Lara Logan
Fresh from her comments slamming Rolling Stone‘s Michael Hastings for reporting things the military wouldn’t like, CBS reporter Lara Logan weighed in on the WikiLeaks story on last night’s CBS Evening News, where she argued that reporters should do more to stress the Taliban’s record of killing civilians:
KATIE COURIC: Also mentioned in these documents is the number of Afghan civilians who have been killed. How do you think this will damage the war effort?
LARA LOGAN: Well, the issue of civilian casualties is a major one. And the U.S. has taken a lot of criticism because of this. However, what’s interesting to note is that according to the documents, 195 Afghan civilians have been killed. But also according to the documents, 2,000 Afghan civilians have been killed by the Taliban, which is more than 10 times the number said to be killed by U.S. and NATO forces. And very little is being made of that. If the coverage would indicate that it’s more of an issue for the U.S. to kill Afghan civilians than it is for the Taliban to do so.
It would be absurd to suggest that only 195 Afghan civilians have been killed by the US in the war. That tally from the WikiLeaks data is incomplete, as the Guardian reported:
At least 195 civilians are admitted to have been killed and 174 wounded in total, but this is likely to be an underestimate as many disputed incidents are omitted from the daily snapshots reported by troops on the ground and then collated, sometimes erratically, by military intelligence analysts.
As Afghan human rights advocate Erica Gaston (Huffington Post, 7/27/10) points out, the WikiLeaks database on civilian casualties is by no means definitive—many well-known incidents are missing. A summary of estimates of U.S./coalition–caused civilian deaths provided by Wikipedia suggests that the number Logan seemed to think was credible is off by a factor of at least 28.
As for who bears more responsibility for civilian killings, there have been various attempts to make such determinations. In 2008, U.N. monitors counted over 2,000 civilian casualties; when responsibility could be determined, 41 percent of the deaths were attributed to U.S./NATO forces.On a CBS Evening News broadcast in early 2009, however, military sources were telling viewers that 80 percent of the dead were killed by the Taliban, in a segment devoted to the propaganda tactics of the Taliban enemy (a report that relied entirely on U.S. military sources). That would seem to be the type of journalism Logan would like to see more of.
On the same broadcast in which Logan gave her critique, CBS reporter Chip Reid seemed afraid that the media were likely to obsess over civilian deaths, noting that the Obama White House
may be underestimating the problems here because, yes, people were aware and certainly the president was aware of the problem with civilian casualties, but if we’re now going to be bombarded for days on end with a long series of specific examples, that’s going to make it more difficult for both the Afghan people and the American people to support this war.
Somehow I doubt there is any danger that corporate media will be “bombarding” anyone “for days on end” with stories of dead Afghan civilians.
Um, I don’t think the majority of Afghan people ever supported the war.
“As for who bears more responsibility for civilian killings, there have been various attempts to make such determinations.”
Actually, the determination is quite simple. ALL the civilian killings are the responsibility of the U.S./NATO invasion, since none of them would have occurred in the absence of the invasion. The same is true in Iraq. A million+ people are dead in Iraq. Did U.S. bullets and bombs kill them all? No, but the U.S. invasion most certainly did.
Haha Lara Logan is a joke, more proof of her prowar attitude, and she actually puts her support because she believes Nato? Haha all of these corporate media reporters never fail to show their lack of objectivity.
The argument to suggest who is more “right” than the other by comparing who is doing more of the killing is pretty warped. Are the US and Allied forces more of the “good” guys because they kill less civilians than the Talibans? I think the better question to ask is what the civilian death toll is like before and after the war started, since it is perfectly possible that the Taliban have been killing more civilians because they’re at war with the US and they don’t care about the civilians who get in the way. In other words, did the US invasion cause a significant increase of civilian deaths regardless of which side was more responsible?
Lara Logan is a fine reporter. And I’ve known hundreds. I suspect her comments are strategic.
Why not more comment upon the truthful but unknown fact that Pakistani brokered a deal with Mulla Omar of the Taliban to surrender Osama Bin Laden, but invaded instead. Why not some views as to how funding for completing the actions in Afghanistan, rather being used as Congress appropriated–was diverted to in of Iraq! (It was done by the Appropriations Chairman Jerry Lewis–and opposed by the then ranking member Charles Rangel! Both have been accused of scandal.)
Matt Hammond sez: “Lara Logan is a fine reporter. And I’ve known hundreds.”
“I’ve known hundreds…” Judging by your comments, I would say that would have been in the biblical sense.
I agree fully with Eli. We arm all the other countries and then act surprised that people are being killed. We need to get out of all the countries we illegally invaded for their resources. We are in Afghanistan to steal the minerals, just like we were in Iraq to steal their OIL. End the war and bring the troops home. Most people in this country aren’t even paying attention to the fact that their is a war going on.
How does the recent Time magazine cover fit in with this? It’s a portrait of a young Afghanistan woman whose nose and ears were sliced off by her husband, at the command of a Taliban judge (that’s what I heard last night on Charlie Rose). My first thought is that the cover reveals a true story but it’s real purpose is to drum up support for the war among Americans. I feel a little bit manipulated by it, was very uncomfortable watching the authors and editors promote the issue on Charlie Rose. Americans have been waging war in Afghanistan for 9 yrs, beginning when that woman was around 9 or 10 yrs old, yet our presence did not prevent her from experiencing extreme political/domestic violence. But I feel like the cover is intended to create strong emotional reactions so that I and other Americans will feel better about the vast amount of money we’re spending; feel better about the tremendous amount of violence that’s happening there because we’re the “good guys” and they’re the “bad guys”. So yes the Taliban is “bad” because these did this horrendous violence, but our troops were there when it happened (meaning, in Afghanistan–not “there” at the incident). So how can we make a future difference when we weren’t already able to make a difference? Or is the cover meant to inspire fund raising to provide this woman with reconstructive surgery?
well, since the american military is using american taxpayer’s money to kill afghan civilians it SHOULD BE “more of an issue for the U.S. to kill Afghan civilians than it is for the Taliban to do so” to americans. just sayin’…isn’t logan more interested in what’s being done on her behalf than what’s not?