Most civilians in the war in Afghanistan are not killed by American troops.
UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon makes a long overdue condemnation of the Taliban's killing of civilians:
"Unfortunately, there is a perception that NATO forces or coalition forces have been killing civilians," Ban said. "I can assure you they are doing their best efforts to prevent any such potential."
This *is* truly remarkable, as I can't recall any such statement from the Secretary General *ever* in the recent years of conflict.
He goes even further, completely uncharacteristic of a UN official:
"I really appreciate all this noble sacrifice by many American soldiers," Ban said. "This is a fight against terrorists, illegal armed groups."
That's just extraordinary, as the US is never, ever praised by UN leadership and they never comment on one side in a conflict. Truly remarkable.
And this isn't to get elected; Ban Ki Moon already got re-elected a few weeks ago. A favour to the US promised in exchange for the vote? No, it doesn't work that way and such a crude deal would never be articulated.
No, it's just the sheer masses, the sheer numbers, the sheer awfulness of it does finally catch up. And the Secretary General seems calm and not easily angered, but when he feels he is being pushed around and snowed, he does begin to speak out, as he has done with Sudan at certain points.
The statements came after UNAMA, the UN mission in Kabul, released its six-month report showing higher casualties and a higher percentage of them from the Taliban. It was about 70 percent by the Taliban before, with 30 percent by Karzai and allies. So that meant NATO, too, although the lion's share of that 30 percent of non-Taliban killings were by Karzai's forces and allies.
Now this number is up to 80-85 percent.
And this, at a time when there is a story going around about the Taliban having a program to reduce civilian deaths. Huh? How did that particular part of propaganda bait get started! They've stopped propagandizing and supporting suicide-bombing? Oh?
It's not like this story is news, BTW. The Times had it back in March. It's just that the left and the NGOs and the "non-alligned" don't listen and don't want it to be known.
While I recognize bravery, I'm less enthusiastic about the idea that the surge worked to reduce terrorism. It may have -- as these figures may bear out -- caused it to become worse. I don't know if this is a "has to get worse before it can get better" concept, but then...it's not working.
The Times story quotes a Taliban warrior admitting that civilians are killed, but then turning around and blaming Karzai's intelligence for blaming it all on the Taliban. But no, the numbers are too gross, the cases too clear cut, as they are mainly from IEDs that the Taliban deliberately puts out.
Democracy Now reported this, but in a pre-packaged sort of way -- a little story, not a screaming headline, as with deaths NATO is responsible for, and with a paragraph aggregating all the deaths and saying they all increased, without telling you who was responsible, until the next paragraph, so that the casual reader would miss it. And the UN spokesman doesn't use the term "Taliban" but speaks of "anti-government forces" so it is muted.
The Nation didn't report this. And clicking around at the various anti-war and lefty blogs, I see the story...missing.
The UN! The UN! That is cited so often as an authority. But this time, it gets ignored...
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