mazda/nissan

iTrader: (2)

Does anybody feel that civilian casualties are inflated in Iraq and Afghanistan due to NATO and the US not keeping up with civilian casualties to give US forces a bad reputatition? I highly doubt that the people that are over there to kill the terrorists, that kill civilians sympathetic with the US and its ideals, are killing more civilians.

johndoe

iTrader: (5)

I'm not 100% sure what you're trying to say. But I think the numbers of civilian casualties are higher or lower than they are reported, meaning it's not an easy statistic to keep. Probably there are those that inflate the numbers, but there is certainly an at least equally strong effort to downplay the number of civilian casualties. Not only is it a war (which will always have civilian casualties) but it is an urban war with true combatants and civilians in close quarters. Take a look at some of the videos on youtube and ask me how much respect some of our soldiers have for the civilians there.

kotomile

iTrader: (24)

Sigh..

As an intelligence analyst with the Army, I feel almost obligated to comment here. The US and our allies are very careful to fess up when we've created casualties, and we try not to whenever possible. Our enemies, be they Taliban/AQ/etc., purposefully inflate/exaggerate casualty numbers ALL THE TIME and there's nothing we can do about it. It's a tremendous pyscholigical tool for them to rally populations to their side.

I don't know if I'm reading the last question right, but if you're asking whether AQ would kill innocent civilians to get their point across, the answer is yes.

johndoe

iTrader: (5)

While I agree with you to some extent I'd have to say that the nature of the way wars are fought will always include civilian casualties and it will always be in the interest of our or any government to downplay those causualties. That's just logic. Airstrikes, white phospherous etc. will always have colateral damage. There are also attrocities committed in every war. That's the nature of war. I think the vast majority of soldiers are not to blame, but facts are facts. Plus I don't think anyone would find statistics from Al Qaeda credible. Without looking it up I am going to assume though that independent stats on civilian deaths are higher than the militaries stats. Every nation engages in propoganda, no matter how noble they may be. It doesn't make sense for them not too. The war has low enough support without the public's knowledge of the true cost of wars.

kotomile

iTrader: (24)

Problem nowadays is: how do you ID a civilian? It's not like they wear uniforms anymore...

So what some NGO says is a civilian may be a caught-in-the-act insurgent or terrorist.

mazda/nissan

iTrader: (2)

But other than civilians being caught in crossfire situations or accidentally bombed due to falsified information, why else would the US be killing civilians? Does the rest of the world think that the US forces just go around shooting up villages?