Talk:Civilian casualties in the war in Afghanistan (2001–2021)

Untitled

AfD closure comments: I strongly recommend that someone rename this article to something else, per comments in the above AfD. --Deathphoenix ʕ 15:23, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

Anomalies

There are a few things don't sound plausible.

• 1. The civilian casualties of the war in Iraq are given as 1.4 million. Why should Afghanistan be so much lower when the war went on even longer? That requires explanation.

• 2. The UN said there would be about a million casualties from starvation and freezing if the USA blocked humanitarian aid and supplies from outside during the early days of the war. They did anyway. Where are the casualties? That requires explanation.

• 3. If you take the cost of the war divided by the number of casualities you will get a number equivalent to winning a major lottery. This does not compute. That requires an explanation.

RoedyG —Preceding undated comment added 14:16, 1 April 2012 (UTC).

Civilian casualties caused by the Taliban?

• Where is the page, subheading, or even a link on the civilian casualties caused by the Taliban? They dwarf those caused by ISAF. This is a serious imbalance in the coverage. Amdurbin (talk) 18:58, 9 July 2011 (UTC)

• What does one expect from the Taliban editors at Wikipedia? Also, previously reliable sources such as the Guardian UK, no longer tally those sorts of figures. As with much of the Main Stream Media - including Wikipedia, they are being willfully negligent, instead focusing on the civilian casualties, supposedly just the US' fault. Previously, the Guardian UK was reporting somewhere in the range of 30,000-40,000 Taliban killed during this war. Further, as is always the case, the truth does not long lie covered up. Look at what happened with AGW, where Wikipedia complied in covering up useful counter arguments. Try KeyWiki or Conservapedia for a break from the Taliban editors at Wikipedia. 10stone5 (talk) 04:44, 4 September 2012 (UTC)

Indirect Casualties

Does anyone have any information about the casualties resulting from the discontinuation of food shipments from Pakistan as per U.S. demand, as well as the withdrawal of aid organizations as a result of the bombing? United Nations reports in late 2001 suggested 7-8 million were at risk of immediate starvation.

Any estimates of the total casualties due to lack of food and medicine resulting from the bombing?—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 136.242.228.149 (talk • contribs).

Comments

this article is extremely POV, and unnecessary, it should be merged with a different article or deleted.

Whatever the true number of civilian casualties in Operation Enduring Freedom, it has been the least bloody war in modern Afghan history. For example, about 1.8 million people were killed during the Afghan Civil war and subsequent Soviet Invasion.

And that makes it right?

There are no civilians in Afghanistan, only targets. And if for one second, you don't believe that they'd slit your throat as soon as look at you, then you deserve what you get. They (the Afghans) sure don't deserve the mercy we've shown them.

-By somone that cares

I think the above statement is horrible, there are civilians in Afghanistan! You think the whole country is pro terrirosm? Sure, there are "bad guys" in Afghanistan, but for one minute, to beleive that there all "bad guys" is seriously wrong. Thats like for me to say "All Americans are Unliked, Rude and Mean". Sure, most of the world thinks that, but a country does not DEFINE you who are. Just where you live, and what taxes you pay. You cannot put all of Afghanistan into one or two groups nor any country for that matter. I know this isn't going to change one persons mind that is made up to believe that all Afghani people are targets. Beacause only you can change your mind.

I'm looking for estimates of civilian deaths for several conflicts related to Operation Enduring Freedom. To the person above, the Afghan civil war came after the Soviet invasion for which I can find a figure of 1.3 million civilian casualties. I recall reading that between 35,000 and 60,000 were killed in the civil war that occurred after the fall of the pro-Soviet government in 1992 but I am as yet unable to find a source for this. As for the comment, "Whatever the true number of civilian casualties in Operation Enduring Freedom, it has been the least bloody war in modern Afghan history", this is a non sequitur. The number of civilian casualties, once known, will be exactly the needed datum to determine the invasions bloodiness to date. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.101.243.67 (talk) 19:38, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

NPOV

What is this NPOV you speak of? There is no NPOV anywhere in Afghanistan! Hundreds of NPOVs are killing themselves in front of the gates of... oh wait, wrong war.

Seriously? I don't see why we need this article. Even we keep it, it should be heavily rewritten to not reek quite so much of "OMG THE EVIL EMPIRE!"

--Bringa 23:57, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

I agree, this article is very POV. -- §HurricaneERIC§^Damagesarchive 00:20, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

I agree as well. V7-sport (talk) 19:22, 15 April 2011 (UTC)

Clarification requested

Perhaps the article has been modified since the initial disputation was offered, so this may be an outdated or irrelevant comment and question. Yet if not, I must say that it is difficult to see how the text of the article can be interpreted as conveying a bias. As such, would the person who posted the original message please consider explaining the precise reasons for challenging the neutrality of the tone of the article? Many thanks in advance. :) *

Rob van Doorn 14:09, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

I renamed the artice, "neutralised" it to some extent by changing the wording, added many recent and past events and found sources to events that were already there. I think that those changes will satisify those who challenged the neutrality of the article. Maybe the neutrality flag can be taken down ? Hudicourt 13:17, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

Updates needed

This page appears so out of date as to be useless, with the last casualty listed in mid-2005. --Kickstart70·Talk 18:54, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

• At the moment people are editing again the article. In my opinion it is important to give accounts of the casualties at the Afghanistan War. About all casualties: Nato casualties, Afghan national army casualties, civilian casualties and also Taliban casualties, to give an impression of what war is bringing to a country. that this was is maybe less bloody than other wars, is not a reason to delete this article.

More research about 2004 and 2005 is needed.Rob van Doorn 14:10, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

I remove the update tag as it applies to the whole article, since the list does go up to 2007 now. I also took the 'please expand' tag off the talk of the article and moved it to the specific sections you mentioned. Sanguinalis 15:46, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

Proposed Deletion

It has been proposed that this article be deleted.

• Lack of sources
• POV during a current affair (the occupation isn't over)
• Inaccurate (there are large margins of estimated deaths.)

Also since it is technically impossible to gather all the names of those who died during the invasion, this article has been doomed from the start. Please discuss, Sfacets 04:05, 5 May 2006 (UTC)

Disagree on the POV thing. As stated in other comment there is no support of POV

Disagree on lack of sources, several mentions of interviewees, UN reports etc... Although obivously not all events are properly sourced

Disagree on inaccurate. Has anyone tried to calculate the number of deaths in the aftermath of a civilian bombing?

Agree for deletion as this is hardly encyclopedic material, it being current affair.

It is, though, highly interesting journalistic material and a resource for future scholar work on the issue.

Could the initiator of this very good article create it on his own -or hosting- site and organise for it to be referenced from appropriate part of the encyclopedia?Jlpicker 00:27, 11 May 2006 (UTC)

Is it my imagination (or hasty counting perhaps) but the discussion for the proposed deletion features more 'deletes' than 'keeps' - can anyone confirm or negate this? Sfacets 04:37, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

Haven't counted, but you may well be right. However, as polls are evil, it's not the number but the reasons that count. Are you the person who tried to sneak a deletion through on Prod? JackyR | Talk 12:49, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

Nope, wasn't me.. Yes, polls are evil. Oh well, democracy lives on :) Sfacets 19:11, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

Articles in the same vein

I don't see why "we need" lots of articles on WP, but someone seems to want them. :-) Seriously, articles such as Charities accused of ties to terrorism have been supported: this should be too. Putting it in context, does it now seem encyclopedic to have an article on, say, the Baedeker raids. Yes. So this article is also OK. Tho it does need to be cleaned up and properly referenced. And perhaps moved to Civilian casualties of Operation Enduring Freedom, or similar. JackyR 02:40, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

Sorry, I should be clearer: I don't think this article can ever be a straightforward casualty list - too long, and how would it be compiled? But it's a perfectly decent article in its current format of descriptions of major incidents with civilian casualties. And will be a damn sight better with refs. JackyR 02:45, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

The article is wholly an attempt at an anti-American attack. Where's the companion article, List of coalition casualties in Afghanistan? User:Zoe|^(talk) 17:20, 11 May 2006 (UTC)

At Coalition casualties in Afghanistan. I think the latter is better named, don't you? JackyR 18:09, 11 May 2006 (UTC)

And just like this one, that one is totally unsourced. User:Zoe|^(talk) 18:50, 11 May 2006 (UTC)

In what sense? There are three sources under "External links", one being the US Defence Department. If you prefer to add sentence-by-sentence citations, I'm sure these will provide all you need.

