How many civilian casualties do we think resulted from U.S.-led efforts to remove the Taliban? Anyone know? Is it not ridiculous that this figure is so scantly publicized?
Well, to answer this second part faster than you can say Great Debates, no, it is not ridiculous.
Given the nature of this war and this enemy, i.e. absolutely none of the terrorists wear any kind of uniform or reside in clearly defined military structures, vehicles etc., its not very easy to get an accurate non-combatant body count. In fact, its probably close to impossible.
On the GD side, its not ridiculous because it would be detrimental to winning. Some say that’s hypocritical or even evil, but to do otherwise would be just plain stupid.
During WWII we were essentially at war with the regimes of Nazi Germany & Imperial Japan. But we killed thousands if not millions of german & japanese civilians, because crushing their governments was deemed absolutely necessary, even at the expense of high enemy civilian loses.
People need to realize that this is not some pseudo, pretend war. We were attacked on our home soil and suffered massive (civilian BTW) casualties.
And I also don’t think its ridiculous because its quite obvious that US technology has & will continue to minimize civilian casualties to an incredibly low level.
But even when it doesn’t, that’s just the way it goes. When push comes to shove, if preventing another 9/11 means the death of some innocent civilians, I still vote yes. War is not neat & clean, nor will it ever be.
USA made special mention in an article that the USA had killed more Afghani civilians than Americans died in 9/11
Says who?
Who is the accountant? like Hail Ants said, it is impossible to compeletely and accurately verify any of these claims. Some of the studies I’ve seen that tally these civilian casualties used totals that came from the Taliban themselves, which, of course is always the most accurate source…
Who is tallying the bodies?
(this is going GD fast, but the GQ answer is that nobody really knows.)
I’ve seen claims as low as about 300, as high as 30,000. Of course, 300 is gonna be low and the 30,000 number was made up by some guy with a chip on his shoulder. My WAG would be no more than about 1000; I believe that is around the number some independent groups have come up with.
In February the Guardian said 2,000-8,000 dead. In October 2002 Time said less than 3,000. In June 2002 the LA Times said 1,067-1,201. February the Associated Press said 500-600. Some officials of Human Rights Watch privately said 100-350 by December 2001. The Project On Defense Alternatives, whatever that is, said in January 1,000-1,300. The median of these numbers comes out roughly to a maximum of 1,500.
Taken from here.
This is one of the more interesting things that I’ve read on this http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,770915,00.html
I know that The Guardian is an anti-US, left-wing rag, but it still amazes me to read a story like that.
My main reaction to the story is, “Yeah, so what?” Because our estimates are not 100% accurate we’re, what, guilty of war crimes?
The US not only is technically capable of severely limiting civilian casualties, I firmly believe it is morally committed to as well.
So it makes me furious to read these little rants, considering that most of the world (especially fundementally religious areas) still hack their own citizens to pieces with axes at the drop of a hat.
And that if countries like North Korea or Iraq or Iran ever suffered a 9/11 attack they would not only not even think twice about indescriminately showering their enemy’s cities with bombs or poison gas, but that they’d also drag every foreigner in their country out into the streets and execute them.
why is it ridiculous? To the Taliban, every person we killed over there was civilian (multiplied by as much as a 100) who is going to say what the accurate count is?
The Northern Alliance knew who their enemy was at all times, and that enemy was the Tailiban, despite your assertion above. How do you explain this?
How does this in anyway contradict what Hail Ants said? He never said that we didn’t know who the enemy was, just that they were not easily identifiable or quantifiable. Are you claiming that before US involvement, the Northern Alliance was fighting a war against the Taliban in which they miraculously could ID each individual as Taliban/ non-Taliban at the drop of a hat and thus avoid civilian casualties, or at the very least keep an accurate tally of them? If not, then how is the NA’s knowledge that the Taliban was the enemy at all relevant?
If you look closely at the article it is a Comment piece which is means that it constitutes the opinion of the author and is not necessarily an unbiased piece of reportage. The Guardian prints the opinions of people from many different political backgrounds.
Marc Herold’s numbers have been debunked here: http://www.techcentralstation.com/1051/defensewrapper.jsp?PID=1051-350&CID=1051-030402A
He’s an econ prof from the University of New Hampshire who has never even been to Afghanistan.
