August 6, 2011, when 38 soldiers, including 30 U.S. troops, were killed when their helicopter was shot down, was the “deadliest day” of the Afghan War, several media outlets told us:
- David Muir (ABC World News Saturday, 8/6/11): “It was the deadliest day of the war in Afghanistan, 30 Americans, 22 Navy SEALs lost.”
- David Gregory (NBC Meet the Press, 8/7/11): “This was the single deadliest day of the war.”
- Chicago Tribune headline (8/7/11): “Taliban Says It Downed Copter in Deadliest Day of War in Afghanistan”
- ABC This Week graphic (8/7/11): “DEADLIEST DAY IN AFGHANISTAN”
- Terrell Brown, CBS Morning News (8/8/11): “America mourns the loss of 30 warriors killed in Afghanistan on the war’s deadliest day.”
- AP (8/9/11): “Troops killed in the deadliest day of the Afghan War are coming home today.”
But, of course, it wasn’t the war’s deadliest day–that unhappy distinction goes to May 4, 2009, when the U.S. military attacked the village of Granai, killing 140 people, 93 of them children, according to an Afghan government investigation (Reuters, 5/16/09). (The U.S. government says it does not know how many people it killed that day.)
Other deadlier days in Afghanistan include July 6, 2008, when U.S. bombing killed 47 civilians, including 39 women and children, attending a wedding in Nangarhar province (Guardian, 7/11/08); August 22, 2008, when a U.S. airstrike killed at least 90 civilians, including 60 children, in the village of Azizabad (UN News Centre, 8/26/08); and July 23, 2010, when the U.S. killed 39 civilians in the village of Sangin (RTTNews, 8/5/10).
To be sure, many U.S. news reports, unlike those cited above, remembered to add “for Americans” to their descriptions of August 6 as the “deadliest day.” But there’s little evidence that anyone in U.S. media remembers the village of Granai.
Come one now fair.org… There’s no shortage of bias and censorship to challenge. Why are you taking things like this out of context? The reports you sight claim it was the deadliest day for American troops in Afghanistan. Isn’t that obvious? Of course 30 dead isn’t the “deadliest day” [period]. Do you think every story needs to qualify the obvious?
Yes, some things go without saying.
For example “All men are created equal” means all white men, all white males, all property owning white males, not vagabonds.
We know what we mean. Let’s not quibble.
Imperialistic aggressors always lie. “the first casualty of war is the truth” and the truth of the wars of aggression by white euro/american fronts are purely for market share and for corporate profit extraction leaving the individual countries and population in worse poverty and pollution than there own indigenous power structures can often imagine.
The cost of war is not measured accurately in body counts of cost of bombs, but in the lost futures erased in a moment by adolescent warriors locked in nameless rooms across america busily murdering innocent children in anger over the inescapable fact that casualties happen on all “sides”, to all families and the only end to this cycle is a fundamental change in our attitudes of empathy and education for all people in all places rather than unending trauma and strife over non renewable resources better left for generations yet to come.
We in the west have the means for full democratic participation and action. Our technology has created the possibility for true democracy but that is not an option for the international corporate culture that cares only for short term profits and is totally indifferent to suffering and death, except of their own corporate fiction. That is the one question that may never be explored: what is true profit and how does it’s desire to manifest outside of the simplistic fantasy of the marketplace?
WEEP For the Babies; for US Eurasian couples (and The WORLD, as well) they are as yours and MINE (and could as UNJUST easily BE with the Obamanible DESPOTUS!)!
in view of all the afghan civilians that get killed in night raids, i was pretty unmoved by the 20 or so seals that died. i feel much worse when innocent families who never asked to be in that horrendous situation get blown to a bloody pulp than when soldiers who volunteered to fight get blasted. then i saw an article [NYTimes?] which had the pictures of all the soldiers and suddenly i felt the impact of the tragedy. they looked like nice young boys, flesh and blood, real people. actually seeing picture after picture of young men who were alive last week and now are shredded and burnt like barbeque for no purpose whatsoever took on much more meaning.
they never show pictures of the afghans who are killed or injured. not having pictures makes the war abstract, emotionless, easier to stomach and ignore. i think its outrageous that americans dont see those pictures. the media claims that they r worried about our ‘sensitivities’ and dont want to offend us with the gore, but they r failing us. they r allowing us to not face up and take responsibility for what we are doing by not informing us of the real impact. i think if more americans saw the pictures and the reality, their humanity would be engaged and they could not allow this. at least i hope that there are still americans with a shred of decency and compassion, but sometimes u have to wonder when u read some of the disgusting comments.
one place to see some of the terrible effects this war is having is in the RAWA picture gallery. if ppl dont have pictures/visuals, its like operating blindly. we need to face that we are baby killers. its not something that should be ignored and just go on with our lives like its not happening every day and we r not responsible for it
When anyone dies it is bad, but when our soldiers die in a useless war that is “winding down anyway” it makes a much bigger impression on those whose job is to sell the war as a noble and necessary sacrifice, it also makes their job harder. But they will find a way.
Good catch