I would applaud your hard work if you were to do this, but with an article of less than a page it hardly seems worth it. The article which really needs citing, however, is the parent to both of these: United States invasion of Afghanistan. This has only sporadic citations, and as a contemporary, highly political event, deserves and is capable of being well-referenced. JackyR 19:13, 11 May 2006 (UTC)

Re-naming

The AfD has ended with a recommendation that this article be renamed. I'd propose Civilian casualties of the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan. The rest of the series is named Coalition Casualties in Afghanistan (not v specific given the number of wars fought in Afg) and U.S. invasion of Afghanistan. If the parent article's name changes (as discussed there), we can shift this one to follow, but we shouldn't hold off re-naming this one as the other has no timescale. Comments? JackyR 17:13, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

The parent articles name has changed...I propose changing the name of this article to Civilian casualties of the U.S. war in Afghanistan. --Northmeister 03:10, 3 June 2006 (UTC)

Nice fix to the link. I'd let this article's title sit a few weeks, in case the name change at the parent doesn't take... *sigh* JackyR | Talk 13:25, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

Why even call it "US invasion of Afghanistan" when numerous free world armies are involved in the fight against Taliban terrorists?

I think calling a US invasion is way too POV. It was actually a US-backed Northern Alliance takeover, supported by a Coalition of several countries, later mandated by the UN, and finally supported by a 40-nation NATO force under UN mandate (currently at 47,000 troops-ISAF, April, 2008). If everyone is arguing for national inclusion on the main War page, it is POV to call it only a US war. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.205.28.104 (talk) 23:05, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

Point of article

Is the main point of having this article to advance the viewpoint that because of the US invasion civilian noncombatants are being killed and therefore the US (1) is to blame for these deaths and (2) should never have invaded and/or should leave as soon as possible?

This is similar to arguments made decades ago about the Vietnam War and more recently about the Iraq War.

I'd like to see some balance to this view. Has anyone written anything that blames the anti-democracy forces (insurgents or terrorists) for (3) causing civilian deaths themselves or (4) hiding amongst noncombatants (see Human shield article) so that raids against terrorists cause collateral damage? --Uncle Ed 19:12, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

This article is not advancing any arguments: you brought them to the party yourself. In fact, as a good WP article it's not pushing a viewpoint: it's attempting to record (v approximately) civilian deaths. This is one of the common metrics of any conflict, along with combatant deaths, tons of explosive dropped, duration, etc (see World War II#Casualties, civilian impact, and atrocities, World War I casualties, Vietnam War#Casualties, Second Boer War...)

In fact, civilian casualties are important not just as a blunt measure, but because

1. continuing casualties during an occupation by foreign troops tend to have a serious impact on future relations with those troops/occupying powers (for the difficulties when troops are not even occupiers, or not even foreign, consider US bases in Okinawa, UK bases in Cyprus, UK troops in Northern Ireland, etc).
2. the types of incident leading to civilian casualties are significant for history of warfare (eg growth of aerial bombing, use of suicide bombings, poison gas, starvation tactics, etc. These have all been used at different times, and led to such tactics as the British evacuation of children to the countryside during WWII, development of concentration camps during the Second Boer War.)

Re "balance", I don't understand why you think this individual article ought to be "balanced" in isolation. It is not political analysis: it is an article documenting a specific aspect of the conflict (spun off from U.S. Invasion of Afghanistan). It is supposed to be one-sided/single topic, and read together with the parent and sibling articles. It needs to be so detailed because there is, AFAIK, no official figure of civilian deaths in this conflict. Specifically according to the article, the Herrold tally is not undisputed. It is therefore important to include citations for each major incident.

And I would remind you that the parent article is blatantly not balanced: it is the story from the POV of the invasion forces. And there is no article at all on Taliban combatant deaths. This probably reflects the demographics of contributors to en.wiki. In fact, despite NPOV, Wikipedia as a whole has no remit to be "balanced": if it had, thousands of, say, Ameri-centric articles would have to be deleted on the grounds that "we can't have articles about American game shows unless we have a proportionate number about Korean game shows to balance them." (See WP:CSB for an attempt tackle these issues by addition, not deletion.)

Because of (2) above, I would normally encourage you to go ahead and research the relationship between military tactics and civilian deaths in this particular conflict. But as you have stated that you have a political agenda and would like to blame someone (and presumably exculpate someone else), rather than write an NPOV account, I suggest you leave it to someone else. JackyR | Talk 17:09, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

Content problem

I realize I am using a word we don't like here, but without 'some' sort of citation, some of these items are way, way too close to bold-faced lies, cheap propaganda, and even slander - accusations of 'bodies tied and shot in the back'; I might as well go in there and change all the "civilian" to "Taliban fighters"; they really don't dress any different.Bridesmill 14:19, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, the citations need doing. I do bits sporadically, and may get there eventually. Why not try looking up the particular incidents you're talking about (and adding cites for other incidents you come across while doing so)? I found that there were often two or three different reports for each incident - you know, emerging story over several days. It'll improve the article. That way, we're not making any judgement ourselves, but simply citing "The Times" said, civilians were killed. JackyR | Talk 20:24, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

A number of factors. In the last Item, for instance, there are hardly any credible western sources, even ones that love to take digs at the US military - the first 3 pages of google hits all seem to be minor non-western media citing the same Taliban bunch, and the article is hardly carried by western media. If the best we can cite is 'taliban-r-us.com, is that good enough? Some of these are going to be hard to dig up, and if that is the case, do they belong here? I would suggest to avoid controversy, if someone is going to put something in, PLEASE put a ref in with it: you no doubt read it somewhere (I hope), so why note cite right away rather than have people question you or have to do the work for you. (Please?)Bridesmill 01:43, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

By the same token I wouldn't get too picky if the story has minor variations from the first Googled source you found - check a few more. Like I said, a lot of this stuff was breaking news, and by no means covered in the detail that you'd get in countries where cameras cluster when a celebrity farts. And be careful with stuff like that "US weren't targetting villagers" summary: this isn't about what armed forces meant to do, it's about what they actually happened. So a phrase like "rockets were fired into" is more neutral and verifiable that than "rockets were targetted at". JackyR | Talk 09:57, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

Absolutely; but when we cant decide on whether a very specific document was found on a car or a truck in the same sentence, this is indicative of manipulated information & embellishment. A certain amount of variance is acceptable; indeed, I prefer it becasue when all the sources are verbatim the same, that tends to indicate that really there was only one source which has been widely distributed. My point on targeting, is that we need to avoid terms which imply that pilots specifically went in and said "hey, innocent villagers, lets target them"; which is how that last piece could easily be read. While I have no qualms writing based on reasonably credible sources that villagers died in an attack, or if weak sources that villagers are claimed to have died in an attack, I would want to see some very, very serious sources (and not Taliban ones) before I would write "pilots targeted vilagers' into an article without qualifiers. Bridesmill 14:38, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

Sorry about rubbish typing above - hope you deciphered what I meant, not what I wrote (!). Um, I wouldn't consider "car" / "truck" to be necesarily contradictory when you factor in poor translation. I'd be as likely to sound like that in French, in which I speak some but am not fluent ("Quick, what's the word for something bigger than a Renault Megane and smaller than an HGV?" ).

I'm just saying, record what the sources record, and attribute so we can all decide plausibility for ourselves. In fact, if one source has been making inflated claims, that and the use of propaganda are issues in themselves. Remember how exaggerated stories of German atrocities in Belgium were used to create appetite for WWI in Britain? JackyR | Talk 18:08, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

Agree; but the source has to be at least marginally WP:V; and when material is uncited, and the only online the only sources are far from WP:V I start to question it as 'WP editor propaganda'; I accept your argument on translation, but when the juicy details are perfectly rendered while the contextual details are confused - that's pretty strong indicator from a fact-checking perspective that this is bogus, and doubly needs 'some sort' of cite. All that to say my margin for acceptability is pretty generous on this page; but there has to be some margin.Bridesmill 18:26, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

Removed from Article

I removed the following event:

1. October 7, 2006 - The Pakistani news agency AIP reported that two German journalists were found murdered in a tent around 150 kilometres south of the northern provincial capital Baghlan. This was confirmed by the ISAF confirmed. The two -a man and a woman - had been working 'in connection with ISAF' until 4 October 2006, when they went travelling on their own.[14]

All the other events listed here were about civilians killed as a result of Coalition forces' actions. This one does not seem to fit in since I have not seen who is responsible for their death. If it does, we should also add all the civilians killed by bombs and other events not caused by the coalition.

Hudicourt 15:37, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

The events listed on this page have been civilian deaths caused by coalition troops in Afghanistan. However, more civilians are now killed by insurgents or by the Afghan government troops. I think this article should be expanded to include those death also.

