Appendix 2. Analysis of Discrepancies and Lying in Mainstream Corporate Media
I have chosen to analyze more closely one [of literally hundreds possible] newspaper article published in a major British newspaper, as representative of the lies and distortion found in the mainstream press. The authors solemnly intone "far fewer Afghan civilians have been killed by American bombs than is claimed by Taliban propaganda." Citing "an intelligence report obtained by The Sunday Telegraph" which is purported to have employed data gathered by satellite and unmanned reconnaissance aircraft, they allege that most Taliban claims are falsehoods and propaganda. They then present a listing of Taliban claims and "The Truth" per intelligence report. No independent research is carried out by the reporters who merely cite the intelligence report! I publish below both 'The Claim' and 'The Truth', followed in the last column by my own assessment. Five incidents during October 2001 are examined. These five bombing attacks alone, in our estimate, resulted in a minimum of 239 dead Afghan civilians!
Who is lying?
Date of U.S bombingTaliban 'claim' as stated in the 'report' :Pentagon/State Department 'truth' :My assessment :October 11Bombed Karam village, 200 killed.Hit military base on hillside. While possible civilians killed, Taliban claims are predictably exaggeratedTwo jets bomb the mountain village of Karam comprised of 60 mud houses, during dinner after evening prayer time, killing 100-160 in Karam alone. Reported by: DAWN, the Guardian, the Independent, International Herald Tribune, the Scotsman, the Observer, and BBC News.October 13Missile hits civilian homes in Kabul, killing civiliansPentagon acknowledges a stray missile accidentally struck a populated Kabul area, killing or injuring civilians.In early a.m., F-18 drops 2'000 lb JDAM bombs upon the dirt-poor Qila Meer Abas neighborhood, 2 kms. south of Kabul airport, killing 4. Reported in : Afghan Islamic Press, Los Angeles Times, Frontier Post, Pakistan Observer, the Guardian, and BBC News.October 21Bombed Herat hospital, killing 100+ civilians.Pentagon admits missing military barracks, but says hospital is "considerable distance" from where bomb landed and bomb blast unlikely to cause civilian deaths.F-18 dropped a 1'000 lb cluster bomb on a 200-bed military hospital and mosque, missing the target by 500-1000 meters. Reported in Afghan Islamic Press, Pakistan News Service, Frontier Post, the Guardian, Times of India, Agence France Presse, and by the U.N.October 29Hit mosque in Kandahar, killing civilians. Note; I have NOT been able to find this Taliban claim.No air strike in the general area. Claim is a lie.A pre-dawn bombing raid and 8-9 cluster bombs fell on October 24th on the mosque in the village of Ishaq Sulaiman near Herat, killing 20. Reported in : Agence France Presse, Reuters, DAWN, the Herald, etc.October 31Red Crescent clinic in Kandahar hit, killing 11.A military target was hit and a Red Crescent hospital was in vicinity---100s of meters away and was undamaged.Pre-dawn raid,F-18 drops a 2'000 lb JDAM bomb on the clinic, killing 15-25. The clinic is reduced to a mangled mess of iron and concrete [photo]. Reported in : DAWN, the Times, the Independent, the Guardian, Reuters, and Agence France Presse
Appendix 3. The Aerojet/Honeywell CBU-87 Cluster Bomb
INCLUDEPICTURE \d \z "file://C:\\My Documents\\cbu-87-1.jpg"
The U.S. delivers approx. 14'500 land mines by 'air delivery' to Afghan civilians as part of 'Enduring Freedom'
Sunday, November 25th, Kalakan village. A farmer returns to his village in the evening and is killed as he walks on one of the CBU-87's 202 bomblets.
Tuesday, November 27th, village of Qala Shater near Herat, a 12yr. Old boy picks up the bright yellow soda-can sized bomblet, looses his arm.
The CBU-87, 1'000 lb. bomb was developed by the Aerojet General Corp. in 1983, which produced it along with the Alliant Techsystems Inc. [Hopkins, Minn.]. Today, the CBU-87s are assembled in an Army factory in southern Kansas, from parts supplied by Honeywell [Minn.] and Aerojet [Sacramento].
The 'mother bomb' carries 202 bright yellow bomblets [each the size of a soda can]. The mother bomb explodes about 300-400 feet above earth and the 202 bomblets are dispersed with little parachutes. They are supposed to explode upon landing, but at least 5% do not. The CBU-87's 'footprint' is about 400x800 feet. One CBU-87 spreads bomblets over about three football fields. One B1-B 'Lancer' bomber can carry 30 CBU-87 bombs.
