Researched by Ronnie Poole and Leora Johnson
A comprehensive report by Dr. Marc Herold on US “precision” bombing of Afghanistan exposes a crass undervaluation of Afghan life on the parts of US military, political elites, and US corporate media. Herold reveals the drastic increase in innocent Afghan civilian deaths caused by precision bombing in the ongoing illegal US/NATO attack. Herold writes, “The absolute need to avoid US military casualties means flying high up in the sky, increasing the probability of killing civilians…better stand clear and fire away. Given this implicit decision, the slaughter of innocent people, as a statistical eventuality is not an accident but a priority—in which Afghan civilian casualties are substituted for American military casualties.” Herold exposes the skewed methodology and rational used by military interests and supporters, including US corporate media and Human Rights Watch among other military interventionists, to justify US bombing by undercounting deaths and discounting lives of innocent victims. Herold brilliantly debunks the common rational that Afghan insurgents hide amongst civilians whom they use as human shields. As a result of the massive, illegal, and indiscriminate US slaughter in Afghanistan, civilians figure prominently in the vast numbers of “insurgents” killed in US/NATO bombing.
“The Matrix of Death: A New Dossier on the (Im)Precision of U.S Bombing and the (Under)Valuation of an Afghan Life” Professor Marc Herold, Uruknet, 10/7/2008
http://www.uruknet.de/colonna-centrale-pagina.php?p=47790&colonna=m