Hudicourt 15:37, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

Yup, certainly. JackyR | Talk 18:40, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

References

Dates of Herold's reports

I've shoved in a date of June 2003 for the report that gave the figure of ~3,600 dead. This is the date of the last incident in the table in Herold's report headed "Version: Oct 16, 2003. Appendix 4. Daily Casualty Count of Afghan Civilians Killed by U.S Bombing and Special Forces Attacks, October 7 until present day"[1]. By all means correct/refine this if I've misread anything (I only skimmed it). Cheers, JackyR | Talk 18:40, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

- You shouldn't be citing Herold at all. Herold doesn't exactly hold a Neutral POV in this - reading his own work on his own site it's pretty clear that he has a strong anti-war and anti-US involvement bias. From reading the justifications above for this page to even exist, it's supposed to exist because of the need to present some kind of data on casualties because no official estimates exist, not to present data on casualties to make a political point against US involvement in Afghanistan. However Herold quite clearly uses his "data" to try to make exactly that argument, which makes him a poor choice for sourcing reliable and quantifiable data from. Considering the lack of credible and official information in terms of casualties and other activities that I've seen from his site (including incorrectly citing images of Contractors as US Special Forces personnel), I wouldn't go near Herold with a 10 foot cattle-prod if I wanted to be seen as presenting credible data. You go ahead and source from him if you want... call me cynical, but I tend to find that data presenting by anyone with an agenda tends to be inherently tainted to reinforce that agenda. Strongly recommend you re-think that citation. 203.59.139.58 (talk) 06:58, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

civilian VS taliban deaths

It seems to me that whenever NATO claims to have killed a group of taliban fighters, the taliban often issue a counter claim saying the victims were mostly civilian. Could we not include a sentence in the opening paragraph that says it is hard to distinguish in some case if casualties are indeed civilian or not due to the nature of the conflict (taliban fighting in civilian clothing and hiding in villages)? Daft, 16 May 2007; 17:30

One of the things that needs to be done in this article, is for each incident in which civilian casualties are reported, indicate who is saying that civilians are killed. None of the news stories I looked at use the Taliban as a source. Instead the source is usally a local government official (typically a provincial governor), though in some cases reporters have spoken with villagers themselves. In cases where US or NATO spokespeople deny that civilians were killed, we should mention that too. Typically they neither confirm nor deny. Sanguinalis 15:35, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

Yearly totals

This article appears to be a list of incidents in which civilians were killed by coalition troops, and yet many of the figures included in the Total casualties sections (especially for the years 2005 onward) include civilians killed by militants, and some of the sources just count "people killed" without classifying them as civilians, militants, or security forces. Sanguinalis (talk) 20:53, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

Seriously unbalanced article

Whilst media reporting would inevitably focus on coalition caused casualties. And areas where the Taliban have killed and the western media is not present, that gets unreported, this article lacks known incidents of Taliban caused casualties. The summary of Taliban/insurgent caused deaths is just three sentences. I suspect there is also in some cases a selective focusing on the coalition and ignoring the Taliban caused deaths by some against the war. Chwyatt (talk) 09:00, 13 November 2008 (UTC)

You suggest under-reporting in areas where the Taliban have killed and the western media is not present - That would apply just as much to areas where the coalition military forces have killed and the western media is not present. Unfortunately, the overall number of civilians that are being killed by this war is almost certainly under-reported.

And actually, media reporting for the most part relies on numbers provided by Western military and Afghan government officials. And, the Western militaries have repeatedly shown a predilection for under-reporting civilian casualties caused by their actions when they can get away with it. In case after case, they have automatically denied civilian casualties, only to later admit to them after being confronted by the Afghan government or incontrovertible video/photographic evidence. Just last month, the new US military command in Afghanistan acknowledged as much and told the press that they were taking corrective measures to be a little more forthcoming in admitting responsibility for civilian casualties.

The Wikipedia NPOV page states:

"... when dealing with a controversial issue, various legitimate sources can be cited in the article. Historians commonly cite many sources in books because there are and will always be disputes over history. Contributors on Wikipedia can do the same thing, thus giving readers a broad spectrum of POVs and opinions."

If you honestly feel that insurgent-caused deaths are not given enough focus, you should just add reports from legitimate sources to the article. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.69.228.238 (talk) 20:58, 15 November 2008 (UTC)

“…various legitimate sources can be cited.” The problem is legitimate sources only highlighting one cause (western forces) of casualties and not another (the Taliban). Selective use of even legitimate sources can also constitute a lack of neutrality. I also don’t think the onus is on me to rectify this, but on the regular contributors to this particular article.

I don’t believe there is under-reporting in casualties in the western media, but rather a lack of confirmation or comment by the western militaries. And don’t forget that the US is not the only nation in A’stan. There are wide differences in embedding and reporting policies within ISAF and its contributing nations. Chwyatt (talk) 08:36, 18 November 2008 (UTC)

"The problem is legitimate sources only highlighting one cause (western forces) of casualties and not another (the Taliban)."

Well, Wikipedia is altogether based on citing legitimate sources so since your complaint is with what legitimate sources are reporting, there's not much other Wikipedia editors can do about that.

"... but rather a lack of confirmation or comment by the western militaries."

Again, since your complaint is with the lack of openness of western militaries, there's not much other Wikipedia editors can do about that.

Those two very telling comments suggest that the problem is not article neutrality but that the article does not conform enough to your personal point of view.

"I also don’t think the onus is on me to rectify this"

The one that invokes the NPOV tag does actually have an onus to work to improve the article. The NPOV tag, to be used only as a last resort, is a temporary measure, and should be followed up by actual contributions to the article. Your sole contribution to the article has been to add the tag. 76.68.249.57 (talk) 03:42, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

Cite tag on totals

The cite tags on the range totals should be cleared as these are just simple additions of a handful of well-cited figures (published by independent organizations - news, international, aid, academic), and are WP:NOR#Routine_calculations which states "This policy does not forbid routine calculations, such as adding numbers, converting units, or calculating a person's age, provided editors agree that the arithmetic and its application correctly reflect the information published by the sources from which it is derived." There are only a very small handful of citable independent sources compiling and publishing civilian casualty estimates for the conflict. All this means the range information highly verifiable by editors and readers. 70.49.121.137 (talk) 17:10, 27 July 2009 (UTC)

I don't agree - I've seen various estimates of total casualties published in the media, so there doesn't seem to be any need to make our own estimates. This is especially the case as the base figures which we'd be adding up are uncertain given that this article has been targeted by User:Top Gun and their socks, who regularly added in figures they'd sourced from random news reports. Nick-D (talk) 10:43, 28 July 2009 (UTC)

Hi Nick,

You wrote: "I've seen various estimates of total casualties published in the media"

For my part, I haven't seen independent published estimates of total casualties other than the ones that have already been included in this article. If you've come across other totals - published by independent bodies - why not provide links to them here in this discussion so that we can consider them and take them into account? I personally have not come across sources that state the total number of civilians that have been killed in the war between 2001 and now 2008/2009. All the estimates I've seen are for individual years only, or less, and, in one or two cases, for at most a couple of years. And these are all in the article.

You wrote: "so there doesn't seem to be any need to make our own estimates."

I don't agree that this is in any way "making our own estimates" - This article gathers and presents for the reader the handful of available published estimates made by independent bodies, and simply adds these few numbers to provide a view of their range. This is WP:NOR#Routine_calculations.

You wrote: "This is especially the case as the base figures which we'd be adding up are uncertain"

No, they're not uncertain. If you take the time to check against the cited sources, the base figures used on this page are all actual published figures from recognized quality sources.

You wrote: "given that this article has been targeted by User:Top Gun and their socks"

I'm familiar with his socks. It is true that in the past he has on occasion made a few minor edits on this page, but I wouldn't characterize it as targetting. There are other pages where he is active and pretty much the sole editor. On this page, I've been the active editor and contributor. Looking at the history, his last edit here was on February 20, almost 6 months ago, and I cleaned up a little after it.

You wrote: "who regularly added in figures they'd sourced from random news reports."

I'm entirely on your side on that part about him. You're right that he regularly adds in figures from random news reports. But that is not at all what is happening in this article. There is no editor on this page adding up casualty counts from hundreds of individual incident reports like he is doing right now in other articles. The addition in this article is only of a small handful of published estimates by independent bodies that are also shown to the reader - it is highly transparent and verifiable. With all due respect, if your concern is with what he is doing, why aren't you turning your attention instead to his many edits that are continuing unabated right now on those other pages? However, please, please don't throw out the baby with the bath water, or even, it seems, instead of the bath water.

