The Trouble With Civilian Death Toll In Afghanistan

One figure associated with the Global War on Terror that was fought in Afghanistan stands at 2.3 trillion. It is the amount of money, in dollars, that was spent by the US on Afghanistan, the bulk of it on US troops and combat operations. Another number is 2,324. It is the number of US troops who died in Afghanistan from October 2001 (when military operations were launched) to August 2021 (when the US troops abandoned Afghanistan in a hurry). Seventy thousand is yet another number—that of Afghan military and police deaths in the same period. One more official number is 46,319—a very precise figure—of Afghan civilians killed in the same period. The problem is that the last figure is completely untrue.

As is now widely acknowledged, the official figure of civilian deaths in Afghanistan is a serious underestimate. The number of civilians killed in military operations carried out by the international community was deliberately under-reported, and it is unlikely that we will ever know the real cost of Afghan lives. Who could be called a civilian was a deeply contested issue in the war waged in Afghanistan. Not surprising since the entire trajectory of the war was determined thousands of miles away, its decisions determined by the strategic interests of powerful global players rather than Afghan civilians.

Whose Conflict is it Anyway?

If Afghans didn’t have a say in the objective of the war, its impetus, its scope and operational framework despite bearing the brunt of its impact, they also decidedly had no say in its final bitter turn in 2021. On August 30, 2021, when US President Joe Biden declared an end to “the longest war in American history” with “the successful mission” to airlift people, Afghans were bracing themselves for a terrible turn in their lives. Their war had not ended, but just entered a new phase in a conflict that was already in its fifth decade. By then, Afghanistan had already been the staging ground for a violent confrontation of the Cold War, the arena for the adventurism of neighbouring Pakistan, and finally the showground for enacting revenge for the 9/11 attacks.

Could the most recent cycle of conflict have ended otherwise? The two decades following the fall of the Taliban in 2001 is a saga of missed opportunities, when the international community, led by the US, prioritised short-term strategic goals over the interests of Afghan civilians at every decisive turn.

By December 9, 2001, the Taliban had surrendered in Kandahar and their decisive defeat could have paved the way for peace in Afghanistan. This, however, did not dovetail with the military ambitions of the American neo-con establishment keen to execute a global war on terror. Not only was the possibility of a negotiated peace dismissed, but the very real opportunity of making Afghanistan safe for Afghans was undermined by the series of steps that followed.

As a first step, the US inducted as partners some of the most brutal predatory militia leaders who were thoroughly discredited within Afghanistan. Military operations were focused on the narrow aims of ‘catch and kill’, ‘dead or alive’ targeted actions, rather than deployment of troops for stabilisation. A hobbled Constitution (the most centralised Constitution, which failed in the face of one of the most decentralised countries) and a cobbled-together electoral system stymied the possibility of the emergence of an alternative democratic polity from within Afghanistan. Guided and limited democracy that would be easier to control with external levers was preferred to one that would have had greater participatory decision-making from Afghans themselves.

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The terrible arc of the military adventurism of the twenty years should not detract from a celebration of the hundreds of opportunities that flourished in this period, or the enormous work done by many—both international and Afghan—to rebuild a more inclusive peaceful nation. In areas relatively free of fighting, Afghans seized the space and ran with it. Girls went to school, maternal mortality rates dropped, young Afghan women discovered contemporary art, older Afghan women worked through their anguish in theatres, young Afghans made films telling their stories for the first time, women parliamentarians navigated the tenuous political space, Kabul city hosted an international arts festival.

The Afghan media exploded with hundreds of radio stations, newspapers, and TV channels. The Afghan love for music reverberated throughout the country. Afghans designed buildings, learnt how to do business, trained themselves in governance and ran non-profits that delivered services. But initiatives that should have grown organically had little chance of growing roots. The bulk of money flowed outside the government, support for initiatives waxed and waned and were often tied in with military imperatives. A lot of good initiatives—both national and international—were lost in the massive swamp of vast amounts of money and muscle power, largely exerted by the US in tandem with its closest allies. An immense amount of it flowed back to the donor countries. Afghans certainly did not seem as central to the rebuilding of their own country as they should have been.