To date [November 30th ] the US bombers have dropped about 600 CBU-87s upon Afghanistan. Assuming a dud rate of 12% , doing the arithmetic,this means there are about 14'500 unexploded bomblets littering the Afghan countrside and villages……akin to landmines.
The figure of 93 comes from our data compilation [see chart later, citing reports from Al Jazeera, the BBC, Dawn [November 1, 2001], and The Hindu]. A detailed on-the-scene account is given in "Merciless U.S Bombing Obliterates Village: 60 Killed," Dawn [November 2, 2001]. The U.S organization, Human Rights Watch reported a figure of 35 deaths, but this was based only upon interviews with survivors in a Quetta hospital. Commentary from Stephen Gowans, "Our Masters of Propaganda," Swans Commentary [November 12, 2001], at : HYPERLINK swans.com www.swans.com/library/art7/gowans12.html
Murray Campbell, "Bombing of Farming Village Undermines U.S Credibility," Toronto Globe & Mail [November 3, 2001].
Richard Norton-Taylor, "The Return of the B-52s," The Guardian [November 2, 2001].
Norman Solomon, "Orwellian Logic 101 - A Few Simple Lessons," at: HYPERLINK fair.org www.fair.org/media-beat/980827.html
from: HYPERLINK news.bbc.co.uk news.bbc.co.uk
"Taliban Says 20 Civilians Killed in Kabul," The Guardian [October 9, 2001], ""I Wish God Destroys Their Cities" says 16 year-old bombing victim," from Torkham [October 9, 2001]
Richard Lloyd Parry, "Tragic Place in History Claimed by Odd-Job Man," The Independent [October 10, 2001].
A.J. Chien, "The Civilian Toll," [October 11, 2001] at the Institute for Health & Social Justice, available at : HYPERLINK zmag.org www.zmag.org/civiliantoll.htm
"37 Killed, 81 Injured in Sunday's Strikes," Pakistan Observer [October 9, 2001].
"Raids Restart with 76 Reported Dead," The Guardian [October 10, 2001].
Siddarth Varadarajan, "An Ignoble War," Times of India [October 15, 2001].
Chris Kromm, "Week One: Operation Infinite Disaster," CommonDreams [October 16, 2001], at: HYPERLINK commondreams.org www.commondreams.org/views01/1016-03.htm
as for example in Los Angeles Times [October 9, 2001], Derrick Z. Jackson, "Already, One Smart Bomb Has Proved Dumb," The Boston Globe [October 10, 2001], The Washington Post [October 10, 2001] and The Independent [U.K.] [October 14, 2001].
from Geov Parrish, "Where the Bodies Are," Working for Change [October 22, 2001], at: HYPERLINK workingforchange.com www.workingforchange.com ; and also in The Frontier Post [Peshawar] [October 12, 2001] and BBC News Online [October 11, 2001]. On October 25th, a U.S bomb hit the mosque and village of Ishaq Sulaiman near Herat, killing at least 20 civilians [Agence France Press, October 25, 2001, cited in Dawn [October 26, 2001].
reported in the Robert Nickelsberg and Jane Perlez, "Survivors Recount Fierce American Raid That Flattened a Village," New York Times [November 2, 2001].
Agence France Presse, Jabal Seraj, "Dix victimes civiles au nord de Kaboul," HYPERLINK cyberpresse.ca www.cyberpresse.ca/reseau/monde/0110/mon_101100029502.html ; and "US Bomb Kills 10 Civilians in Opposition-Held Afghanistan: Medic," The Hindustan Times [October 28, 2001].
"Pattern of Error Emerges as Another US Bomb Misses Target," SABC News [October 28, 2001].
" 'They Killed All My Children, Husband," The Times of India [October 29, 2001]. Another detailed example chronicles how a U.S bomb fell on the mud hut village of Wazir Abad, three kilometers west of Kabul on October 26, killing two sisters ["Girls Killed as US Bomb Strikes Village, Red Cross Stores Razed," Relief Web citing Reutersand A.F.P. [October 26, 2001].].
Robyn Dixon in Bangi, "Living with War: Dying a Way of Like for Civilians in Afghanistan," Los Angeles Times [November 19, 2001].
see James S. Corum, Professor, SAAS, "Inflated by Air. Common Perceptions of Civilian Casualties From Bombing" [Maxwell, AL.: Research Report AU/AWC080/1998-4, Air War College, Air University, Maxwell Air Force Base, Alabama, April 1998], 49pp.