Sincerely 74.12.223.35 (talk) 07:10, 1 August 2009 (UTC)

(I can't believe I missed this discussion the first time through.) As 70.49.121.137 pointed out, Wikipedia policy on original research allows routine arithmetic. Since each and every number being added is cited, there is no need to cite the total. We could copy the numerous citations for the figures going into the total, but IMHO it's more transparent to leave them uncited. A request for citation is a prelude to removal of information, and in this case removing the totals makes no sense at all. Thundermaker (talk) 10:41, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

Given that there's no way of knowing if the casualty totals in this article are comprehensive or don't contain double-counting, adding them produces highly unreliable numbers. Nick-D (talk) 10:53, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

There is no absolute way of knowing that the researchers did not make a mistake. That is why we cite the research reports directly, so readers will be able to evaluate the reliability of the conclusions based on their origin. Because the cited results are separated by year, the only way double-counting could occur is if a researcher made a mistake. This is a possibility, but it does not make the totals "highly unreliable". They are the best numbers we have, for now. Thundermaker (talk) 15:03, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

It seems that the consensus so far is that 3 editors (assuming 70.49.121.137 and 74.12.223.35 are two different people, I know for a fact neither one of them is me) think the totals should stay, and Nick-D thinks they should be deleted. Nick, you are the minority here, would you care to escalate this issue via WP:RfC or another mechanism? If not, I think we should go ahead and re-delete the cite tags. Thundermaker (talk) 15:03, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

I added the following comment to a new section without knowing the above discussion had already taken place. I've deleted the section I created and have pasted my original comments here, along with the reply from Thundermaker:

Just wondering why there are various "citation needed" superscripts accompanying the aggregate data in the bottom row of the Aggregation of Estimates table. As far as I can tell, these totals have been arrived at by adding together the numbers in the above rows. The totals are expressed in terms of ranges, because the cited data (in above rows) is also expressed in ranges. The lower figure in the bottom rows is the aggregate of all the smallest cited numbers; the higher figure is the aggregate of all the largest cited numbers. As all these numbers are estimates based on some cited documentary evidence, they are likely to be much lower than actual numbers of people killed - so the aggregate ranges in the bottom row are probably conservative ranges. My substantive point is that there *is* no reference for these bottom row figures, apart from the cited yearly estimates contained in the above rows. Can we get rid of the "citation needed" superscripts? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 114.76.100.243 (talk) 03:03, 2 October 2009 (UTC)

This has been discussed in the #Cite tag on totals section above. To summarize, there is one strong objector to removing the tags, who hasn't responded lately. I object equally strongly to the threat of information removal implied by the cite tag. I'm going to go ahead and remove them yet again. Thundermaker (talk) 17:11, 2 October 2009 (UTC)

I've added an explanatory "note" to the "Totals" row, as a reference. I realise the explanatory note should probably be placed closer to the actual table (i.e., just below it), for example:

  TOTALS*
  *[explanatory text]

Unfortunately I don't have the technical knowledge to be able to achieve this result. Can somebody do this if they know how to (and if they agree with what I've done, and written)? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 114.76.100.243 (talk) 00:59, 3 October 2009 (UTC)

Pro-war propaganda

That's what this article is.

First of all, it restricts the information to civilians only. Obviously not stating clearly what "civilian" means. What is the daytime farmer and nightime insurgent ? Nobody knows. Is a paramilitary a civilian or not ? Who knows ? The article can avoid mentioning anybody under the slightest suspicion of insurgency.

Bombed some houses, killed some people ? "All were insurgents. Trust us."

I don't get the restriction to civilians only. The armed people aren't human beings ? (Off topic: The US doesn't like what they are doing ? I'll tell you what are they doing. Defending their country against foreign invaders.)

But the most dishonest thing about this article is that it conceals the big picture. There is lots of data in the article (not information, just data). After reading the article, can anybody answer a very simple question: "how many people died in Afghanistan ?" Nobody can, the relevant numbers are concealed behind a puzzle of lots of unsignificanly small numbers.

I suggest the deletion of the article, Wikipedia is supposed to offer information, not war propaganda. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Srelu (talk • contribs) 08:17, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

I changed the heading of this section from "War propaganda" to "Pro-war propaganda" in order to make it a little clearer.

Most if not all of the independent sources publishing estimates on the number of civilians killed state that their estimates are likely to be underestimates. The number of Afghan civilians being killed is therefore most likely under-reported, and it is also true that no one seems to be tracking the total number of Afghans killed by this 8-year war. These are all the more reasons for the existence of this page: It gathers and documents in one place all the available published independent estimates on civilian deaths - this informs and helps the reader obtain an idea of at least the minimum number of Afghan civilians that have been killed by the war.

76.65.182.185 (talk) 04:10, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

Troops fire on crowd in Afghanistan

Major casualties and accidental strikes by coalition forces

• 2010

• January 15, 2010 - At least five Afghan civilians were wounded when a combined force of Afghan troops and US Marines opened fire on a crowd at the gate to a military base in Helmand, Afghanistan's most volatile province, Nato said today.The incident, which took place on Wednesday but was not reported until Friday, was the second demonstration to turn violent in two days in Helmand's Garmsir district, suggesting mounting civil unrest in a part of the country where US Marines under Nato command made major advances last year.

Please add above information in the article.As edit button is removed and my user is blocked and wikipedia close all my ways for edit in any article.So can you please add above information in the article.I have really thankfull to you if you add above information in the article. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 119.152.86.242 (talk) 19:37, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

References

NATO forces kill Afghan civilian, US soldier killed in clash

• Major casualties and accidental strikes by coalition forces

• 2010

• January 17, 2010 - NATO forces in southern Afghanistan killed one civilian on Sunday after he approached their convoy in a vehicle, while a US soldier was killed in a clash with suspected Taliban in the eastern region, the military said.The incident happened when the civilian vehicle approached the convoy in Garmsir district in Helmand province Sunday morning, the alliance said in a statement."The vehicle had no headlights, and was travelling at a high rate of speed at the time of the incident," it said. "After firing three to five rounds into the grill of the vehicle, it stopped. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 119.152.84.29 (talk) 12:09, 17 January 2010 (UTC)

No international protests against civilian casualties caused by Taliban

(Erasing what I said before) I just noticed that the claim is that there are no international protests against the Taliban. Considering that democratic governments routinely condemn the Taliban and their tactics, I don't think this fact is notable. People don't need to take to the streets to repeat what their leaders have already said. There has been at least one anti-Taliban protest in Afghanistan itself. Thundermaker (talk) 16:45, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

"People don't need to take to the streets to repeat what their leaders have already said" Why not, maybe they should if they really care about civilian deaths in A’stan. Having seen so many protests myself, and heard the protests against ‘bombing of Afghanistan’ or ‘children killed by Americans/British’, these protests clearly are unbalanced. It is very noticeable that, like this article often is, the protests lack balance, demonstrate anti-western bias. Chwyatt (talk) 16:56, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

Assuming the purpose of a protest is to draw attention to an issue, the fact that western leaders already condemn the Taliban means no attention needs to be drawn. Yes the protests are unbalanced, and the question of why they are unbalanced is an interesting one. Wikipedia is not a forum for exploring it, though. If notable politicians or political scientists have stated theories on the issue, they could be included in the article. Thundermaker (talk) 17:46, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

It is also bad for democracy, in my opinion, if we rely on politicians to speak for us, all the time, on issues we might feel strongly about and say “our leaders have spoken, so I don’t need to”. Especially in an age where politicians are increasingly seen as not being representative of the people.

Anyway, there has been protests against terrorism in western democracies before. They have occurred in Northern Ireland, and in Spain, including after Madrid. So there is precedent of acts of violence against civilians, condemned by politicians, but still drawing out public protest. And we now seem to agree that there is a lack of balance in the protests and that is notable (interesting). Wikipedia is a medium for discussing these things, with proper citations. If I added my views on why there is a bias in protests, I would need to back it up with citations. But I have just added that single sentence that is factually correct. Chwyatt (talk) 07:43, 9 April 2010 (UTC)

Wikipedia is not a medium for discussion - its an encyclopedia. I've just reverted you. From your above posts it would appear that you wish to use Wikipedia to push your personal views - please don't. Nick-D (talk) 09:36, 9 April 2010 (UTC)

Chwyatt, when I said the lack of balance was interesting, I was referring to protests within Afghanistan (one anti-Taliban vs. multiple anti-foreign). It is rational to have local protests against local insurgents because it is an attempt to influence them and their supporters, and some expert somewhere might have said something about it, which could be included here. The imbalance itself is already covered in Civilian_casualties_of_the_War_in_Afghanistan_(2001–present)#Civilian_casualties_by_insurgent_forces. The protests in Northern Ireland and Spain were against local insurgents (IRA and ETA), right?

The comment which you keep inserting is not true with respect to local protests, only foreign ones. And no expert is going to talk about it, because such protests would not be rational. If little Timmy falls into the well and the mayor does nothing, I might stand outside his office with a sign saying "Save Timmy". But if the mayor sends all available rescue workers and even calls some other towns to get help, my protest would have no point. It would be irrational, like the hypothetical anti-Taliban protests outside of Afghanistan. That's why I say the statement is not notable. And we all seem to agree it is not verifiable. To be in Wikipedia, it would have to be both. Thundermaker (talk) 12:02, 9 April 2010 (UTC)

The section it was in was on international protest, and international protest has clearly been one-sided. And whilst protests in N Ireland were local, the Madrid one was more international. Your analogy doesn’t really work, because people are taking a moral stance against civilian deaths, but only condemning one side and ignoring the other.

