What Our Media Aren’t Telling Us:

Professor Estimates At Least 3,500 Afghan Civilians Have Been Killed by US Bombs

The Pentagon has repeatedly denied reports of civilian casualties in Afghanistan, and most US media outlets have qualified their reports of casualties with the statement "could not be independently confirmed." But while US journalists have done a dodge-and-weave around this information, one person, at least, has taken the trouble to document Afghan civilian casualties. According to a study by Marc W. Herold, Professor of Economics, International Relations, and Women's Studies at the University of New Hampshire, more than 3,500 civilians--nearing perhaps 4,000--have been killed in Afghanistan by U.S. bombs since October 7.

Why did he do the study? "Because I suspected that the modern weaponry was not what it was advertised to be,” Professor Herold explained during an interview with DemocracyNow.org journalist Amy Goodman on December 10. “I was concerned that there would be significant civilian casualties caused by the bombing, and I was able to find some mention of casualties in the foreign press but almost nothing in the U.S. press." (See: http://www.democracynow.org).

Professor Herold gathered data on civilian casualties from news agencies, major newspapers, and first-hand accounts. When possible, he cross-corroborated accounts of civilian casualties. His sources include Dawn, The Times of London, The Independent, The Guardian, Reuters, Associated Press, Agence France Presse, British, Canadian, and Australian newspapers; Indian newspapers, especially The Times of India; three Pakistani daily newspapers; the Singapore News; Afghan Islamic Press; Pakistan News Service; BBC News Online; Al Jazeera; and such other sources as the United Nations and relief agencies.

Professor Herold said he conducted his study because, "People have to know that there is a human cost to war, and that this is a war with thousands of casualties. These were poor people to begin with, and, on top of that, they had absolutely nothing to do with the events of September 11."

Herold's data are available at http://pubpages.unh.edu/~mwherold/.