Tuesday, October 13, 2009

The war on civilians

"Never think that war, no matter how necessary, nor how justified, is not a crime." - E. Hemingway
On October 8th, NATO's ISAF force acknowledged that they "accidentally killed an Afghan child" in a nighttime raid against suspected insurgents in Logar province, which borders on Kabul. While reports of that incident were picked up widely, an incident which followed a couple days later was only reported in the Afghan press:
Coalition troops kill three, detain as many
By Rehmatullah Afghan

PUL-I-ALAM, Oct 10 (Pajhwok) - US-led coalition troops and Afghan intelligence operatives have killed two civilians and a militant in Pul-i-Alam, capital of central Logar province, a police chief said on Saturday.

The fatalities happened in Kaji village, where the combined force stormed into a house during a predawn swoop, provincial police chief, Brig. Gen. Ghulam Mustafa Mohseni said... (
link)
The Afghan press again goes where others don't in reporting on the predictable fallout from three decades of war, which our efforts are seeking to continue:
66pc of Afghans suffering from mental health problems

KABUL, Oct 11 (Pajhwok) - Sixty-six percent of Afghans are suffering from stress disorders and mental problems, says the Ministry of Public Health (MoPH) citing recent surveys conducted by national and international organisations...

A 2002 nationwide survey found high levels of depressive symptoms (59.1pc among males and 73.4pc among females), anxiety symptoms (59.3pc among females and 83.5pc among males) and post-traumatic stress disorder (32.1pc among males, 48,3pc among females)... (link)

2 comments:

Gerry said...

Dave, I thought that you may be interested in watching this Global TV news clip from their Oct.8,2009 news cast. It begins at the 14:00min mark of the news cast and it tells about a drug called Propranolol that is used by the military to supress traumatic experiences. Thank you for your work. Regards, Gerry

http://www.globalnational.com/video/index.html?categoryID=1050253822

Dave Markland said...

Gerry:
Thank you very much for that. It is perhaps not surprising that the newscaster didn't mention the rather obvious potential for abuse of such a drug on the part of commanders. Imagine what might have happened in Nangar Khel if the commander, after he told the troops to "f-- up that village," issued them with such a drug.
Dave M