Washington, Pentagon. With nightly news now showing large numbers of civilian deaths caused by US forces in Afghanistan and to justify the deaths of their own soldiers there, America’s military tried to low ball the number killed and “apologize” for the deaths of foreign nationals killed by American military action.
At least 352 civilians have been killed in US led strikes against Islamic State targets in Iraq and Syria since the operation began in 2014, the US military said in a statement on Sunday.
What the American ministry of death did not say, is the actual number is about 104,000 people have been killed in the Afghanistan war since 2001. More than 31,000 of those killed have been civilians. An additional 41,000 civilians have been injured since 2001. All of these human beings would still be alive, if the United States had not decided to attack their nation.
The Combined Joint Task Force, in its monthly assessment of civilian casualties from the US coalition’s operations against the militant group, said it was still assessing 42 reports of civilian deaths.
Hospitals in Afghanistan are treating large numbers of war wounded, including amputees and burn victims. The war has also inflicted invisible wounds. In 2009, the Afghan Ministry of Public Health reported that fully two-thirds of Afghans suffer from mental health problems.
It added that 45 civilians were killed between November 2016 and March 2017. It reported 80 civilian deaths from August 2014 to the present that had not previously been announced. The report included 26 deaths from three separate strikes in March.
The military’s official tally is far below those of other outside groups. Monitoring group Airwars said more than 3,000 civilians have been killed by coalition air strikes. Brown university carries the death toll at over 100,000 humans killed by American actions in Afghanistan.
The Americans were keen to stress that they are “sorry” for the deaths they have caused in a nation that never invited their intervention. “We regret the unintentional loss of civilian lives … and express our deepest sympathies to the families and others affected by these strikes,” the Pentagon said in a statement.
Under President Donald Trump, the USA currently continues to send more US forces to Afghanistan, after having promised in campaign 2016 to remove all US troops from Afghanistan.