Losing heart and minds

Why the difference between  ISAF figures  and UN figures?

A letter to me from Foreign Secretary David Miliband says that NATO and US troops were responsible for 237 civilian casualties in 2008. The insurgents are blamed for 973 deaths. The UN calculate 826 civilian casualties to pro-government forces and 1160 to insurgents. There are other figures provided by Non-government organisations that are even bigger.

I raise the difference in a debate a few weeks ago and David Miliband promised to write. The reasons that David gives for our figures being a third of the UNs are not convincing. He writes, 'Obtaining accurate figures  is highly challenging due to quick burial, the remoteness of the incident areas, lack of accurate population data and often malicious exaggeration by some Afghans, both for political ends and to claim financial compensation.

He fairly adds that 'insurgents are responsible for the vast majority of civilian fatalities are caused by suicide bombers in public places.'

Accurate figures are crucial if we are to appreciate the extent of the alienation of Afghans. The civilian deaths are about half those inflicted on Gaza. The British public saw many heartbreaking pictures of the carnage. Afghan civilian deaths are invisible here but reported widely in Afghanistan.

Winning heart and minds is at least as important as the military campaign. Understating the number of deaths destroys trust and recruits suicide bombers.

Small and smart

Rhodri Morgan was in breezy mood in the Commons this morning.

‘Oi Flynnie’ he greeted me as I walking through the Star Chamber Court, 'Where are you going?'. He purred audibly when I mentioned his Obama-like popularity rating of 65. That plus Wales' winning OF the rugby sevens cup as the 80-1 outsiders was enough to keep the hwyl brimming in these two weeks of celebrations of St David’s Day.

Today it was Rhodri the salesman. He had invited world ambassadors and high commissioners to the Commons Churchill Room. They were urged to use Welsh venues for acclimatising their athletes (we have the right sort of rain) and setting up training camps for their Olympic athletes.

Rhodri’s speech was intriguing. “Wales will celebrate our 10 years of statehood in May. But we have been a nation 1100 years. We may be the only country in the world that entered the second millennium with exactly the same flag as when we entered the third millennium.

In 1841, Wales became the world’s first industrial country with more industrial workers than agricultural workers, ” He described Shane Williams as symbolic of Wales - small and clever.

Among the guests was Liz Johnson from Highcross Newport. She one a paralympic gold medal for swimming. She made sad headlines when she dedicated hr medal to her mother who died shortly before the paralympics games.

 The diplomats greatly enjoyed their previous invite to visit Wales. They turned up in large numbers at the Celtic Manor in Newport. Rhodri is riding high and the event will leave the diplomats well-disposed towards Wales.

Comments

[HuwOS]

Thank you Paul for bringing up the subject of Afghani deaths.

People if they can be bothered at all will often choose to query civilian deaths, because of course, civilians are innocents,
neither insurgents, invaders nor forces of the supposed government.

But we should not forget that whether insurgents, civilians or government security forces, most of these people are Afghans.
The 5000 insurgents that NATO claim to have killed.
The 1100 police, the 530 soldiers.
The 3917 civilians.
All in 2008
Each figure dwarfs the losses incurred by NATO forces in this unnecessary pointless action.

As for whose figures to believe,
I certainly do not think that those who authorised the invasion, nor those who participated in it can be considered credible, they certainly have a vested interest in minimising the "civilian" deaths at least.
We have seen them do it in Iraq, deliberately claiming the lowest possible figure they could get away with, while impugning the quality and accuracy of surveys which used methods that the aggressors had been happy to accept for conflicts in which they were not so directly involved.
So it may well be impossible to know exactly how many are dead and how many have been wounded, how many have been disposessed.
But we can be fairly confident the figures are higher than those responsible for this situation are willing to admit to.
We cannot escape our responsibility for those deaths nor for the increase in the worlds heroin supply.
When the UN authorised the invasion of helpless and friendless Afghanistan, they were approaching the longed for end of their civil war.
A structure, albeit one most us disliked was beginning to replace the anarchy of warlord rule. Peace and its fellow travellers was just visible on the horizon.
We stopped that.
We put them back 10 years and created a situation, where there is violence still, fighting still, misery still but with no hope of progress.
When we pull out, they will have to start again and presumably the Taleban will win again. But with yet another extra generation of conflict, whoever wins, will be even harder, even less pleasant, even less open to softer, gentler ways.
We should all be ashamed, but those who forced us into this, those who approved, those who have kept it going, well, they probably suffer no sleepless nights, they probably feel pride rather than shame and worse yet, they will probably be rewarded rather than punished, because there is no justice in this world.