Even Human Rights Watch says he’s overblown the number: http://www.guardian.co.uk/afghanistan/comment/story/0,11447,650409,00.html
Herold makes up numbers here: http://www.snappingturtle.net/jmc/flit/2002_11_01_archive.html#84598445
And loses his cool when confronted here: http://angrycyclist.blogspot.com/2002_10_27_angrycyclist_archive.html#85612434
And here: http://angrycyclist.blogspot.com/2002_10_27_angrycyclist_archive.html#85630734
Debunked again here: http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/001/565otmps.asp
Herold backpedals to no avail here: http://cointelprotool.blogspot.com/2002_08_04_cointelprotool_archive.html#80032389
And the Green Bay Packers play the San Francisco Giants here: http://www.portal.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2002/01/19/do1902.xml&sSheet=/opinion/2002/01/19/ixopinion.html As interesting as the match-up may be, Herold is still a liar, and Leftist journalists are still lazy and driven by emotion rather than facts.
The figure of 1,000 to 1,300 from the Project for Defense Alternatives study that Daoloth cited, I have seen before. It is evidently based on first hand eyewitness accounts from journalists, mostly European, who have no affiliation with either the U.S. or with the Arab or Muslim world. That doesn’t prove that the figure is true, but I have seen no evidence to counter those first hand sources, and I’m willing to believe it. At any rate, it’s more credible than Marc Herold’s report, which relies extensively on al-Jazeera and other propaganda mouthpieces for the terrorists.
The death of even one innocent person is a tragedy, and IMO the U.S. government should do its best to relieve the suffering of the families of those noncombatants it has inadvertently killed. (This is already being done to some extent, in the massive U.S.-sponsored effort to feed and shelter people displaced by the war, which I fully support). But the innocent blood is all ultimately on Osama bin Laden’s and Mullah Omar’s hands. They started this war. And al-Qaeda will kill a great many more innocent people if we don’t win it.
Thank you all for your dedication to the truth. It is important to understand the negative consequences of war, especially when attempting to determine whether it is justified on utilitarian grounds.
PS. Hail Ants. You criticize other countries for killing their civilians yet you defend as moral a country that, via the death penalty, also kills its own people quite frequently (and has been reprimanded for it by the more civilized European countries).
As for the comment that says all innocent blood is on the hands of te Taliban and Al-Queda: that assumes we had to respond and do so recklessly. Even if we were justified in taking ou the Taliban, there was certainly no urgency involved. Our haste led to civilian deaths…of that there can be no question. Was that necessary or moral? Should not those lives be laid on the ones responsible in Washington?
Well, the death penalty and a country’s military actions are two totally different things.
And I wouldn’t be so quick in praising the ‘civilized Europeans’ about the death penalty. It was only in 1976 that France guillotined their last criminal. And Britain only ended it in 1968 (I think).
Also, I think it much more important that the individual US states be allowed to make that decision rather than have the Federal Govt make it for them, for or against. This is something the European countries don’t consider (or even really understand) at all.
There is no question that Al-queda was heavily based in Afghanistan, and that the Taliban not only was the governing body there, but that they openly supported Al-Queda. Whether it was because they agreed with Al-Queda’s version of Islam, or because they received huge financial support from Al-Queda backers, or both, it doesn’t matter. They were directly responsible for its actions, including September 11th. And 9/11 was a deliberate and overt act of war against the govt & people of the United States. So I can see no argument whatsoever against the absolute necessity and ethical and moral justification in taking out the Taliban govt.
As far as expediancy, we gave them the opportunity to hand over Al-Queda or be utterly destroyed and they chose the latter. And we gave them nearly a month to decide. Other countries wouldn’t have given them any choice at all.
And there was very much a need for urgency involved. The more time went by the more likely Al-Queda would have disseminated and moved its forces from Afghanistan. Also the quicker the US struck the more discouraging it would be to any other potential terrorist attackers. And, as I said before, I value that more than enemy civilians.
is this a freudian slip are are you consciously so self absorbed as to not care about the lives of others. as i am sure you have argued elsewhere, such people were as much victims of the Taliban as secretaries in NYC. to you the two should be equal.
as to urgency, as you said, we gave them a month. anyone who wanted to get out was out. once the war started, we could have gone slower and taken more care to avoid killing civilians. there was no threat against us real enough to justify killing innocent people, even if they are “enemy civilians”
Welcome to the SDMB, jclune
I understand you’re new, but generally, asking questions that can be debated, or sidetracking, is considered as off topic, in the wrong forum, or thread hijacking. It’s usually not appreciated, although you probably did this unwittingly.
Anything approaching a factual question in this thread has been answered as best as it’s gonna be with currently available information.