I see what is really going on, its about making sure wikipedia keeps its bias. Just like when references to Taliban killings either don’t get added or get deleted. So be it. Lets keep the bias in the article then. Chwyatt (talk) 13:43, 9 April 2010 (UTC)

POV tag

POV is disputed. There are a lot of value-laden adjectives and markings. I.e., "at least" is put in italics. Contention that "most" casualties are caused by non-Afghans is unverified or referrenced -- Srich32977's log comment

The phrase "at least" is present because sources of this data which we consider reliable are conservative and tend not to present an upper bound, which would be assuming that they are aware of all casualties. I have no idea why it is in italics in one place. "most of the direct civilian deaths were the result of U.S.-led airstrikes and groundfire" does appear to be unreferenced and should probably be removed. Remove the italics, remove that statement, and you're satisfied? Or are there more POV issues? Anyone? Thundermaker (talk) 19:17, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

Tagger seems to have disengaged but the article is almost pov by neglect if that is even possible. There are so many incidents which have not been included here so I am leaving the tag on for that reason. Mr.Grantevans2 (talk) 12:18, 9 March 2011 (UTC)

Why So Confusing and Complex with Scientific Language?

At the start of this article there should be a running total based upon reputable sources of the number of dead killed by Coalition Forces in Afghanistan. I understand that there will be disagreements as to the methodology and the exact number. But this article reads as obfuscation. Especially when day after day we are updated with the exact number of Canadian, and American Soldiers killed, wounded etc...I want know, generally, what those closest to this situation think is the number of people killed by Coalition forces in afghanistan. At least I want to know what the range of estimates are. ``

What sources to you propose to use to support this running total? Adding up numbers from press reports is unsatisfactory as not all casualties are reported in the media and doing so would violate Wikipedia's rules against original research. Nick-D (talk) 23:29, 25 April 2010 (UTC)

Edit request from Readknowwrite, 26 June 2010

{{editsemiprotected}}

Please add Casualty Monitor as an external link. http://www.casualty-monitor.org/search/label/Afghan%20Casualties

Thank you.

Readknowwrite (talk) 20:17, 26 June 2010 (UTC)

Done Given that this site is already an external link in related articles (Coalition casualties in Afghanistan, British Forces casualties in Afghanistan since 2001) I've assumed there's an implied consenseus for its inclusion, though I have not evaluated it myself. Adrian J. Hunter^{(talk•contribs)} 06:29, 27 June 2010 (UTC)

Afghan protestation of civilian deaths caused by international forces

: Its funny how the protests of civilian deaths seemed to stop after Obama took office, or was it ok to kill civlians after Obama
took office?  This article is nothing but left-wing drivel.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.217.47.73 (talk) 18:53, 11 December 2010 (UTC) 

Tags and article issues

I don’t understand how an article titled Civilian casualties of the War in Afghanistan (2001–present) can be considered anything other than a one sided hit piece if it focuses exclusively on NATO caused casualties. I am adding several tags until this is cleared up. ZippoHurlihee (talk) 22:05, 22 February 2011 (UTC)

It only seems that way because because someone changed the title to the article along the way. It used to be called "Casualties of the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan" and at that time focused solely on Coalition caused civilian casualties. The Taliban IEDs and suicide bombings had not begun in earnest at the time Hudicourt (talk) 22:16, 22 February 2011 (UTC)

I'm not seeing a page move like that in the logs. ZippoHurlihee (talk) 22:20, 22 February 2011 (UTC)

I cant' explain why the move does not show in the logs, but I have been involved in this page for years and remember it. Look on the paragraph called "Re-naming" above when renaming this article was discussed.Hudicourt (talk) 22:30, 22 February 2011 (UTC)

That is the topic of this article. Please note that we have other article that focus on the other side. Coalition casualties in Afghanistan, United States Forces casualties in the war in Afghanistan, Canadian Forces casualties in Afghanistan, German Armed Forces casualties in Afghanistan, British Forces casualties in Afghanistan since 2001... and more. I remove a few of the tags that you have added and it would be helpful if you could tell us what is exactly wrong so that we can fix it instead of unnecessarily slamming tons of tags onto it. IQinn (talk) 22:22, 22 February 2011 (UTC)

Actually, you removed all the tags, not just a few of them. The article seems to focus almost solely on civilian casualties caused by NATO force and provides little, if any, comparable detailed information on civilian casualties caused by Taliban and AQ forces. This would seem to be a problem. ZippoHurlihee (talk) 22:31, 22 February 2011 (UTC)

That's what you mean. I replaced the tags with POV. This seems not to be the case. You are welcome to add additional sources and information if you have. IQinn

The task seems rather large for just one person. ZippoHurlihee (talk) 22:54, 22 February 2011 (UTC)

(talk) 22:45, 22 February 2011 (UTC) I just told you, until the summer of 2006, thats solely what the article was about. If you look above, I even removed an incident where the deaths had been caused by the Taliban, because thats not what this article was about. Later, some people decided to include Taliban caused civilian casualties and began to include them. If an article was called "Nazi atrocities of WW-II" and after 3 years someone decided to change the title to "Atrocities of WW_II", it would be normal for it to take some time before editing made the article become more balanced.Hudicourt (talk) 22:43, 22 February 2011 (UTC)

That would explain the article focus pre 2006, but how does it explain the continued focus? ZippoHurlihee (talk) 22:51, 22 February 2011 (UTC)

Its explained by newcomers to Wikipedia like yourself who made zero effort to improve this article, other than to tag it to suit your ideology. Your tag was removed twice and twice you replaced it. I notice that you've already been tagged for Edit war. Why am I not surprised. Hudicourt (talk) 02:32, 23 February 2011 (UTC)

Re-naming this article to reflect its content

This article was originally about the civilian casualties caused by ISAF and US Forces. The title has always been a bit misleading. Someone recently tagged this article as un-balanced as a result. Instead of going through the huge task of adding the hundreds of incidents during which the Insurgents killed civilians, I propose that we rename this article to better reflect what it is now, in its current form, which would allow the removal of the unbalanced tag. The civilians killed by the Insurgents can have their own article. Comments ?Hudicourt (talk) 03:28, 23 February 2011 (UTC)

Good idea. The article name is misleading. Shouldn't the current info be consolidated somehow? The article is getting too long and we have years to go. Richrakh (talk) 05:49, 24 February 2011 (UTC)

I agree 100%. Please do it right away. Mr.Grantevans2 (talk) 12:21, 9 March 2011 (UTC)

I'll do it myself since this article is unattended. Mr.Grantevans2 (talk) 12:24, 9 March 2011 (UTC)

More work needs to be done to get the article back to the exclusive focus that Hudicourt references above. Mr.Grantevans2 (talk) 12:37, 9 March 2011 (UTC)

This renaming and suggested "exclusive focus" was wrong and was done for the wrong reasons. Just because someone alleged in the section above that there was not enough coverage of one side of the topic, the solution was to rename the article and completely remove that side of the topic from Wikipedia? So if someone accuses Wikipedia of being too American-centric, we should just rename Wikipedia to Americapedia and remove all non American-centric articles to obtain an "exclusive focus", and say problem solved?

This renaming clearly constituted a POV fork (WP:CONTENTFORK/WP:POVFORK: "A point of view (POV) fork is a content fork deliberately created to avoid neutral point of view guidelines, often to avoid or highlight negative or positive viewpoints or facts. All POV forks are undesirable on Wikipedia").

This is a major war - the longest U.S. war ever. (also the longest for Afghanistan and so many other countries), and the biggest and most expensive war in a generation. There needs to be a Wikipedia article "Civilian casualties in the War in Afghanistan (2001-present)" that covers this important topic. That's what this article had been before this ill-conceived renaming to its current misleading title. The title needs to be changed back and content restored. Formats (talk) 21:36, 10 September 2011 (UTC)

Whats up?

Why are people restoring content cited by WP:SPS, particularly where people are named per WP:BLP. Do I have to take this to WP:BLPN? If you think its good content, despite being added by a disruptive sock puppeteer, then source it properly. And knowing the guy that did it, check any source he names as the guy included cites that had no relation to the content. Wee Curry Monster talk 00:32, 19 March 2011 (UTC)

You keep removing valid content. Why do you call the New York Times article SPS. It perfectly verifies the information and more RS can easily be found. If there are problems with valid information than we prefer to fix them instead of removal. IQinn (talk) 01:47, 19 March 2011 (UTC)

As I have already explained to you, the editor responsible was the sock puppet of a disruptived editor who named sources that did not support content. Just because he named the NYT didn't make it a reliable cite for the claim made; he falsified his cites. And as I explained to you already I had a huge clean up task to do and in clearing up the mess left behind making a mistake is forgivable. But recognition of an error wasn't helped with two editors continuing to revert content with snarky remarks, or as you have just done responding to my attempt to engage in talk in between reverts but only after the issue was resolved on your talk page. And I have already pointed out that I had mistaken Monstersandcritics.com for an SPS and not the NY Times. And I really, really don't understand why you chose to bring up a now stale issue again after it had been resolved. I would suggest there is more productive uses for your time and mine so I do not intend to respond further. Wee Curry Monster talk 02:12, 19 March 2011 (UTC)

I engaged with you on my talk page and i do not think that there were snarky remarks. Good that the issue is now settled as i personally think that this is valid information that should stay in the article. IQinn (talk) 02:54, 19 March 2011 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Paulioetc and he is back again. I reverted his edit, it appears on a superficial examination to be cited but it seems to me to be referring to incidents you already have in the article, so its duplication and in addition the cite doesn't support the edit made. If you plan on restoring it, please rewrite it first. Wee Curry Monster talk 09:56, 24 March 2011 (UTC)

Photos.