[Graham Marlowe]

"The reasons that David gives for our figures being a third of the UNs are not convincing."

Never believe a Blairite, "religous foundations" notwithstanding, their master was the epitome of a shameless liar and it is in his sycophants DNA

[patrick]

orchestrating liars are responsible for countless deaths in both the Iraq and Afghan wars.I find it totally incomprehensible that with well over a million lives lost in Iraq alone that the deputy liar tours the world with a cheshire cat grin talking about god.

Which part of the Holy Bible states that
- We should make up lies to murder fellow humans
- It is appropriate to stealth bomb hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians because the US want to capture someone?

In order to learn from this horror surely it should be a fundamental obligation to at least bring the ringleaders before a court of law?
These Two insane, pointless, and expensive 'conflicts' are a great example to present and future generations of how to
needlessly kill, waste billions of pounds of much needed money , and how modern day christians behave!

[Graham Marlowe]

It is disgusting that so much money has been wasted seemingly without a second thought, on both these conflicts and also the bankers, yet last week Sally Anne Rogers died of cancer - the woman who had to go to court to obtain the drug Herceptin, which prolonged her life by 2 years, but might have been longer had she not had to fight that vile organisation The National Institute for Clinical Excellence - "NICE" the most inappropriate acronym ever, who do the governments bidding. Lives have to be costed in this way when we are trying to save them, but when we are killing people the reverse seems to be true.

I doubt Bush and Blair will ever face a court, but they may yet pay for it another way some day. And - who knows - if there IS an afterlife as Auntie Tony seems to think there is, he may one day be "frying tonight"

[Paul Flynn]

Thanks.
It's amazing that the disparity between casualties figures among Israeli soldiers and Gaza civilians in the recent conflict was a major news item. The same comparisons is not made in Afghanistan.

All the signals from Obama are good. Top military brass are saying in public what they have long said in private, that our war in Afghanistan is 'useless.'. It's not worth a single further life lost on any side

[Paul Flynn]

Chris Mullin's new book, Patrick, gives a clear picture of the arm-twisting that brought us into the illegal war.

I think an inquiry is essential. I share your view on the need to bring the culprits to justice. There was no need for Britain to join Bush's war. He would have gone ahead anyway with the same result. As a party the Tories were more enthusiastic for the war than we were.

We will have a long time for an inquiry. So many people have so much to hide.

[HuwOS]

It is not so amazing Paul.
Yes the mainstream press did on this one occasion highlight the disparity in killings
between Israelis and Palestinians.
But it is an exception rather than the standard, it is far more frequent for the reporting to underplay the murders of Palestinians whilst proportionately overplaying the murders of Israelis (proportionately only; as it is not truly possible to overplay the murder of anyone)

In fact, the reporting can go so far as to give an impression that is the polar opposite of the truth, especially with the headline news.
One study of the San Jose Mercury News
over a 6 month period found that 70% of Israeli deaths received front page prominence (85 lives) and only 3.6%
of Palestinian deaths (14 lives) received the same attention.
It is certain that the impression the readers of that paper would have is a restrained Israel in the face of massive provocation.

Of course the situation with reporting is not quite as bad as that outside the US.

Israel is however not the point of this, it is simply to point out that we live in a world where deaths inflicted on us are vastly more important than deaths we inflict on the others and that accurate and decent reporting to us about us is rare.
We do love to be the proud bearers of the most noble of flags, the double standard.

http://www.ifamericansknew.org/media/merc2/report.html