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December 26, 2001
John Chuckman
In
Praise of the Unspeakable
Sam Bahour
2002:
Year of the Twos
December 25, 2001
Jennifer Loewenstein
Israel's
Human Rights Record
December 24, 2001
Sam Bahour
It
Happened One Morning
Yair Khilou
Why I Resisted
Being Drafted into the Israeli Army
Michael
Chisari
War
as Diversionary Tactic
Cockburn/St. Clair
Enron
and the Green Seal
December 21, 2001
Tom Turnipseed
War
Good for Bush
John Chuckman
The
First Victim in the
War on Terror
December 20, 2001
Lawrence
McGuire
Killing
Other People's Children
Miriam Rozen
Foundation
Without Representation?
Kenneth
Roth
A
Letter to Rumsfeld on
Military Tribunals
William Blum
Casualties:
Theirs and Ours
December 19, 2001
Marjorie
Cohn
Don't
Pre-Judge John Walker
Sam Bahour
Palestine
and You
December 18, 2001
Shahid
Alam
Clash
of Civilizations?
Carl Estabrook
Who
Opposes This War?
December 17, 2001
Edward
Said
Mahfouz
and the Cruelty
of Memory
December 16, 2001
Amira Howeidy
Dangerous By
Definition?
Bahour
and Dahan
Zinni's
Doomed Mission
December 15, 2001
John Isaacs
Bush's 12
Lumps of Coal
for Christmas
Dana Cook
The
Execution of bin Laden
Yusuf Agha
Tale of the
Tape:
Osama Gump?
December 14, 2001
Don Atapattu
A Conversation with
Norman
Finkelstein
December 13, 2001
Trojanow and Hoskote:
Nonsense
Mantras of Our Times
Dr. A.
Tajudeen
Afghanistan
and Zaire
Michael Williams
Prohibit
Prohibition
December 12, 2001
Jack McCarthy
Hitchens,
Walker
and Osama's Tape
Laura W. Murphy
Ashcroft's
Jihad
Shahid
Alam
Race
and Visibility
December 11, 2001
Joshua Orton
University
of Wisconsin
Won't Aid FBI Interviews
Philip
Farruggio
Cleansing
the Nation's Soul
Robert Fisk
Why I Was
Beaten
A Photographic Journal of Life
in an Afghan Refugee Camp
By Judith Mann
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Torture in US Prisons
bin Laden and Bush
Business Connections
Aisha Ikramuddin on the Hidden Hype
of US Food Bombs
Peter Linebaugh on
Pakistan
Christopher Hitchens' Love for Mrs. Thatcher
Jiang Zemin Tells Bush:
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Press
by Alexander
Cockburn
and Jeffrey St. Clair
The Memphis Blues Again:
Six Decades of Memphis Music Photographs
Photos by Ernest Withers
Text by Daniel Wolff
The New Intifada:
Resisting Israel's Apartheid
Edited by Roane Carey
A Pocket Guide to
Environmental Bad Guys
by James Ridgeway
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The
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December 27,
2001
We Can't Just Forget About
Dead Afghan Civilians
by Robert Jensen and Rahul
Mahajan
How many civilians have died in the United States'
attack on Afghanistan? Military officials assert that high-tech
weapons and precision bombing have kept that number low. Reports
of civilian casualties -- whether coming from the Taliban or
independent observers -- are routinely dismissed by the Pentagon
as fabrications or exaggerations. U.S. journalists sometimes
offer estimates of civilian deaths after a particular bombing
raid, always cautioning that the reports can't be confirmed.
In the foreign press, however, the question
is more prominent, and regular reports of heavy civilian casualties
as a result of the U.S. bombing have fueled anti-American sentiment
around the world.
Given these conflicting accounts, one
might think a carefully documented study by an independent American
researcher might be of great interest. One might expect U.S.
reporters to be clamoring for a copy and requesting interviews
with the study's author.
But in terms of mainstream news interest,
it was a quiet week in Durham, NH, Marc Herold's hometown.
On Dec.10, the University of New Hampshire
professor released his finding that at least 3,767 Afghan civilians
had died in the first 8 * weeks of the war. With some help
from media activists, a news release was faxed to the major
print and broadcast media. Follow-up calls were made to journalists.
Herold's report was posted on the Internet, along with the database
he had compiled, for easy access.
One week later, readers could find coverage
of Herold's studies on a few independent web sites and an Internet
radio program. But a search of the two major databases for U.S.
newspapers and television news programs turned up no mention
of his work.
Why does this matter? Herold, a professor
of economics and women's studies, said the lack of coverage
of "the carnage on the ground" has shaped the public's
perception of the fighting.
"The war has been presented to the
American people as a techno-video war in which smart bombs always
hit their targets. In other words, the bad guys die and none
of the good guys do," said Herold, whose research and teaching
focuses on third-world economic and social development. "But
there have been a significant number of civilian casualties."
Herold is a critic of the war with progressive
politics, but his estimate of civilian deaths is, if anything,
overly conservative. Aware that his methodology would be scrutinized,
he relied on reports from official news agencies, major newspapers
around the world, and first-hand accounts, seeking cross-corroboration
whenever possible. When precise figures weren't available, he
did not arbitrarily plug in numbers, and he also did not use
estimates of the indirect deaths that result when, for example,
bombing shuts down a hospital. As a result, Herold's number
likely is an undercount; he estimates 5,000 civilian deaths
in those weeks is probably closer to the truth.
By the conventional standards of newsworthiness
listed (such as timeliness, relevance to audience, impact),
Herold's study is not only news but reasonably big news. It
sheds light on a subject of great moral, political, and strategic
importance that has been undercovered in the mainstream U.S.
news media.
Even if one takes issue with his final
count, at the very least Herold's report could jump start a
conversation that should have been front and center from the
beginning: Was a war necessary? Were there more effective ways
to try to end terrorism than a war that has killed a large number
of civilians -- now as least as many innocents as died in the
Sept. 11 attacks?
Herold's data should lead us to a fuller
discussion of a number of questions: How precise are our precision
weapons, which account for about 60 percent of the bombs being
dropped? What about the effects of the conventional "dumb"
bombs that make up the other 40 percent? What are the effects
on civilians of indiscriminate weapons such as cluster bombs,
which Human Rights Watch has argued should be banned? Are the
military's methods an indication that U.S. planners simply don't
value the lives of Third World people?
Administration officials and military
officers no doubt want to downplay civilian casualties to avoid
undermining support for the war. But it is disappointing that
journalists -- who claim to be the watchdogs of government --
have not covered Herold's study and the crucial issues it raises.
For a copy of Herold's report and supporting
data, go to http://www.cursor.org/stories/civilian_deaths.htm.
Robert Jensen
is a professor of journalism at the University of Texas and
author of "Writing
Dissent: Taking Radical Analysis from the Margins to the Mainstream,"
Peter Lang Publishers. Rahul Mahajan serves on the National
Board of Peace Action and is author of the forthcoming "The New Crusade:
America's War on Terrorism," Monthly Review Press.
Both are members of the Nowar
Collective in Austin, TX. They can be reached at rjensen@uts.cc.utexas.edu.
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