The photos in this article are from rawa.org "Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan" which is a wholly unreliable source.V7-sport (talk) 19:28, 15 April 2011 (UTC)

I do not agree they are an unreliable source. I read that website very frequently to have an Afghan point of view. In any case, they mostly reprint news articles from other news sources, which they alway provide. As a source, one can always reference the original source of the news, if you want to double check anything. Are you claiming the pictures are fake ?Hudicourt (talk) 04:55, 16 April 2011 (UTC)

civilian casualty data release

Shouldn't this article be revised in light of the public release of civilian casualty data by ISAF, the UN, and others? It's all available here:

http://www.sciencemag.org/content/331/6022/1256/suppl/DC1

These are the best numbers currently available for the death of Afghan civilians, broken down by region, perpetrator, and even cause of death. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Citizenofdaworld (talk • contribs) 22:50, 11 May 2011 (UTC)

Seriously. The article is right here:

http://www.sciencemag.org/content/331/6022/1256.full —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.24.222.234 (talk) 16:14, 19 May 2011 (UTC)

Misleading title?

Isn't the title misleading? According to my understanding, the invasion of Afghanistan started with U.S. and various NATO forces, and that ISAF was created at a later stage. Ketil (talk) 06:33, 12 May 2011 (UTC)

Completely agree. ISAF was only created much later, after the initial invasion was already done. What's more, all the foreign and Afghan government forces have always been led by the U.S. military, and foreign forces in Afghanistan have always been majority two-thirds American. Right now 100,000 of the 140,000 foreign troops in Afghanistan are American. That's 71% American. On top of that the vast majority of the ISAF participants explicitly do NOT take part in combat activity. They stay only within safer areas of Afghanistan, only within secure zones, and conduct only training or reconstruction. They don't take part in combat or raids. So probably some 90% of foreign combat troops in Afghanistan are American. And when we're talking about Afghan civilian casualties caused by foreign forces, most are caused by airstrikes, and those are predominantly American. In other words, probably 90-99% of civilian casualties caused by foreign forces are caused by U.S., not ISAF troops from other countries that have strictly limited participation in combat, night raids, and airstrikes. The misleading and overly-long title "Civilian casualties caused by ISAF and US Forces in the War in Afghanistan (2001–present)" needs to be changed. Formats (talk) 20:32, 10 September 2011 (UTC)

Reverting correct edits because one has issues with the indentity of an editor

I have trouble with the concept of reverting good edits, based solely on the alledged sock puppeters indentity of the editors. Wee Curry Monster seems to be on witch hunt against certain sock puppeteers and even reverted my edit because I found the edits done by the alledged sock puppeteer were correct and justified.

The so called "sock pupetteer (IP 166.205.137.54) made the following changes. He changed this:

"* November 3, 2008 - Dozens of people, including over 30 women and children, were killed by air strikes in the village of Wech Baghtu in the district of Shah Wali Kowt, Kandahar province. The strike was called in on the village when a wedding was taking place."

to this:

"* November 3, 2008 - Dozens of people, including over 30 women and children, were killed by US air strikes in the village of Wech Baghtu in the district of Shah Wali Kowt, Kandahar province. The strike was called in on the village when a wedding was taking place."

He also changed this :

"*May 24, 2011 - A civilian was killed in Musa Qal’ah district, Helmand province when both Afghan and coalition forces mistook the flashlight a man was carrying for a weapon."

to this :

"* May 23, 2011 - A civilian was killed in Musa Qal’ah district, Helmand province, when both Afghan and coalition forces mistook the flashlight a man was carrying for a weapon."

User Wee Curry Monster reverted him without providing a justification. That is what prompted me to verify it.

I found that the BBC article that was referenced for the Nov 3 2008 incident did specify that the Air Strike was US.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/7710566.stm

"Afghan President Hamid Karzai has said about 40 people were killed in a US air strike in southern Kandahar province."

When I checked the reference for the May 23/24, 2011 incident, which is here, www.isaf.nato.int/article/isaf-releases/isaf-joint-command-morning-operational-update-may-24-2011.html, it stated:

"A combined Afghan and coalition security force conducted a security operation resulting in two suspected insurgents detained and one Afghan civilian killed in Musa Qal’ah district, Helmand province yesterday. " Since the article is dated on the morning of 24th and states that the incident took place "yesterday", it is correct to place the incident on the 23rd.

So I reverted Wee Curry Monster reversion. He promptly reverted me again.

I corrected it again and left Wee Curry Monster a message on his talk page explaining that the edits were valid. He replied with the following on my talk page:

"Why are you lecturing me? I reverted a serial sock puppeteer who mixes seemingly legitimate edits with wikifiddling such as changing dates. You reverted the lot and then harped on about an irrelevant detail. I wouldn't care but the edit summary made this plain. Wee Curry Monster talk 23:06, 2 June 2011 (UTC)"

I then replied to him on his talk page

"I am not lecturing you and I did not revert "THE LOT". The only thing I reverted was the "US" that you took out from the article altough the BBC reference to that particular air strike clearly stated it was a US strike. There is no date issue there.Hudicourt (talk) 00:00, 3 June 2011 (UTC)"

To this he replied:

"Scroll down and try putting your listening ears on. Wee Curry Monster talk 07:34, 3 June 2011 (UTC)"

In essence, he is saying that the validity of that person's edit are not relevant because Wee Curry Monster suspects the person of being a serial sock puppeteer. And he also reverted me for agreeing with that person.

Looking at the History of Wee Curry Monster talk page, I see that this editor, the so-called sock puppet, had attempted several times and without success to convince Wee Curry Monster of the validity of his edits.

Looking back on Wee Curry Monster's talk history page, I see he has a history of questionable behavior like engaging in Edit wars, removing content from other users Talk page etc. I found several warnings, such as this one:

Hello Wee Curry Monster,

This is an automated friendly notification to inform you that you have been reported for Violation of the Edit warring policy at the Administrators' noticeboard.

Also, looking at Wee Curry Monster's contributions, a large proportion of his edits consists of reverting edits made by other users.

Yet, although the edits made by IP 166.205.137.54 were valid and justified, and reverted several time by Wee Curry Monster on his crusade against a so called Sock Puppet, an Admin, Nick-D, semi-protected the article, and left the following message on Wee Curry Monster's talk page:

"I've just blocked 166.205.137.54 (talk · contribs) as an obvious sock and semi-protected the article for a while, but this edit does seem to be in accordance with the source (which says that the operation occurred 'yesterday'), so I've left it. Cheers, Nick-D (talk) 11:01, 3 June 2011 (UTC)"

I think that Wee Curry Monster is at fault here for engaging in ridiculous witch hunts and is at the origin of the edit war that took place on this page.

I find myself repeating, not for the first time with you, that I reverted the edits of a serial sock puppeteer, who has been responsible for a whole series of disruptive edits on Friendly fire and related articles. These including wikifiddling and WP:BLP violations, he attempted to evade scrutiny by mixing legitimate edits, though often even those were problematic as he used WP:SPA as the primary source. He also introduced WP:COPYVIO by copying from other websites. I simply don't have the time to separate the wheat from the chaff by going through each and every edit. Given the majority of his edits are problematic, this does not seem a productive activity to me.

The IP is an obvious sock, he was properly blocked by Nick-D for block evasion. The sock puppeteer is not trying to engage on my talk page, he is badgering me.

The edit in question, I reverted because it appeared to be wikifiddling by changing a date. This I communicated to you. This you ignored and instead you accused me of suppressing information that the US was responsible for a Friendly fire incident. Your response had nothing to do with the date issue.

Someone like me who reverts a lot of vandalism and deals with a serial sock puppeteer will have a lot of reverts in his history. He'll also be targeted by sock puppeteers and vandals trying to use wiki policies to intimidate him. The IP who templated my page was blocked for doing precisely that.

So if you want to carry through with that threat to report me for edit warring, feel free. I would welcome independent scrutiny of my edits, something I often ask for as a sanity check. However, I would suggest you ensure that you include the, frankly ridiculous, accusation that I am conducting a "witch hunt against a serial sock puppeteer". Wee Curry Monster talk 17:05, 3 June 2011 (UTC)

+++++++++++++

Sir, you not only reverted the edits of your so-called sock puppeteer, but you reverted my edits also, even after I took the time to verify them and stated so. As far as the edits that concern me, they were valid and I stated this on your talk page. I have nothing to do with your little wars with your sock puppeteers.

I have never edited the "friendly fire" page, and do not know what you are talking about. My issue took place on this page when you reverted a "US" that was valid and reverted a date that was also correct, all in the name of your little private war. Period! What happened between you and other people on other pages, I know nothing about.

