HE'S BAAAACK

Marc Herold, the man who inflated civilian casualties by several orders of magnitude during the Afghan war, is coming out with a book about that war-torn place. If this preview is any guide, he's written an anti-American screed dressed up as non-fiction:

Another Kuchi mused, "we had a good life under the Taliban. There was security and there was peace, and we could go anywhere with our animals...we were not people of any Government. We were only busy grazing our animals."

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U.S. cluster bombs and other kinds of unexploded ordnance should be considered 'pollution' as they render soil useless for agriculture and pasture. The burden of landmines and cluster-bombs has been especially heavy for Afghanistan's nomads. Over a hundred Kuchi nomads were directly killed by U.S. bombs at Karam, Chowkar Karez, Kandahar, Shawalikot, Helmand, and Maiwand. For example, on December 5, 2001, U.S. bombs mistook a Kuchi camp in Shawalikot for a Taliban position - killing 12 people from two Kuchi families. Kuchi encampments have been raided by U.S. troops, e.g., on
January 25, 2002, thirty U.S. soldiers backed up by jets and helicopters descended upon a 100 tent camp in the Bak district 28 kms. north of Khost. On September 17, 2003, U.S. Apache attack helicopters fired upon "a tent" in the Shinkay district of Zabul, killing 8-10 sleeping nomads including women and children.

The drums are silent, the sheep sold. Kuchi nomads have little left to sing about.

That might be because they're pining for the Taliban, but you'll never hear that from Herold. And given the fact that he wildly overestimated civilian casualties in the war generall, I'm suspicious of any numbers Herold throws around. It's also worth noting that though Herold does mention the Soviet war in Afghanistan which lasted a decade, he spends the bulk of his war talk at least in the preview on the recent American-led campaign, not yet two years old.