Fighting the Taliban, and the media with an agenda....

[Cdn Blackshirt]

Excerpt from the BBC:

Helmand fighting

In the south, Operation Silicon aims to drive Taleban fighters from their stronghold in the Sangin valley in Helmand province - the biggest poppy-producing area in the world for opium.

It is part of the wider Operation Achilles launched in March to prepare for reconstruction work in the area by the Afghan government.

The BBC's Alastair Leithead, who is with troops in the area, said the fighting has developed into a major battle on several fronts.

Apache helicopters and dozens of British armoured vehicles moved in at first light and heavy fighting went on for hours, he says.

Across Afghanistan, bloodshed has returned to levels not seen since the fall of the Taleban regime in 2001. Some 4,000 people are believed to have died last year in the insurgency - about a quarter of them civilians.

About 30,000 coalition troops and another 10,000 US-led ones have been battling to reduce violence and boost the authority of President Hamid Karzai.

Violence has surged in recent weeks, with the onset of spring.


http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/6606535.stm

So....if 25% of 4,000 dead are civilians, that means that 75% are combatants, and based on released death tolls by NATO, we can extrapolate that 2,500+ dead were Taliban. 

In addition, in context with the earlier part of the article, the "violence that has surged in recent weeks, with the onset of spring", has been primarily due to spring offensives by NATO forces.

1)  How did this journalist ever write such a misleading article?
2)  How did the editor allow it to be published?

[insert your choice of favourite expletives here]

Unbelievable....


Matthew.   

 

[peaches]

The truth should not stand in the way of a good story.  The media has an agenda, they determine the spin they want, then go find it....

 

[xena]

Unfortunately, I have to agree with peaches (not that I have anything against peaches, it's just the subject matter that's sad!) 

The media is a business.  If it doesn't sell toothpaste, it doesn't get on TV or in the paper.  Similarly, any kind of sketchy and sensationalistic crud that does sell toothpaste, DOES get on TV and in the paper.

Dirty rotten free enterprise businesses with freedom of the press!  I tell ya, when I become emperor, things are gonna change...  > > >

Seriously though, it's the end result of the freedoms we protect for them.  I don't like journalists without integrity any more than anyone else, but that's the nature of the beast.

My two rubles worth...

 

[peaches]

Look at what the media did the Arthur Currie after WW1.  Look how they trashed Canadian Generals in WW2 for "not getting into the action", then for "getting into to much action too soon".

There's nothing new here, the media is full of sh$%#t, always has been, that's their business, spin and BS....

People have to be smart enough to see through it....

 

[Munxcub]

... People have to be smart enough to see through it....

That's a pretty tall order there peaches...

 

[peaches]

I should know better, forgiviness please.....

 

[MarkOttawa]

This won't help:

Karzai Says Civilian Toll Is No Longer Acceptable
Washington Post, May 3

Afghan President Hamid Karzai declared Wednesday that his government can "no longer accept" civilian casualties caused by U.S.-led operations, shortly before news spread that as many as 51 civilians may have died during clashes this week in far western Afghanistan.

Civilian deaths are "becoming a heavy burden and we are not happy about it," Karzai told reporters here.

His remarks came two days after rioting broke out following a protracted battle in western Herat province, where police said as many as 30 residents had been killed during three days of fighting between U.S.-led forces and Taliban insurgents. Several government buildings were stormed by demonstrators, some of whom were wounded by police in the incidents.

Then, on Wednesday, local officials visiting villages in the battle area, in the Shindand district, reported that 45 to 51 civilians had died and that bodies were still being dug out of mud houses that had collapsed in U.S.-led bombing raids.

"So far the people have buried 45 bodies, and they are still taking out more," said Ghulam Nabi Hakak, the Herat representative of the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission, reached by telephone Wednesday night. "Yesterday they buried 12 children. They told us some women and children ran away and got lost and drowned. The exact number of dead is not clear, but the people are very angry."

Spokesmen for the U.S. military said that they had no reports of civilian casualties but that 136 suspected Taliban fighters had been killed in operations in Herat. One spokesman said that he could not comment on specific incidents but that U.S. forces "take every precaution to prevent injury to innocent civilians in every operation we do."

Public anger has been mounting steadily over a string of civilian deaths in the past month during U.S.-led counterterrorist operations. Increasingly, that anger has been directed both at Karzai and at the international forces that are here to back his government as well as hunt down Islamic insurgents...

Mark
Ottawa