Comparing Domestic, International, Mainstream and Progressive Reports of Casualties

Many critics of any military action will point to the impact of war on innocent civilians.  Large numbers of civilian deaths can turn public opinion against a war and decrease ally support.  Consequently, reporting on civilian casualties can have an enormous impact on the willingness of a government to either undertake or continue military action.

Estimates of civilian deaths at the hands of the US and their allies in the invasion of Afghanistan have varied significantly.  The US military claims not to collect data on the number of civilian deaths.  However, journalists can obtain numbers from other sources, including witnesses or survivors of attacks, aid agencies, the Red Crescent, the Taliban, or their own observations.

Most of the liberal and conservative U.S. press has not reported an estimate of the total number of innocent Afghans who have been killed due to US and allied attacks in Afghanistan.  The New York Times is an exception. 

“Certainly hundreds and perhaps thousands of innocent Afghans have lost their lives during American attacks, a scattering of bodies extraordinarily difficult to tabulate”.

“Prof. Marc W. Herold, an economist at the University of New Hampshire, added up at least 3,767 civilian casualties from Oct. 7 to Dec. 6.  Carl Conetta, co-director of the Project on Defense Alternatives, used a more stringent distillation of media accounts and concluded that a better guess would be 1,000 to 1,300 deaths.”

The New York Times, “A Nation Challenged: Casualties; Uncertain Toll in the Fog of War: Civilian Deaths in Afghanistan”, Barry Bearak, February 10, 2002, p. 1

This story reported on two independent, non-governmental sources for the estimates.  However, the New York Times article emphasizes the lower of the two estimates by stating that Mr.

Conetta’s count was “more stringent” and hence a “better guess” than Dr. Herold’s. 

Despite several more months of bombing, the New York Time’s estimates did not increase by July.

“On-site reviews of 11 locations where airstrikes killed as many as 400 civilians suggest that American commanders have sometimes relied on mistaken information from local Afghans.”

“Field workers with Global Exchange, an American organization that has sent survey teams into Afghan villages, say they have compiled a list of 812 Afghan civilians who were killed by American airstrikes.  They say they expect that number to grow as their survey teams reach more remote villages.”

The New York Times, “Flaws in U.S. Air War Left Hundreds of Civilians Dead”, Dexter Filkins July 21, 2001

Neither does the New York Times give the source of the estimate of 400 deaths, reported at the beginning of the article.  The higher Global Exchange death toll appears 17 paragraphs later.

The conservative and liberal US media’s general lack of reporting of total numbers of dead Afghan civilians serves to support the war and the way in which it is being carried out by the US and its allies.

In contrast, the British media did provide casualty estimates, despite their government’s support for and participation in the war.  The BBC, earlier than the New York Times’ report of “as many as 400” dead, reported an estimate of between 1,000 and 8,000 dead, based on compilations from their own reports of individual incidences.

BBC News, “Afghan anger over bombing probe”

“Estimates range from 1,000 to 8,000”.

July 8, 2002

Early estimates from progressive U.S. sources emphasized larger numbers.

“In early December, another dreadful statistic -- more than 3,500 dead -- was made public, except this time the figure did not refer to the appalling mass grave at Ground Zero. No, this gruesome number described the civilian death toll so far in Afghanistan from America's so- called ‘surgical’ air strikes since Operation Enduring Freedom began”.

CounterPunch, “Inviting Future Terrorism: Rising Afghan Death Count and US Policy on Mideast”, Aaron G. Lehmer December 27, 2001

“More than 3,000 Afghans have lost their lives in the US bombing; countless others have been killed or severely wounded by unexploded cluster bombs and mines.”

Democracy Now!, “The War on Afghanistan Rages On,” April 17, 2002

These reports relied on the estimates of Professor Herold’s study, cited in the February New York Times article.  CounterPunch also frames the estimate as a comparison with the number of deaths in the World Trade Center attack in an effort to show the horrific reality of the war for Afghans.

In sum, these different media reports on Afghanistan casualties demonstrate some of the differences between international and domestic news coverage, and between mainstream and progressive domestic news coverage.