14 July 2011 35,759 views One Comment

By the Editor.

As the first half of 2011 sees record civilian deaths in occupied Afghanistan, the UN is today continuing its disgusting attempts to whitewash the US/NATO role. With stunning audacity, the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan’s 11 June press release attempted to absolve the US-NATO occupiers of any role in the record level of civilian deaths in the month of May 2011.

One month on, today’s 2011 Mid-year Report continues the same contemptuous apologist tactics, but it also reveals an alarming new trend in the UN’s war propaganda. By reporting on civilian killings perpetrated by US, NATO and ISAF forces as being carried out by ‘Pro-Government Forces’, the UN is attempting to blame Afghans for their own civilian deaths, thus absolving the criminal occupiers of any guilt.

The report finds that Afghanistan experienced a 15 per cent increase in conflict-related civilian deaths in the first six months of 2011, and this increase is mainly attributed to IEDs deployed by ‘Anti-Government Elements’ (read ‘Anti-Occupation Elements’). The same lies from the 11 June press release are echoed in this report, with everybody but the occupiers being blamed (emphases added):

“UNAMA documented 1,462 civilian deaths in the period, with 80 per cent attributed to Anti-Government Elements, an increase of 28 percent in civilian deaths linked to AGEs from the same period in 2010. A further 14 per cent of civilian deaths were attributed to Pro-Government Forces (PGF), down nine per cent from the same span in 2010, while six per cent of civilian deaths were not attributed to any party to the conflict.”

Notice the conspicuous absence of the terms ‘US’, ‘NATO’, or ‘ISAF’; the UN is moderating and sanitising its language in order to shield the occupiers from blame. By using the term ‘Pro-Government Forces’, the UN is suggesting that these killings have been carried out by Afghan soldiers.

Reading on through the paper, we see a clue as to the real meaning of this ‘Pro-Government Forces’ terminology. The report elaborates on the role that air strikes by ‘Pro-Government Forces’ have played in the civilian deaths (emphases added):

“Air strikes remained the leading cause of Afghan civilian deaths by Pro-Government Forces, with an increasing proportion resulting from attacks by helicopters. In the first six months of 2011, 79 Afghan civilians were killed by air strikes, a 14 per cent increase in civilian deaths from air strikes compared to the same period in 2010. Forty-four of the total 79 civilian deaths from air strikes were from helicopter attacks (56 per cent). All aerial attacks in Afghanistan are carried out by the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF).”

This deliberately misleading use of language in its mid-year report is an attempt to propagandize for NATO and blame the victim for the victimiser’s crimes. The ‘Pro-Government Forces’ terminology enters today’s Orwellian lexicon alongside the ‘no-fly zone’ and ‘democracy promotion’. It is an attempt to deny reality, and to temper any opposition to the illegal wars of aggression being waged under the auspices of the UN’s fraudulent, contrived authority.

Increasingly the United Nations is exposing itself as the illegitimate tool of empire that it is. Its rulings, decrees and diktats have no legitimacy and should be ignored alongside those of the aggressive imperialists and liars whom it serves.