☠ OBAMA THE WAR CRIMINAL ☠ Killing More Civilians Than Bush

The UNAMA report contrasted the number of officially recorded civilian deaths for the first six months of 2009 with the number in previous years. From January 1 to June 30, it registered 1,013 civilian fatalities, compared with 818 for the same period in 2008, and 684 in 2007. In other words, as the Obama administration has escalated the war and sent thousands of additional troops and aircraft to Afghanistan, the number of civilian deaths has soared by 24 percent.

The military activities of both the Taliban-led insurgency, dubbed in the report Anti Government Elements (AGEs), and the operations of the so-called Pro Government Forces (PGFs)—foreign troops and Afghan government security forces—contributed to the body count.

Insurgent roadside bombings and suicide bombings were blamed for 595 deaths or 59 percent of the casualties. In many cases, civilians were killed during attacks on occupation military targets. American and NATO forces drive convoys through residential areas and have established bases inside Afghan towns and villages in order to prevent them coming under the direct control of the Taliban.

Included in the number of civilian deaths caused by the insurgency are also a number of pro-occupation government officials and employees who were assassinated.

The occupation forces killed 310 of the civilian deaths recorded by UNAMA, or 30.5 percent. Unknown or unconfirmed parties were held responsible for the remaining 108 fatalities, or 10.5 percent.

Air strikes were the main cause of fatalities inflicted by the US and allied forces. UNAMA recorded 40 air attacks that, combined, caused 200 deaths. In June alone, six air strikes killed 51 people, suggesting that the rate is climbing despite proclamations by American generals that greater care is being taken to avoid what the military still calls collateral damage.

UNAMAs assessment of the impact of air strikes would be challenged by many in Afghanistan. The report accepted, for example, the official figure that 63 civilians died in the hours-long May 4 aerial assault on the village of Bala Baluk, in the western province of Farah. Locals continue to insist that the number who died was at least 144. It also accepted that the hundreds of alleged Taliban killed in remote areas of the country by air strikes were in fact combatants.

According to a tally compiled by Associated Press, American and NATO forces claimed to have killed more than 2,310 Taliban this year. In 2008, the tally was over 3,800. With the scale of fighting escalating, the new commander in Afghanistan, General Stanley McChrystal, ordered occupation forces in mid-June to stop giving any estimates on alleged Taliban casualties.

The air strike figure also does not count the hundreds of men, women and children who have been killed this year by missile strikes launched from unmanned US Predator drones over the border in the tribal agencies of Pakistan. The anti-occupation insurgency is supported by the ethnic Pashtun population of the region. In retaliation, the US military is waging a systematic campaign of killings and terror against them.

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