Wednesday, August 4

Study details wars' civilian casualties

More of the cost of war.

By ERNIE GARCIA
THE JOURNAL NEWS
(Original publication: August 2, 2004)

DOBBS FERRY — The concern over innocents dying in attacks on outlaw regimes is as old as the Bible, in which God agreed with the Prophet Abraham's petition to spare Sodom if 10 righteous men could be found there. The 10 were not found.

And a study of the past 100 years of American warfare by a local professor shows the United States is edging toward a more divine standard — sparing innocents during recent military campaigns.

But Mercy College history professor Frederick Shiels, the study's author, also argues that news coverage of current conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan illustrates Americans' indifference or aversion to details about these deaths, reduced as they may be compared with previous American wars.

"People don't want to hear bad news that they themselves have caused," said Shiels, 55.

Shiels' most recent work, studying the number of Iraqi civilians killed in the overthrow of Saddam Hussein, is part of a larger study on American wars between the 1901 Philippine Insurrection and the 2001 invasion of Afghanistan against the Taliban and al-Qaida.

He estimates that 6,000 to 8,000 Iraqi civilians have been killed by the U.S. military since March 2003, when the war began. In Afghanistan, Shiels estimates, 3,000 civilians were accidentally killed by American-led coalition forces.

Shiels' estimate is relatively conservative. Other sources put the figures higher, including a June 24 Foreign Policy in Focus report that estimated 9,300 to 11,400 civilians had been killed in Iraq since the war began.
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