From the coverage of the latest gaza conflict you may be forgiven for thinking this is the only time in history that civilians have been killed in military engagements, certainly when one of the sides is a western country with sophisticated military hardware... ... But obviously thats not the case. Heres a brief list of a few choice conflicts from the past 20 years where unfortunate numbers of civilians have been caught up as a tragic part of warfare. (Ill stick to conflicts involving those countries with the biggest mouths over the past weeks to give the right contrast). Bosnia (1995) - NATO forces (including the UK, France, the US, basically most relevant countries in the UN and all the countries who are speaking up about casualties in Gaza): en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civilian_casualties_during_Operation_Allied_Force Note that there were no civilian casualties in any of the NATO allies home countries (and indeed no NATO military casualties other than a helicopter accident). How disproportionate is that? Note also that local Serbian medical office estimates put the figure of civilian deaths from NATO air strikes at double what amnesty international had confirmed - and we all know local medical figures are reliable enough to be unquestionably used by reporters... Iraq (2003 -) US, UK and NATO forces theguardian/news/datablog/2012/jan/03/iraq-body-count-report-data The first 3 weeks of the invasion involved 6,500 civilian deaths mostly attributed to allied forces. Again no allied countries civilians were attacked or killed to balance the figures, but here a number of us-allied soldiers were killed (that number being about 1/50 of the Iraqi civilian death toll). Libya (2011) - NATO nytimes/2011/12/18/world/africa/scores-of-unintended-casualties-in-nato-war-in-libya.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0 Astoundingly, NATO tried to claim that absolutely NO civilians were killed during their bombing campaign, then later changed this to about 60 after the amnesty report. Local Libyan medical sources put the count at around 1,200 (again, surely the most reliable figure of all judging by current journalistic practices) and then amnesty international investigated just 8 specific cases (out of almost 10,000 sorties) in which at least 72 civilians were confirmed killed. I wonder whether amnesty would have been content with documenting only 8 incidents in the Gaza Strip?... NATO HAS POINT BLANKS REFUSED TO INVESTIGATE HOW MANY CIVILIANS IT KILLED. And no one else seems to care enough to comprehensively do it for them. The campaign was supported by the UN Security Council, so surprise of surprises that the report from the UN Human Rights Council, for whom civilian deaths are an outrage which must be fully investigated, documented only 65 civilian deaths over the entire campaign, despite there being patent proof for more (from only 8 investigated incidents, out of thousands of sorties). No one has tried to prove or refute the Libyan medial offices count of 1,200 civilian deaths. It is also worth keeping in mind that Libya is one of the least densely populated countries in the world. Afghanistan (2011 - 2014) US, UK, NATO forces en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_civilian_casualties_in_the_War_in_Afghanistan_(2001–2006) If we just limit the civilian casualty figures to the initial invasion, they number in the 1000s, from both US and NATO troops. NATO has figures for civilians it has killed in every year since - these include attacks on hospitals, schools and other seemingly non-military targets. The UK, very vocal on the gaza conflict, has been heavily criticized for its indiscriminate use of drones in Afghanistan (they cause a lot of civilian deaths). And then for denying that they killed any civilians. thebureauinvestigates/2014/02/08/civilian-drone-deaths-triple-in-afghanistan-un-agency-finds/ There are many more cases, including Frances own bombings in Mali in 2011 among others, in which civilian casualties have been either totally denied or unceremoniously ignored by NATO militaries. None of the conflicts listed above took place in as highly densely packed civilian areas as gaza, and none involved any sort of military attack on the countries actually doing the bombing (except possibly the US in Afghanistan). The point here is not that civilian casualties are OK. No one wants civilians to die in a conflict they have very little if any say in, and no way to defend themselves from. But the point IS that the world is for some reason wholly obsessed with civilian casualties in gaza (except when theyre summary executions by Hamas, in which case theyre ok...) and generally when Israel is involved, despite civilian casualties being unfortunately inherent in all conflicts, everywhere, even those involving their OWN militaries. So the question remains - If not anti-semitism, then what?
Posted on: Wed, 06 Aug 2014 15:01:50 +0000
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