The countries that are fighting terrorism in Iraq and Afghanistan are in the eyes of most of their citizens the model democratic states with respect for basic human rights and civil liberties. But this is mostly the face of these democracies at home. And while efforts are made to save the lives of soldiers who fight the war on terror, little is done to spare the lives of civilians in the countries where the war is fought.
According to a news article “the spate of Afghan civilian deaths caused by Western forces is as dangerous as the most callous of Taliban suicide-bombs.”
Without enough forces on the ground the allied forces have relied on bombing from the air that makes it much more likely to kill innocent people. Even the Afghan leader, who for most is just a western puppet, has complained that civilian deaths and arbitrary searches of people’s homes have reached a level that is not acceptable.
Diminishing the number of civilian casualties in Afghanistan will mean putting more Western soldiers at risk, a risk that is not acceptable because, whether we want to accept it or not, life is not worth the same in all parts of the world.
On June 12 in the Paktika province an American bombing raid on a mosque, allegedly an al-Qaeda hideout, killed seven children along with alleged militants. Of course a military spokesman claimed that the American troops had no idea that children were there. Nor apparently did they try to find out. Was the air bombing raid necessary to take down the alleged militants?
Afghans have come to consider the aerial bombardments by Western troops and the Taliban suicide bombings as the two faces of the evil.
News Source: Western Forces in Afghanistan, Unfriendly Fire, Economist, June 23, 2007, at 51
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