by Carolyn Bennett

Sanity demands and all sides have said in one way or another that they want foreign forces out of Afghanistan. Yet foreign forces remain - are resisted violently - and continue to kill with careless impunity.

The better course of action, of course, though rarely attempted action, would be to alter substantively and significantly the course and character of particularly U.S. and UK-led relations with southwest Asia. Enter into open, honest, talking diplomacy with all factions in the southwest Asian [Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan] conflict(s). For each sector set a deadline for withdrawal and stick to it. Draw down forces leaving in the place of force respectful civilian relationships among foreign, local and regional factions and countries for the long term. Is this just too much to ask?

I guess it is since violence goes on in and around Afghanistan.

FOREIGN FORCES STRIKE AFGHANS
"An overnight air strike by international forces has killed nine civilians [among them] at least three children." This report by villagers though Afghan authorities say they have no reports of civilian deaths.

"The incident illustrates the confusion and blame that regularly result from night raids and air strikes in Afghanistan and threaten U.S.-led efforts to curb the Taliban."

AFGHANS ATTACK FOREIGN FORCES
Five British soldiers "killed by a 'rogue' Afghan policeman were mentoring the local police."

Reports allege "at least 1,000 police" were killed last year alone…

"Even with tighter checks, it is impossible to prevent incidents like the attack on British soldiers in Helmand. It has happened to the Americans, too. There were similar incidents involving the deaths of two US personnel last month and two more in 2008."

AFGHANS FORCE UN OUT
Last week's attack on UN staffers in Afghanistan "has had a devastating impact on UN morale here, comparable to the 2003 suicide bombing of its headquarters in Baghdad where, six years after that attack, "UN staff still work under draconian security restrictions, severely limiting what they can do."

"At a very rough estimate, the UN believes 1,018 civilians across the country died as a result of the conflict in the first six months of this year - most of them killed by insurgents but 30 percent by pro-government foreign forces.…"

The UN News Centre is reporting that following the attack in Afghanistan, "Some 600 out of the roughly 1,100 international UN staff in Afghanistan will be temporarily relocated, either to safer locations within the country or outside the country." An estimated 6,000 UN staffers work in areas throughout Afghanistan.

FOREIGN FORCES ATTACK CIVILIANS
Stooped and withdrawn this 18-year-old breathes painfully as he relives the day last month [August] "when shrapnel from a missile ripped through his lung and bowels."

The attack happened at nine in the morning as "he was out collecting fruit from his family's trees in a village so small it is not included on most maps of Helmand province.

"Although it was the day of the Afghan elections he, like everyone else in his neighborhood, had no interest in voting in an area too insecure for polling stations to open. 'I was just a few steps outside my front gate when about eight rockets landed,' he says, sitting in a hospital in the provincial capital of Helmand, bandages around his chest. 'I was hit and ran into the house where women and children were yelling because a rocket had also landed on one of the rooms.'

"[The young man] is convinced that it was a rocket from 'foreign forces' - something that the hospital cannot confirm, although they say the shrapnel was clearly from a rocket, possibly delivered from a helicopter.…

"The hospital has received a monthly average of 183 patients in the last three months [July-September], half of them wounded from bullets, bombs, rockets and shrapnel.…

"That sense of hopelessness and being caught in the middle of someone else's fight came up time and again from more than 25 Helmandis interviewed … Civilians are being killed - but just how many, and by whom, is difficult to say.

"… If counter-insurgency theory seems obvious to foreign soldiers and western policymakers, most Afghans appear to see only more violence and killing.…

"'The Taliban are not in our village,' says Haji Torjan; 'we are surrounded by foreign forces' bases and checkpoints. The Taliban are far away - but we don't call this protection; we are being killed and injured.' … When they [the west's new counter-narcotics agents] do an operation against drug dealers, they surround the village and an aircraft … flies overhead. After that, two or three other big aircraft land on the ground and surround the house. Then they start climbing over the walls and roofs and start killing and shooting.'"

Haji Torjan, too, "has a son and a nephew recovering in hospital from shrapnel wounds."

FOREIGNERS' RELATIVE DEVALUING OF AFGHAN LIVES
The media group Committee to Protect Journalists has called on the British Government to make a accounting of a rescue operation that secured release of a western journalist and left his colleague, an Afghan, dead and on the ground.

