Maybe the militants who live in these countries should keep that in mind the next time they strap a bomb onto a 19 year old and send him off to hang out with 70 virgins.
You are simply ignoring the fact that the vast majority of civilians killed in these countries are killed by their own citizens.
Actually, the majority of the people in these countries are killed by disease, and the rate increases the more and more we bomb their hospitals.
November 17th, massive carpet-bombing of Khanabad in Kunduz province, killed over 150 civilians.
34 As has been amply commented upon elsewhere, the widespread bombing has also stopped truck traffic [carrying supplies] and has contributed to the utter collapse of Afghanistan's hospital system in the heavily bombed areas like Kandahar [as staff fear going to work].
35 No account is taken here either of bombing causing indirect casualties [e.g., from lack of water, power, medical care, etc.]. The Afghan hospital system had collapsed by late October under the bombing onslaught as hospital staff fled for safety.
36 Those wounded able to, head off to clinics in Pakistan, while "those too wounded or poor to make the journey have been left to die in their homes in Kandahar" [ibid]. In Kabul's 300 bed children's hospital, supplies ran out and most of the staff fled.
37
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During the couple weeks since November 25th , numerous first-hand reports tell how hovering U.S aircraft seeking out "targets of opportunity" in the Kandahar region, have fired missiles and dropped bombs upon fleeing taxis, trucks, and buses.
55 A 39 year old, Afghan refugee in a Quetta hospital, Rukia, who lost her family of five children on December 3rd when a U.S bomb was dropped upon her neighborhood in Kandahar, tells a typical story. She fled Kandahar before she could bury her children, as she was wounded in her stomach and had her left arm shattered in the bomb blast. She was nearly bombed again on the Kandahar to Spin Boldak highway, as a relative was driving her to a hospital in Quetta. Rukia said,
"They're bombing anything that moves. It's not true that they bomb civilians by accident. They're targeting the innocent people instead of Osama bin Laden." [emphasis added by M.H., ibid].
On December 4th, an ambulance in Kandahar was struck killing four. On December 2nd, a jeep carrying civilians was hit near Spin Boldak killing 15. On December 1st, Reuters [12/1/01] reported a U.S attack on four trucks and 5 buses on the highway to Spin Boldak, killing 30.
Dawn [12/2/01] cited the incineration by air of three refugee vehicles in front of the Maji Hotel in Arghisan on December 1st. On November 30th, U.S planes bombed two trucks on the highway from Herat, killing at least four. On November 27th, attracted by the lights of a vehicle, U.S bombers hit a hamlet of five houses between Kandahar airport and the city, killing Mohammed Khan's entire family of 5 and 10 others.
56 Mohammed Khan also fled to Chaman for hospital treatment for his arms and legs.
57 On December 6th, a Pakistani truck carrying fresh fruits was attacked by U.S planes on the highway between Spin Boldak and Kandahar.
58
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The U.S bombing campaign has also directly targeted certain civilian facilities deemed hostile to its war success. On October 15th, U.S bombs destroyed Kabul's main telephone exchange, killing 12.
62 In late October, U.S warplanes bombed the electrical grid in Kandahar knocking out all power, but the Talian were able to divert some electricity to the city from a generating plant in another province, Helmand, but that generation plant [at Kajakai dam] was then bombed knocking out all power supplies to Kandahar and Lashkargah.
63 On October 31st, it launched seven air strikes against Afghanistan's largest hydro-electric power station adjacent to the huge Kajakai dam, 90 kilometers northwest of Kandahar, raising fears about the dam breaking.
64 On November 12th, a guided bomb scored a direct hit on the Kabul office of the Al Jazeera news agency, which had been reporting from Afghanistan in a manner deemed hostile by Washington.
65On November 18th, U.S warplanes bombed religious schools [Madrasas] in the Khost and Shamshad areas. U.S bombers have singled out trucks carrying fuel oil into Afghanistan from Iran, through Herat onto Kandahar and up to Kabul.
66 Before the U.S bombing campaign started about 30 fuel trucks a day arrived in Kabul. But since a tanker convoy was struck on the road between Herat and Kandahar on October 22nd [my data], only five tankers at most arrived in Kabul. Private businessmen almoststopped bringing fuel picked up at the Iranian border town of Islam Qila, 30 miles west of Herat. Fuel convoys and fuel depots became favored targets for U.S jets. An eyewitness reports that a truck carrying cooking oil to towns north west of Kandahar had broken down on October 16th, and its three drivers slept in the truck. At 4 a.m. on October 17th , the truck was hit by a cruise missile. The three bodies were brought to the Kandahar hospital.
67
And spreading landmines throughout the nation.. still working within 2001 only;
Sunday, November 25th, Kalakan village. A farmer returns to his village in the evening and is killed as he walks on one of the CBU-87's 202 bomblets. Tuesday, November 27th, village of Qala Shater near Herat, a 12yr. Old boy picks up the bright yellow soda-can sized bomblet, loses his arm.
The CBU-87, 1,000 lb. bomb was developed by the Aerojet General Corp. in 1983, which produced it along with the Alliant Techsystems Inc. [Hopkins, Minn.]. Today, the CBU-87s are assembled in an Army factory in southern Kansas, from parts supplied by Honeywell [Minn.] and Aerojet [Sacramento].
The 'mother bomb' carries 202 bright yellow bomblets [each the size of a soda can]. The mother bomb explodes about 300-400 feet above earth and the 202 bomblets are dispersed with little parachutes. They aresupposed to explode upon landing, but at least 5% do not. The CBU-87's 'footprint' is about 400x800 feet. One CBU-87 spreads bomblets over about three football fields. One B1-B 'Lancer' bomber can carry 30 CBU-87 bombs.
88
To date [November 30th ] the US bombers have dropped about 600 CBU-87s upon Afghanistan. Assuming a dud rate of 12% ,
89doing the arithmetic, this means there are about 14,500 unexploded bomblets littering the Afghan countrside and villages
akin to landmines.
Civilian Victims of United States' Aerial Bombing of Afghanistan
By the way.. all of those 17's who are strapping themselves are illiterate. Maybe if they had a chance to go to school and learn to read.
Suffering and poverty is the soil from where terrorism grows.