As far as me threatening you to report you for edit warring, I am afraid that you read things I did not write. I feel no need to add to your file, It's thick enough as it is.Hudicourt (talk) 18:36, 3 June 2011 (UTC)

For the written record your message on my talk page said nothing about the date, which I pointed out looked like wikifiddling. It is purely a diatribe that the airstrike was a US airstrike. I see no point in further comments. Wee Curry Monster talk 19:04, 3 June 2011 (UTC)

I think that this is much ado about nothing. Writing lengthy diatribes about a two edits isn't terribly productive. It's standard practice to revert the edits of block evaders (as this ensures that they're wasting their time and discourages them from coming back) and it seems that this was a case of 'friendly fire'. Nick-D (talk) 00:00, 4 June 2011 (UTC)

Beginning a series of edits to clean up this page

See also: § Re-naming this article to reflect its content, #Misleading title?

This page has fallen into a state of neglect and disrepair. It hasn't been kept up to date, obvious problems have just been ignored and left there, and the page has become pretty useless to anyone seeking information. I'm going to start a series of edits, beginning by renaming the article so that the essential topic 'Civilian casualties in the War in Afghanistan (2001-present)' again has an article on Wikipedia, and then gradually try to do the work to bring it back up to date. Formats (talk) 07:04, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

As a suggestion, I think that the lengthy list of news reports of incidents should be removed - they're not necessary as few of these incidents are notable by themselves, and there's lots of material and references on the total numbers of civilian casualties and what this has meant for support for the Coalition and Taliban forces. The news reports are also heavily weighted to incidents caused by the Coalition forces, when it is the Taliban who have actually caused most civilian casualties. Nick-D (talk) 07:10, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

I'd agree with that. However, from experience of editing this page, you will find that there is s WP:OWN issue with editors resident here who are focused on compiling a list of "war crimes" by western forces. I doubt any clean up with be achievable without admin oversight and action on the personal attacks that will shortly ensue. I do hope I'm wrong but I found this to be a bit of a vipers nest and walked away from it. Wee Curry Monster talk 11:35, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

I shudder at the notion that any person who dies in a conflict in which they are not involved is not notable (just because there are so many of them). I think the well-sourced incidents should be kept on Wikipedia, although I realize there is a looming size problem with this article. Perhaps the lists of incidents could be split by year into their own articles, e.g. "2010 civilian casualties in the War in Afghanistan". That would be an easy edit task. There is also an imbalance, not because Taliban bombings and other actions are not reported, but because there have not been editors devoted enough to record them all here. The former name of the article may have had something to do with that. I'm not sure I even understand what happened. Was the article moved and then moved back later? Or was there a forked article which no longer exists? Thundermaker (talk) 13:25, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

The article got renamed six months ago as a way to avoid always having to deal with POV allegation tags, so the renaming constituted a form of WP:POVFORK. I moved it back yesterday so that Wikipedia has an article that can try to cover the topic as a whole.

I thought this comment from a similar discussion here in 2006 was good:

And I would remind you that the parent article is blatantly not balanced: it is the story from the POV of the invasion forces. And there is no article at all on Taliban combatant deaths. This probably reflects the demographics of contributors to en.wiki. In fact, despite NPOV, Wikipedia as a whole has no remit to be "balanced": if it had, thousands of, say, Ameri-centric articles would have to be deleted on the grounds that "we can't have articles about American game shows unless we have a proportionate number about Korean game shows to balance them." (See WP:CSB for an attempt tackle these issues by addition, not deletion.)

So I agree with Thundermaker that the demographics of contributors is a major factor, and that it's better to add, not delete, content. I also agree with Nick that another important factor is the proportion of coverage in Western news media. When foreign military forces kill civilians that will naturally get more coverage and attention in that country or society's news than when civilians are killed by some unidentified group of local insurgents. It's understandable. The news media caters to their audience's interest, and the audience is naturally more drawn to news that's related to them in some way. It's also natural for the news media and its audience to hold their own military forces to greater account than the actions of other people, especially when it's those other people's country we're in. As an analogy, if you're a parent, you're going to hold your child to account far more than you would the actions of some kid that's not your responsibility - doubly so if your kid is over at somebody else's home. (And probably even more so if your kid is that much older, bigger, and stronger than the other kid or kids.) So the proportion of coverage in the news media we watch and read is weighted more toward civilian deaths caused by Western military forces. Wikipedia WP:NPOV dictates that we reflect the proportion of coverage in the news media.

For the list of specific incidents, spawning off to a secondary page is an idea (it would have to be that specific section only, and I wouldn't break into a page per year), but that would still be a WP:POVFORK. Another idea could be to make a Specific incidents section that's collapsed by default. I've also created a section "Major casualties caused by insurgent actions" with a tag inviting editors to add specific incident details there. I don't have the time to add content there, but I'll be putting in work so that the article has more up-to-date overall numbers from published independent estimates. Formats (talk) 19:25, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

This article isn't neutral at present

While it's probably a hang-over from the article's previous name and focus, the article isn't neutral at present. While the article states that from 2008 onwards (at least) the majority of casualties were the result of Taliban and other 'non-government' forces, almost all the incidents listed for these years are events where NATO forces caused the casualties. My suggested solution for this is to remove the lengthy list of incidents as these obviously aren't even close to being comprehensive and aren't needed as we have overall estimates of casualties by year in the Civilian casualties in the War in Afghanistan (2001–present)#Estimates section. Thoughts? Nick-D (talk) 23:02, 25 November 2011 (UTC)

I would agree. By definition simply listing incidents reported in the press will result in a biased article - the Taliban killings aren't reported by the Western media. The suggested approach seems the best way to address this. Wee Curry Monster talk 09:02, 26 November 2011 (UTC)

You've both stated that there are more media reports about civilian deaths caused by Western military forces. The article must reflect that balance (WP:WEIGHT).

I would disagree with completely removing the entire section of incidents. First, that would go against WP:NPOV#Achieving_neutrality. Second, major incidents with 10 or more civilian deaths should definitely continue to be listed in this article.

Perhaps incidents with fewer than say 9 deaths should not be listed? Maybe the editors that have been adding to the list of specific incidents would want to start a sub-page called "List of civilian casualties by US-led military forces in Afghanistan"?

For the editors with NPOV concern, why not just simply add some content under the section #Major casualties caused by insurgent actions? I had placed an expansion tag there two months ago, precisely to invite editors to add content there.

By the way, since the NPOV concern is specifically for the list of incidents after 2008, I'm moving the POV tag to that specific section. Formats (talk) 06:30, 27 November 2011 (UTC)

I have made substantial contributions to the list of incidents. I believe the mistake made was in renaming the page to include all civilian deaths caused by all sources. If someone wants to create a separate page talking about Taliban violence, they should be free to go ahead. Contrary to what one commenter stated, such reports are plentiful in the western press. I receive Google updates with the term "Afghanistan civilians" and the Taliban-caused deaths during then last year are far greater in abundance than those caused by the U.S. I noticed no one is contributing to the newly created section. Why not? If you wanted the section in, feel free to do so. I have no interest at present because I do not have the time, and because it is important to memorialize the civilian deaths caused by the invading army, which in this case happens to be the United States. That is a legitimate POV. Throughout the history of modern warfare, civilian deaths caused by the invading army has been a legitimate topic. As to removing incidents where less than 10 people have been killed, I would note that the 7 civilian deaths caused a couple of days ago was widely reported in major American papers such as the Washington Post and the New York Times, on their front pages. If these MSM members saw fit to publish the figures on the front page, it is per se newsworthy. Publishing a list of totals colors over the human tragedy. In addition to the mere listing of numbers, the current article lists items such as whether the civilians were children or not, whether they were engaged in an obviously innocent activity (e.g., picking firewood), the importance of the person to the community (e.g., the only ob-gyn doctor in a province). As to the length of the list, I can show you numerous articles on trite or non-weighty subjects that are also very long. Is the internet running out of room?

