After an officially-declared drop in violence in Iraq, news of suicide bombings and army raids is becoming the norm again. Forget about the "big questions" like whether the American "surge" helped quell the violence or if the outgoing General David Petraeus was the best man to keep the country under control. Let us look at another - not big, but far more important - aspect.
A news story from Iraq a few days ago was based on US Army statement that an air strike on a village near Tikrit killed seven civilians, among them three women and a child.
The military statement said the target was a man believed to be the leader of a bombing network in the area north of Baghdad. Reports quoted Iraqi officials and neighbours as saying that the family whose members were killed in the air strike had no links with insurgents.
The US said its forces surrounded the compound and called on its occupants to surrender after the main suspect, who was armed, had shown "hostile intent" at a doorway and had been shot dead by troops.
After killing their so-called suspect, the troops called in the air strikes. And, as usual, the US blamed the "terrorists" for using civilians to advance their evil - according to the army statement. Can any sane person comprehend this: soldiers surround a house and after killing the man they considered a suspect, call in air strikes to crash the house on the heads of its occupants.
This bit of news, which went as usual with news of suicide bombs and attacks by insurgents on American and Iraqi army and police forces and civilians as well, came just a couple of days after a report from the office of the UN High Commission for Human Rights in Geneva showed numbers of civilians deaths in Afghanistan soaring.
Massive loss of life
The UN said that from January to August this year 1,445 civilians were killed - an increase of 39 per cent compared to the same period last year. August was a particularly bad month with 330 civilians killed; the highest number since the ousting of the Taliban seven years ago. Among those were the more than 90 civilians who died in a single US attack in Herat.
According to the UN report, the number of civilian deaths caused by pro-government forces was also rising. Over two-thirds were caused by air strikes, and though 55 per cent of civilian deaths so far in 2008 can be attributed to the Taliban, the UN said civilian deaths from US air strikes also doubled.
It might be really difficult to asses the situation in Afghanistan, where everybody is against everyone else.
The situation in Iraq, though, is a bit different. And needless deaths have been accumulating since the early 1990s through the siege and bombardment up to the invasion and occupation.
Millions of civilians were either killed or died due to disease and malnourishment resulting from the international and Arab embargo on Iraq. There was no Al Qaida in Iraq or insurgents involved in suicide bombing at the time - all this came with American occupation after 2003.
Also Shiite militias, close to Iran, and the so-called "Sahwa" Sunni militias, armed by the Americans, became active only after the invasion. Not to mention the Kurdish Peshmerga militia, which was strengthened by American before the invasion.
So, even if, like in Afghanistan, more than half the civilian deaths in Iraq can be attributed to insurgents, the occupiers shoulder the responsibility. As for civilian deaths in US air strikes or shootings by soldiers, the numbers cannot be verified independently. But the practices of the American forces in Iraq account for such needless deaths. And this will continue to happen.
Whatever is said about the nature of combat in a "hostile" environment, the armed forces of the world's only superpower should ensure that they don't keep increasing the number of needless deaths in their wars in the Middle East.
Dr Ahmad Mustafa is a London-based Arab writer.
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