In a letter dated November 5, the CPJ writes to UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown: "Stephen Farrell, a British-Irish national, was safely rescued, "but we're saddened by the loss of his colleague, fellow New York Times reporter Sultan Munadi.…

"CPJ's two-month-long effort to document the events that led to the rescue and Munadi's death… has revealed many unanswered questions. We feel compelled to note that British authorities have declined our requests for information. Unanswered questions include these: Was the recovery of both Farrell and Munadi an explicit objective of the military operation? What were the circumstances of Munadi's death? Is there any evidence Munadi was shot accidentally by British forces who did not recognize him as a hostage? After Farrell pointed out Munadi to British forces, did anyone check for vital signs? Why were Munadi's remains left at the scene of the firefight?

"Afghan journalists are understandably upset over the loss of a colleague and have conveyed to us their deep concern. Munadi's many colleagues in the international media also would like answers to these questions.… Making public the findings of a comprehensive inquiry would underscore to Afghan journalists—without whom international reporters could not operate independently on the ground— that they can report with the same degree of safety as their Western colleagues when encountering British and other foreign troops.…"

Sources
"Afghan villagers say air strike kills 9 civilians" (Noor Khan, Associated Press Writer), November 5, 2009, http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/afghan-villagers-say-air-strike-kills-9-civilians-1815235.html
"Killed by the enemy within - Five British soldiers shot dead and others critically wounded after rogue Afghan policeman turns machine gun on his colleagues as they relax in base"(Kim Sengupta, Defence correspondent, in Kabul), The Independent November 5, 2009, http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/killed-by-the-enemy-within-1814779.html
"Troubled state of Afghan police" (Andrew North, BBC News, Kabul),
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/8343133.stm
"Afghan strife makes UN relocate" (Andrew North, BBC News, Kabul), Thursday, November 5, 2009, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/8343716.stm
"UN to relocate some Afghanistan staff following deadly attack" UN News Centre, November 5, 2009, http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=32845&Cr=afghan&Cr1=
SPECIAL REPORT "Caught in the crossfire: the forgotten casualties of war in Afghanistan - Some Afghans say foreign forces are as dangerous as Taliban" (Jon Boone in Lashkar Gah, The Guardian, Monday September 7, 2009), http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/sep/06/forgotten-casualties-war-afghanistan
"CPJ urges PM Brown to investigate Farrell rescue," November 5, 2009, The Rt. Hon. Gordon Brown, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, 10 Downing St., London, U.K., http://cpj.org/2009/11/pm-brown-urged-to-probe-farrell-rescue.php

CONTINUING SAGA of BLOODLETTING
War toll update (estimates) November 5, 2009
Exact figures and costs of war are unobtainable
American Military Casualties in Iraq – "Human cost of occupation": since the war began March 19, 2003: 4,359; since the Obama inauguration January 20, 2009: 131; Wounded 31,557-over 100,000; U.S. veterans with brain injuries 320,000; suicides 18 per day
Anti-war dot com: "Casualties in Iraq, The Human Cost of Occupation" (Edited by Margaret Griffis), update November 5, 2009 [http://www.antiwar.com/casualties/]
From Sources: DoD, MNF, and iCasualties.org at http://www.antiwar.com/casualties/
Other Coalition Troops - Iraq 325
US Military Deaths - Afghanistan 912
Other Military Deaths - Afghanistan 595
Contractor Employee Deaths - Iraq 1,395
Journalists - Iraq 335
Academics Killed - Iraq 421
Iraq Body Count figures: 93,793-102,330 [http://www.iraqbodycount.org/]
Iraq Coalition Casualty Count figures: IRAQ: U.S. Coalition total: 4,677; U.S.: 4,359
AFGHANISTAN: Coalition total; 1,507 U.S.: 912 [http://icasualties.org/oif
Fatalities estimated as of November 5, in and around Afghanistan
Afghans – 800
Germans – 10
Pakistanis – 12
Americans (USA) – 17
Uzbekistan - 1
Total - 840

Just Foreign Policy: "The number is shocking and sobering. It is at least 10 times greater than most estimates cited in the US media, yet it is based on a scientific study of violent Iraqi deaths caused by the U.S.-led invasion of March 2003." Just Foreign Policy figures--Iraqi Deaths: [no recent update] 1,339,771

What part of "leave our land" don't western powers and the five-permanent-member (China/France/Russian Federation/United Kingdom/United States of America)UN Security Council Understand?

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Dr. Carolyn LaDelle Bennett -author, independent journalist Blog: Today's Insight News Blog: http://todaysinsightnews.blogspot.com/
Carolyn Bennett's Latest book: BREAKDOWN: Violence in Search of U (you)-Turn
Nature and Consequences of U.S. International and Domestic Affairs
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