James S. Robbins, "Humanity of the Air War. Look How Far We Have Come," The National Review [October 19, 2001]. Robbins is on the staff of the National Defense University.
Michael Barone, "The Cost of War: Civilian Casualties and Collateral Damage Are Inevitable in Any War," US News & World Report [October 30, 2001].
similarly, very little mention was [is] made of the 1000s of Iraqi civilians who were killed in the U.S bombing during the Gulf War---Red Cross data [see HYPERLINK zmag.org www.zmag.org/wiseconsist.htm ] . Civilian casualty figures for the Iraq and Yugoslav wars vary enormously depending upon sources, e.g., from 300 to 1'200 in Yugoslavia and 3'000 in Iraq. Human Rights Watch reports 500 civilians in the Yugoslav war, while the government mentions 1'200 at least [Toronto Globe & Mail, October 23, 2001]:A4]. A long, sordid history exists of covering-up heavy civilian casualties, see Norman Solomon, "Killing Civilians: Behind the Reassuring Words," at : HYPERLINK change-links.org www.change-links.org/KILLINGCIVILIANS.htm . Naturally, some exceptions exist of individual reporters who have maintained high standards of journalism, e. g. Robert Fisk, Justin Huggler and Richard Lloyd Parry of The Independent and, of course, Tayseer Allouni of Al-Jazeera.
Emphasis added---M.H. Paul Richter, "Despite Grim Predictions U.S Battle Toll Still Zero," Los Angeles Times [November 24, 2001].
the mainstream media operated in similar fashion during the Gulf War and the subsequent air attacks on Iraq. Ali Abuminah and Rani Masri examined 1'000 articles in major newspapers with the key word 'Iraq' during the month of the December 1998 Iraq bombings, and found only 78 articles using the key words 'civilian' or 'civilians', see Ali Abuminah and Rani Masri, "The Media's Deadly Spin Over Iraq," in Anthony Arnove and Ali Abuminah [eds], Iraq Under Siege: The Deadly Impact of Sanctions and War [London: Pluto Press, 2000].
James Carroll, "This War is Not Just," The Boston Globe [November 27, 2001]: A17.
Duncan Campbell, "U.S Buys All Satellite War Images," The Guardian [October 17, 2001]. Also, "U.S Military Buys Rights to Satellite Images. The Deal Keeps Other Eyes Off the War Zone and Allows a Different Look," St. Petersberg Times [October 16, 2001], citing an A.P. story.
from Felicity Lawrence, "A War Without Witnesses," The Guardian [October 11, 2001].
"633 Civilians Killed, Four U.S Planes Downed: AIP," Dawn [November 7, 2001].
photographs of specific incidents are available at RAWA, "Afghanistan Under the U.S Strikes," October 21, 2001, at: HYPERLINK rawa.fancymarketing.net rawa.fancymarketing.net
Andrew Gumbel, "Who is Winning the War of Lies?" The Independent [November 4, 2001], but also "U.S Jets Bomb Hospital," The Independent [October 31, 2001].
a photo of the bombed facility and newspaper report from the A.P., is available: "Heavy Bombers Over the Afghan Skies," at; HYPERLINK phillyburbs.com www.phillyburbs.com/terror/news/1101taliban.htm
for example, indiscriminate cluster bombing around Jalalabad on November 10-11th was commented upon by doctors at the local public health hospital, "the death toll is countless" ["US Bombing Kills Countless Civilians," Pakistan Observer [November 12, 2001].
Justin Huggler, "Carpet Bombing Kills 150 Civilians in Frontline Town," The Independent [November 18, 2001].
"Afghan Hospital System Collapses. Injured Civilians Forced to Cross Border," Pakistan News Service [October 28, 2001].
"Afghan Hospital System Collapses. Injured Civilians Force to Cross Border," The Frontier Post [October 29, 2001].
"War Sharpens Suffering in Kabul," The Frontier Post [October 30, 2001].
Fareed Zakaria, "Face the Facts: Bombing Works," Newsweek at HYPERLINK msnbc.com www.msnbc.com/news/662668.asp?cp1=1
Ira Chernus, "Is Afghanistan War Worth the Price?" Common Dreams NewsCenter [November 19, 2001], at : HYPERLINK commondreams.org commondreams.org
another specious argument advanced by the Rumsfeld-Bush team is that civilian deaths were caused by Taliban anti-aircraft shells falling back to earth. The U.S propaganda effort is well illustrated in a document prepared by the State Department titled "Catalogue of Lies" disputing Taliban claims and published in "Response to Terror," Los Angeles Times [November 8, 2001]. My discussion parallels that of John Nichol, "The Myth of Precision," The Guardian [October 29, 2001].
for a counter, see "Pentagon Says 'Taliban Hiding Among Civilians'," at Indymedia [October 24, 2001], at: HYPERLINK indymedia.org www.indymedia.org/print.php3?article_id=78276
Richard Lloyd Parry, "Families Blown Apart, Infants Dying. The Terrible Truth of This 'Just War'," The Independent [October 25, 2001].
