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Today's Top News
Report: Afghan Civilian Deaths Hit Record Levels In 2010
WASHINGTON -- At least 2,421 civilians were killed in Afghanistan last year, a record high since the U.S. invasion in 2001, according to a new report.
The report, released Tuesday by the Kabul-based Afghan Rights Monitor, said more than 3,270 civilians were also injured in conflict-related security incidents. That works out to roughly six to seven noncombatants killed and eight to nine wounded in the war each day.
The report blamed armed opposition groups (AOGs) for 63 percent of the civilian deaths and U.S.-NATO coalition forces for 21 percent of them. It criticized "AOGs for their deliberate killing and harassing of civilian communities and the US-NATO for their labeling of almost every war casualty as being 'suspected insurgent.'"
Improvised explosive devices continued to be the most lethal weapons in Afghanistan last year, killing more than 690 civilians and wounding more than 1,800 others. Two hundred thirty-seven civilians lost their lives in suicide attacks.
U.S. and other foreign deaths also hit their highest levels last year since the start of the war. A total of 499 U.S. troops and 212 other coalition members lost their lives in fighting in Afghanistan in 2010.
A sobering report from the Government Accountability Office released last week also showed that despite an increase in the size of the Afghan National Army (ANA), levels of violence are on a steady upward trajectory.
President Barack Obama has said the United States will begin to withdraw troops in July with the goal of fully transferring responsibility to the Afghan security forces by 2014. The GAO found that, while the international community has made "important progress in accelerating ANA growth," as of September not a single ANA unit was considered as capable of carrying out its mission independent of coalition assistance. Two-thirds were assessed as "effective with limited coalition support."
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10 Comments so far
Show AllA terrible price to pay for pipelines and corporate profits !
"Collateral damage"; a concept, a scorn of anything that would constitute anything approching humanity and the winning of hearts and minds a lie. The invader mourns the hearts taken, taken for a lie, and scorns the hearts taken from a mother, a child, an elder and even a father who know absolutely nothing of a date that "changed" everything.War is wrong. Tony
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The invader mourns the hearts taken, taken for a lie, and scorns the hearts taken from a mother, a child, an elder and even a father who know absolutely nothing of a date that "changed" everything.
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Do you refer to the figurative hearts taken or the ones actually, literally, carved out of women and children to be kept as souvenirs, as mementos, of the war where we brought democracy to Afghanistan.
Maybe its time for Afghans to hit the streets too
Every civilian death is a war crime. The US Congress finances the wars. The US voters have empowered the Congress. All who voted for a dem/repub are complicit and should be Tried as war criminals.
Maybe CommonDreams will find a way to put up the Fisk war photos of the bombed children - also the photos of babies born to mothers who had been exposed to DU.
Only WikiLeaks can save us now.............
But our president has dark skin now!
So there! Yeah. Problem solved...
That photo of the terrified baby really gets to me. How can people justify doing that to her? Even if I believed the BS about transforming Afghanistan into an ex-haven for terrorists, I still couldn't support traumatizing children. There are no good wars, just wars, or smart wars. Just suffering piled upon sufferings. If this is what it takes to have too much stuff, be overweight, and drive around with road rage, then I don't want it.
A critical thing to remember is that AOG (Armed Opposition Groups) are legitimate under international law, and the invading forces are the criminals under international law. None of this was happening until the invasion, and the law requires the occupiers to provide safety and security for the occupied people. Again, the invaders fail to follow the minimum requirements of the law. Wars are always about two things, money and power. Never about freedom and liberty! Even the U.S. revolution was about money and power, not freedom. The freedom they were after were freedoms from economic and social repression (money and power). This is no different.
I am ashamed of my own countries part in this insanity.
-Bill in Canada
By God, we are going to bring you democracy if we have to kill every last one of you in order to do it. You WILL have democracy! The most exceptional nation the earth has ever known has declared it to be so and it will be so. Or else.