughtered 8,000 during their reign, in addition to the other atrocities they've commited upon the civilians?

[Ridin' Shotgun]

.... but because of the low value put on Afghan civilian lives by US military planners. .... and their campfollowers ....as is being demonstrated on this thread.

Seems most of the posters here are merely disappointed that more were not killed or maimed. If God is 'on the side of' bloodthirsty barbarians who revel in, or attempt to disparage ANY spilling of innocent blood, I want no part of this 'god' they worship.

Meanwhile, as grief walks the frozen hills of Afghanistan, OBL or whomever was responsible for 9/11 walks free.

[stands2reason]

I don't think that word "independent" means what they think it means.

[sheep]

Now, for the first time, a systematic independent study has been carried out into civilian casualties in Afghanistan by Marc Herold, a US economics professor at the University of New Hampshire.

I found that once I lost all credibility, I became independant

[PPCLI]

Yes. For just one example, the Taliban shelled Kabul for a month in June 1996, killing (stable estimates say)more than 2000. Where the hell was the Guardian then?

[dighton]

A dreadful column by the same author:

They can't see why they are hated

I can smell Milne from across the ocean, and it's not pleasant.