In the End is the Beginning

An end to ‘major combat’ in Afghanistan was announced by the US on May 1, 2003, the same time as it announced ‘mission accomplished’ in Iraq. Military operations continued, however, characterised by the use of standard operating procedures which had a very low threshold of avoiding civilian casualties. Worse, feuding militia and local leaders, who were on the payroll of Americans, would sometimes call in air strikes against their opponents and these were carried out with little or no verification of whether they constituted legitimate military targets. In areas with intense fighting, the local populations only wanted an end to the violence regardless of who was in charge. Civilian casualties at the hands of the international forces were a source of discontent, not because the Taliban were considered better but because much more was expected of the international community. Afghans were being asked to back the international community, and yet, thousands of Afghan civilians were losing their lives. In the nomenclature of mil-speak they were just ‘collateral damage’.

The undercounting of civilian casualties was a result of the immense pressure exerted by the powerful players of the international community, arm-twisting the United Nations to accept a system that would deliberately undercount casualties caused by international forces. While justice commonly assumes a person is innocent unless proven guilty, the UN was forced to use a counting system that assumed that every person killed due to international operations was a combatant unless proven otherwise. Therefore, while it counted the deaths of women and children as civilian deaths, it usually excluded all “men of military age” from the count since it could not prove they were non-combatants.

The discounting of Afghans civilians was not new. Bamiyan is a name that is well-known worldwide. The March 2001 destruction of the giant Buddha statues carved out of sandstone in the central highlands of Afghanistan evoked worldwide condemnation. The Taliban were justly condemned for their religious intolerance. However, the massacre of Hazara civilians carried out in the same province a few months apart received far less attention. The Taliban had a history of committing large-scale abuses against the Hazara, a racially distinct community who are Shia. In Bamiyan province, the massacre in Yakawlang began on January 8, 2001, and lasted four days. Three hundred civilians were massacred by the Taliban but this caused no ripples in the international community, which would go apoplectic two months later.

Prior to the Taliban, and from 1992 to 1996 (after the fall of Najibullah, the last of the Afghan leaders to be brought to power with Soviet support), mujahideen leaders who had been supported, armed and financed by the US turned on each other. The ‘holy warriors’ of the Cold War bombarded the civilians of Kabul as they fought for control of the capital, destroying the city in the process. The population of the city dwindled to a third as people fled from the mayhem.

Civilians were also the target when the Soviet-supported coup of 1978 established a communist government following the massacre of the royal family and government officials. Intellectuals, teachers, writers, and musicians, who were considered class enemies, were summarily executed and buried in mass graves. Death lists with 5,000 names have been discovered in recent years.

Nearly half a century later, with the Taliban in power now, Afghanistan is once again a matter of strategic interests. The deal that brought the Taliban back to power was focused only on the narrow security interests of the US and virtually bartered the interests of Afghans in return. There is indeed widespread public condemnation of the ever-worsening situation of women. Beyond that, however, any meaningful collaboration on the welfare of Afghans has once again been subject to the prism of disparate interests. China and Russia have made overtures to the Taliban government while western nations have followed their initial boycott with tenuous overtures. Though both camps have supported the issue of women라이브 바카라 rights, their strategic interests ensure that they will not make common cause on even this urgent issue.

Afghans have viewed India as a friend and Indians with great affection. Yet, the initial reaction here to the return of the Taliban followed the simplistic, if somewhat predictable, pattern of binaries. India had ‘lost’ Afghanistan to Pakistan, talking heads opined, making no distinction between a country, its people and its government. The Indian government wound down its diplomatic presence and stopped engagement. Dozens of Afghan students who were caught in a limbo were forced to leave India. Tourists, businessmen and those coming regularly for medical treatment were no longer allowed into the country. That Pakistan라이브 바카라 relationship with the Taliban-administered Afghanistan is far more complex is now evident and the Indian government itself has begun its overtures towards the Taliban government, presumably on the grounds that it would be better for leverage. Yet, there has been no attempt to resume the visa regime that was in place before the advent of the Taliban. People-to-people ties is a shopworn phrase that is good for rhetoric. When it comes to reality, civilians, most often, come last.

(Views expressed are personal)

Aunohita Mojumdar is an Indian journalist who lived and worked in Afghanistan from 2003 to 2012. She is the former editor of Himal Southasian

(This appeared in the print as 'The Kite Runner')