Source: China Daily
The mounting civilian death toll in Afghanistan and Iraq is a
stigma on the way the United States has waged war in the two countries.
The soaring civilian death count in Afghanistan and in Iraq
has aroused widespread concern among the international community over US
strategy in Central Asia and the Middle East.
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The mounting civilian death toll in Afghanistan and Iraq is a
stigma on the way the United States has waged war in the two countries.
The vulnerability of civilians was brutally demonstrated on the
morning of March 11, when 16 civilians, including women and children,
were murdered in their homes in the southern Afghan province of
Kandahar.
A lone US soldier, Sergeant Robert Bales, has been accused of
the lethal rampage, which has understandably infuriated Afghan people
and strained the already tense Afghan-US relations.
Washington owes the Afghan people an honest explanation of how their homes became killing zones.
As Washington is poised to gradually withdraw its troops
in Afghanistan, there is no guarantee that the transition period leading
up to the withdrawal will be a smooth one.
There is also no guarantee that the US will not leave
Afghanistan in as big a mess as it did Iraq. The US pulled its troops
out of Iraq in December, leaving the Gulf country in a quagmire of
political instability and sectarian strife.
Tensions among political rivals have been on the rise,
while bombings and killings happen on a daily basis. On March 20, which
marked the ninth anniversary of the Iraq war, a torrent of violence and
bombings ravaged 13 Iraqi cities and killed 44 people.
The US has unshirkable responsibilities to protect
civilians in Afghanistan and Iraq, and it should be held accountable for
the loss of civilian life in the two countries, as those who have lost
their lives are victims of the US strategy in the two countries.
The soaring civilian death count in Afghanistan
and in Iraq has aroused widespread concern among the international
community over US strategy in Central Asia and the Middle East.
Conservative estimates put the number of
civilians who have lost their lives in Iraq at more than 100,000 since
the US invasion in 2003. There is no single figure for the overall
number of civilians killed by the 10-year-old war in Afghanistan, but
according to the latest report from the United Nations, 12,793 had been
killed in the past six years.
Certainly people around the world are sickened
by the ever-growing number of civilians who have been killed since the
US launched its wars in Iraq and Afghanistan in the name of
anti-terrorism.
One cannot help asking when will it end?
