Truth [about Afghan civilian casualties] Comes Only Through an American Lens

by Marc W. Herold

POSTED JANUARY 22, 2002 -- A comment in The Nation [February 4, 2002] by Michael Massing¹ employs the journalistic trick of selective quotation to discredit my dossier, by putting in quotations my use of the term "criminal" to describe some U.S. bombing, and my assertion that the U.S. mainstream corporate media engaged in some lying. I make the latter claim and support it with detail in my Appendix 2.

Massing objects to my use of the word "criminal" in describing some U.S. bombing incidents. I employ this word having in mind the U.S. bombing of civilian installations and infrastructure in Afghanistan. The organization Human Rights Watch has previously castigated NATO for doing just that in its bombing of Serbian civilian facilities [e.g., radio stations, bridges, etc.] in 1999, and for hitting military targets close to civilian areas without giving adequate warning. I also have in mind U.S. violation in Afghanistan of the practice of proportionate response.²

Massing decided to verify my account by focusing upon one incident, the October 11th bombing raid on village of Karam near Jalalabad. My publicly available database cites civilian impact death figures for Karam of 100-200, listing half a dozen sources [more available upon request]. Massing chooses rather to consult sources in Lexis-Nexis, that is, sources from the mainstream U.S. corporate press.

Let us see what he finds. Karam is cited six times. Four articles provide some detail of the Karam incident---three in the British press and one in the St. Petersberg Times. Two articles [in The Telegraph and The Independent by its Washington correspondent] merely recite the Taliban figure of 200 casualties. The column in The St. Petersburg Times of Florida [October 13, 2001] mentions an un-named Pakistani on temporary assignment for the New York Times, who quoted a villager in Karam saying 53 persons had died.

By far the greatest detail is given in Richard Lloyd Parry's article in The Independent, upon which I have partly relied in coming to my estimate, as well as from a detailed account by Jason Burke from Peshawar for The Observer³. Parry, a senior reporter for the London-based Independent newspaper, was in the border area and wrote from Peshawar [Pakistan]. But, I also cite reports from Agence France-Presse and from the Peshawar-based daily, The Frontier Post.⁴ Yet another source I used though did not cite, provided refugee confirmation of a hundred and some civilian casualties, independent from Taliban sources.⁵

Let me now elaborate upon why I used a figure of 100-160 civilian impact deaths in Karam.

Karam is a small village in a valley, comprised once of some 60 mud brick and rock dwellings. Each dwelling houses six people [about the average family size in Afghanistan]. Apparently, 60-70 poor, landless families lived there since the 1990s, joined by nomads during the winter.

The news reports stressed that some 40-45 of the homes were flattened. Two U.S. fighter jets made repeated runs upon Karam at 3:45 a.m., precisely during prayer time on Wednesday/Thursday night. Reporters visiting later reported upon craters each three to four feet deep and 10-12 feet wide. Parry cites Danish Karwakhel, an Afghan who lives in Kabul and is a correspondent for Wahadat, a Pakistani-Pashto language daily. Karwakhel - who passed through the village on his way from Kabul to Pakistan, noted that 40 of the 60 huts had been flattened and about 100 civilian deaths had occurred with many still missing. Articles in The Frontier Post newspaper of Peshawar provide very similar figures.

Massing for some reason chooses to ignore all this, concluding that "Herold's estimates seem to be on the high side but substantial enough to warrant a closer look." How gracious. I have documented hundreds of bombing incidents, read over 1,000 newspaper accounts on such, publicly divulged my sources, and yes, committed the apparent sin of relying upon reports in major daily newspapers and newswire services from outside the United States [and not included in the Lexis-Nexis database].

According to Massing, truth only comes wrapped in red, white and blue, and then only if blessed by Lexis-Nexis.

Footnotes

1 "Grief Without Portraits," The Nation [February 4, 2002].

2 See articles by law professor, Brian J. Foley, "U.S. Campaign Against Afghanistan Not Self-Defense Under International Law," Counterpunch [November 6, 2001], and the article by a former prosecutor at the Nuremberg War Crimes Trial, Walter J. Rocker, "War Crimes Law Applies to U.S Too," Chicago Tribune [May 23, 1999].

3 Richard Lloyd Parry, "Witnesses Confirm That Dozens Were Killed in Bombing," The Independent [October 13, 2001] and Jason Burke, "U.S Admits Lethal Blunders," The Observer [October 14, 2001].

4 "Refugees Confirm Taliban's Casualties Report," Frontier Post [October 14, 2001], and "Afghanistan's Female Bombing Victims," Frontier Post [October 17, 2001].

5 Alex Spillius and Imtiaz Khan, "Refugees Back Taliban's Casualty Figures," The Telegraph [October 13, 2001].