From John Nichol, op. cit.
Sayed Salahuddin, "Eight Die From One Family in Kabul Raid," at XTRAMSN [October 22, 2001], at : HYPERLINK xtramsn.co.nz xtramsn.co.nz
"Cluster Bombs Are New Danger to Mine Clearers," The Times [October 26, 2001] also at : HYPERLINK landmineaction.org www.landmineaction.org/news78.asp . See also Mennonite Central Committee, "Clusters of Death," at ; HYPERLINK mcc.org www.mcc.org/clusterbomb/report/chapter1.htm#5EB2
an internal British Ministry of Defence report estimated that 60% of the 531 cluster bombs dropped by the RAF during the conflict in Kosovo missed their intended target or remained unaccounted for. On average, between 5 - 12% of the bomblets fail to explode according to U.N estimates [from Richard Taylor-Norton, 'US Deploys Controversial Weapon. B-52s Scour Country for Troop Convoys to Attack," The Guardian [October 12, 2001] ].
see Pakistan News Service - PSN [October 20, 2001] and Amy Waldman, "Bomb Remnants Increase War Toll," New York Times [November 23, 2001].
Kathleen Kenna, "Afghanistan Conditions Deteriorating," The Toronto Star [December 4, 2001].
"3 Afghan Children Killed Amassing Scrap of American Bombs," Pakistan News Service [November 26, 2001], "One dies, six injured as cluster bomb explodes," The Frontier Post [November 27, 2001].
The Hindustan Times [November 24, 2001].
Own Brown, "'Bus Hit' Claim as War of Words Hots Up," The Guardian [October 26, 2001]
Phillip Smucker, "Village of Death Casts Doubts over U.S Intelligence," The Telegraph [November 21, 2001].
Paul Harris in Chaman, "Warlords Bring New Terror," The Observer [December 2, 2001].
"UN Says Bombs Struck Mosques, Village as Civilian Casualties Mount," Agence France Presse in Kabul [Oct. 24th ], cited in The Singapore News [October 24, 2001].
Tasgola Karla Bruce in Quetta, "Terminate America: Message from a Mother in Mourning," Sydney Morning Herald [December 8, 2001].
Times of India [December 3, 2001].
Chris Foley in Quetta, "Kandahar, A City of Misery and Rubble," Agence France-Presse [AFP}, December 6, 2001.
mentioned in Dawn [December 9, 2001].
John MacLachlen Gray, "The Terrible Downside of 'Working the Dark Side'," The Toronto Globe & Mail [October 31, 2001]:R3.
the Spanish-American War does not qualify as it was waged on the land of Afro-Cubans.
Tim Wise, "Consistently Inconsistent: Rhetoric Meets Reality in the War on Terrorism," at ZNET [November 15, 2001], at : HYPERLINK amag.org www.zmag.org/wiseconsist.htm
mentioned in BBC News Online [October 23, 2001].
from "Bombing Alters Afghans Views of U.S.," Pakistan News Service-PNS [November 7, 2001].
"U.S Bombs Knock Out Dam, "Imperil Thousands", in Heaviest Raids Yet," Agence France-Presse [November 1, 2001] cited in Singapore News Yahoo.com . Richard L. Parry, "U.N Fears 'Disaster' Over Strikes Near Hydro Dam," The Independent [November 8, 2001]. First-hand account by Wahab, in The Frontier Post [November 7, 2001].
see "U.S Targeting Journalists Not Portraying Her Viewpoint," The Frontier Post [November 20, 2001], at: HYPERLINK frontierpost.com.pk www.frontierpost.com.pk
"Fuel Trucks Lie Low in Afghanistan," Guardian [November 6, 2001].
Suleman Ahmer, "Night of Death in Kandahar: An Eyewitness Account," Albalagh [November 4,2001], at : HYPERLINK albalagh.net www.albalagh.net/current_affairs/kandahar.shtml
dozens of articles in the non-U.S press point to this, for a sampling, see "Bombing Alters Afghans Views of U.S.," Pakistan News Service [November 7, 2001], Jonathan Steele, "Bombing Brings Flood of Refugees," The Guardian [November 21, 2001], "Afghan Refugees Blame U.S for Misery," The Times of India [November 21, 2001]. A chilling account of the travails experienced by Aniz Ullah's trek from the small village of Kandooz near Jalalabad bombed by U.S planes, to the border town of Torkham, is provided in Paul Gallagher, "Beaten by Taleban, Bombed Out of Home, What Next?" The Scotsman [October 15, 2001].
and (3) as John Maclachlan Gray noted, to impress the Pakistanis to go along, the Taliban to defect, and American viewers [that its government was doing something] . Maclachlan, op. cit.
Marty Jezer, "We Bomb in Afghanistan," CommonDreams [November 2001], at : HYPERLINK commondreams.org www.commondreams.org/views01/1104-04.htm
Magnus Linklater, "Not News, Just Propaganda. No one reports from Kabul, and that suits generals fine," The Times Newspapers Ltd. [October12, 2001]. Actually, that statement is incorrect: the Al Jazeera news service reported continually from Kabul. The first "western" broadcast unit to reach Kabul was that of the BBC on November 8th---see "BBC Team Reaches Kabul," BBC News [November 9, 2001].
See Richard Norton-Taylor, "The Return of the B-52s," The Guardian [November 2, 2001]; J. Huggler, "American Aircraft Launch First Carpet-Bombing on Front Line," The Independent [November 1, 2001].
"U.S Carpet Bombs Kabul; 13 Killed in Kandahar," Dawn [November 1, 2001].
Richard Norton-Taylor, "Taliban Hit by Bombs Used in Vietnam," The Guardian [November 7, 2001].
"The Evils of Bombing," The Guardian [November 8, 2001].
William M. Arkin, "Civilian Casualties and the Air War," The Washington Post [October 21, 2001].
Richard Lloyd Parry, "Witnesses Confirm That Dozens Were Killed in the Bombing," The Indpendent [October 13, 2001], and Nic Robertson and Marcus Tanner, "Bin Laden is not here, so why are we being bombed? War Against Terrorism: Koram," The Independent [October 15, 2001].
"Afghanistan's Female Bombing Victims," The Frontier Post [October 17, 2001].
BBC News [October 19, 2001] and Reuters [October 20, 2001]
"UN Confirms Destruction of Afghan Hospital," The Guardian [October 23, 2001].
Noreen S. Ahmed-Ullah [Quetta], "Afghan Survivors Recount Bombings: Civilian Deaths Turn Them Against U.S.," Chicago Tribune [October 27, 2001].
"Taliban Confirm Fall of 7 Provinces," The Frontier Post [November 13, 2001], the Herald Sun [Australia] [November 11, 2001] citing the Agence France Presse, and DAWN [November 11, 2001].
Justin Huggler, "Carpet Bombing 'Kills 150 Civilians' in Frontline Town," The Independent [November 19, 2001].
statement made by Marine Corps Major Brad Powell, spokesman of Command Central in Tampa {Fl.], 15 hours after the complete destruction of the mountain village of Kama Ado [Boston Globe, December 2, 2001]: A30].
for a first-hand report of a journalist, see Richard Lloyd Parry, "A Village is Destroyed and America Says It Never Happened," The Independent [December 4, 2001]. See also Chris Tomlinson, "Afghan Village Riddled With Bomb Craters: 155 Villagers Killed," The Associated Press [December 3, 2001].
in her "These Refugees Are Our Responsibility," Hezb-e-Islami Afghanistan [November 22, 2001], at : HYPERLINK hezb-e-islami.org hezb-e-islami.org
Macer Hall and David Wastell, "Truth and Lies About Taliban Death Claims," The Sunday Telegraph [November 4, 2001]: 14.
HYPERLINK fas.org www.fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/dumb/cbu-87.htm ; and "Members Fight for Guns and Butter," Washington Post [May 1, 1990]; and Paul Watson and Lisa Getter, "Silent Peril Lies in Wait for Afghanistan's People," Los Angeles Times [December 1, 2001].
Miceal Stten, Reuters, "U.S Cluster Bombs Add to Afghan Mandmine Traegedy," Reuters News Service [December 5, 2001], reports that somewhere between 7 - 30% of the cluster bomblets fail to explode.
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"A Dossier on Civilian Victims of United States' Aerial Bombing of Afghanistan: A Comprehensive Accounting"
by Marc W. Herold
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