I believe that the angst being caused by this article is precisely the reason the article should remain (perhaps back to the original intent -- to record ISAF-caused deaths.) Patriotic Americans are understandably upset when they see their country acting in a way that troubles the conscience. Those with a pro-military POV are extremely uncomfortable. The level of angst is simply a reflection of one's conscience saying "something I believe in is wrong." The flip side of the POV coin is censorship, and removing this article or diminishing its value looks like censorship to me. When one looks at the Vietnam Memorial and its lengthy list of names, one is moved by the sheer number of individuals who have been killed much more than a memorial that merely said "X number of people were killed." — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ppmet1949 (talk • contribs) 14:11, 27 November 2011 (UTC)

I've moved the tag back to where it was as my concern is with the overall balance of the article which results from the list of incidents, not that section. In regards to "You've both stated that there are more media reports about civilian deaths caused by Western military forces. The article must reflect that balance (WP:WEIGHT)" - that policy is talking about the space accorded to different viewpoints, when the main issue here is the extent of coverage given to incidents caused by one side of the conflict. Anyway, the policy actually supports what I'm recommending as it states that "An article should not give undue weight to any aspects of the subject but should strive to treat each aspect with a weight appropriate to its significance to the subject. For example, discussion of isolated events, criticisms, or news reports about a subject may be verifiable and neutral, but still be disproportionate to their overall significance to the article topic. This is a concern especially in relation to recent events that may be in the news. Note that undue weight can be given in several ways, including, but not limited to, depth of detail, quantity of text, prominence of placement, and juxtaposition of statements.". It's obviously biased to have the article very heavily focused on casualties caused by the NATO forces when the majority of casualties (the great majority in recent years) have been caused by the Taliban and other 'anti government' forces. Nick-D (talk) 06:39, 27 November 2011 (UTC)

I tend to agree with Nick. The article unduly focusses on casualties caused by ISAF and US forces per WP:UNDUE. The bulk of the article either lists instances of such occurances, many of which appear to be non-notable, or lists the numerous public demostrations against these events (most also probably non-notable). Although civilian casualties caused by Taliban and other anti-government forces are mentioned, they receive significantly less coverage. This is despite the fact that in 2010 an estimated 74.9% of civilian casualties in Afghanstan were attributed to "anti-government elements" by the UNAMA/AIHRC (as cited in the article itself). Anotherclown (talk) 09:32, 27 November 2011 (UTC)

I have made the point before that the article dwells too much on one side of the conflict. The article should in general be significantly slimmed down, starting with the removal of the lists. It needs a considerable rewrite to provide a balanced view of the conflict. Wee Curry Monster talk 11:04, 27 November 2011 (UTC)

In response to PPmet1949, this is nothing to do with "pricking of conscience" and the naming of an article to get around the concept of presenting a NPOV is not a persuasive argument. Starting a comment by poisoning the well is not an auspicious start. Wee Curry Monster talk 21:11, 27 November 2011 (UTC)

I've just removed the list from the article per the above discussion. My reading of this discussion (which was advertised at WT:MILHIST and by User:Formats contacting several editors directly) is that myself and two other editors supported the removal of this material. Formats supported retaining it for reasons based on his or her interpretation of relevant policies, and Ppmet1949's rationale for keeping the material seems to not be at all in line with WP:NOTMEMORIAL and WP:SOAPBOX. His or her personal attacks and assumptions of bad faith were also pretty rude. I'm happy to discuss this further (using the process at WP:DR if need be), and am not going to edit war. Please note that in the edit where I removed the list I also removed an entirely uncited paragraph which claimed that most of the casualties throughout the war were the result of US/NATO forces: this may or may not actually be the case, but it needs a strong citation to be included in the article (ditto, of course, for a claim that most casualties were caused by the Taliban and other 'anti-government' forces). Nick-D (talk) 06:21, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

A new editor has, in their first set of edits, created a series of articles for lists of incidents which caused civilian casualties in each year of the war using what appears to have been the material removed from this article. Per the above discussion I've redirected them here. I'm pretty skeptical about this editor being genuinely new... Nick-D (talk) 00:13, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

Suspicious renaming of this article

This article has been the victim of numerous renaming and I have come to suspect that those who did it had an agenda.

At its creation, this article was called "List of casualties of the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan". Then it was renamed "Civilian casualties of the U.S. invasion of AfghanistanItalic text" it was clearly meant to list the Afghan civilians accidental, or through neglect, killed by foreign forces. In 2007, some complained that the name was biased against the US which was not the only foreign country engaged in this war, at which time I renamed it "Civilian casualties of the War in Afghanistan (2001–present)". That was a mistake on my part, for I should have replaced US with "foreign" or "ISAF/US", which I didn't do. Those maintaining the article, including myself, continued to treat it exclusively as an article listing civilians killed by foreign troops. In November 2009, someone changed the name to "List of civilian casualties of the War in Afghanistan (2001–presentItalic text)" The in January 2010, a user called "Formats" decided "list" was unwarranted and removed it and brought it back to "Civilian casualties of the War in Afghanistan (2001–present)" Then in March 2011, some users complained that the article was biased against the foreign coalition because the article only listed civilian victims caused by the coalition and not those inflicted by the Taliban. Some even wanted to delete the article for the same reason. Others suggested that editors should add those incidents where Afghan civilians had been killed by the Taliban and other anti-government insurgents, but no-one did. The article was again renamed to reflect what it really was and someone renamed it "Civilian casualties caused by ISAF and US Forces- War in Afghanistan (2001–present)"Italic text In May 2011, someone again renamed the article "Civilian casualties caused by ISAF and US Forces in the War in Afghanistan (2001–present)"Italic text Another user adds: "Isn't the title misleading? According to my understanding, the invasion of Afghanistan started with U.S. and various NATO forces, and that ISAF was created at a later stage. User:Ketil|Ketil]] (User talk:Ketil|talk]]) 06:33, 12 May 2011 (UTC)"

At this stage, user "Amdurbin" writes: "Where is the page, subheading, or even a link on the civilian casualties caused by the Taliban? They dwarf those caused by ISAF. This is a serious imbalance in the coverage. User:Amdurbin|Amdurbin]] (User talk:Amdurbin|talk]]) 18:58, 9 July 2011 (UTC)"

In Sept 2011, user "Formats" replies to a May 2011 discussion and somehow conclude with :

"The misleading and overly-long title "Civilian casualties caused by ISAF and US Forces in the War in Afghanistan (2001–present)" needs to be changed"

and he continues with :

This renaming and suggested "exclusive focus" was wrong and was done for the wrong reasons. Just because someone alleged in the section above that there was not enough coverage of one side of the topic, the solution was to rename the article and completely remove that side of the topic from Wikipedia? So if someone accuses Wikipedia of being too American-centric, we should just rename Wikipedia to Americapedia and remove all non American-centric articles to obtain an "exclusive focus", and say problem solved?

This renaming clearly constituted a POV fork (WP:CONTENTFORK/WP:POVFORK: "A point of view (POV) fork is a content fork deliberately created to avoid neutral point of view guidelines, often to avoid or highlight negative or positive viewpoints or facts. All POV forks are undesirable on Wikipedia").

This is a major war - the longest U.S. war ever. (also the longest for Afghanistan and so many other countries), and the biggest and most expensive war in a generation. There needs to be a Wikipedia article "Civilian casualties in the War in Afghanistan (2001-present)" that covers this important topic. That's what this article had been before this ill-conceived renaming to its current misleading title. The title needs to be changed back and content restored. User:Formats|Formats]] (User talk:Formats|talk]]) 21:36, 10 September 2011 (UTC)

This page has fallen into a state of neglect and disrepair. It hasn't been kept up to date, obvious problems have just been ignored and left there, and the page has become pretty useless to anyone seeking information. I'm going to start a series of edits, beginning by renaming the article so that the essential topic 'Civilian casualties in the War in Afghanistan (2001-present)' again has an article on Wikipedia, and then gradually try to do the work to bring it back up to date. User:Formats|Formats]] (User talk:Formats|talk]]) 07:04, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

Then on Sept 11 2011, the same editor "format" again renames the article "Civilian casualties in the War in Afghanistan (2001–present)" and then goes on to claim that the article he just renamed is unfairly biased against the US and ISAF for it does not list the victims of the Taliban.

The same day. user "Nick-D" weighs in and declares : "As a suggestion, I think that the lengthy list of news reports of incidents should be removed - they're not necessary as few of these incidents are notable by themselves, and there's lots of material and references on the total numbers of civilian casualties and what this has meant for support for the Coalition and Taliban forces. The news reports are also heavily weighted to incidents caused by the Coalition forces, when it is the Taliban who have actually caused most civilian casualties. User:Nick-D|Nick-D]] (User talk:Nick-D|talk]]) 07:10, 11 September 2011 (UTC)"

Well what the news report about Taliban caused victims is irrelevant and does not affect an article which is on victims of US and ISAF forces does it but by renaming the article like user "format" did, it makes Nick-D's argument valid.

User "Thundermaker" argued for the lists to be maintained but he was ignored.

"And then "format" the same guy who remaned the article, is the one who now complains the article is not balanced with deaths cause by the Taliban: 'And I would remind you that the parent article is blatantly not balanced: it is the story from the POV of the invasion forces. And there is no article at all on Taliban combatant deaths. "

Then Nick-D adds:

"While it's probably a hang-over from the article's previous name and focus, the article isn't neutral at present. While the article states that from 2008 onwards (at least) the majority of casualties were the result of Taliban and other 'non-government' forces, almost all the incidents listed for these years are events where NATO forces caused the casualties. My suggested solution for this is to remove the lengthy list of incidents as these obviously aren't even close to being comprehensive and aren't needed as we have overall estimates of casualties by year in the Civilian casualties in the War in Afghanistan (2001–present)#Estimates section. Thoughts? User:Nick-D|Nick-D]] (User talk:Nick-D|talk]]) 23:02, 25 November 2011 (UTC)"

":I've moved the tag back to where it was as my concern is with the overall balance of the article, not that section. In regards to "You've both stated that there are more media reports about civilian deaths caused by Western military forces. The article must reflect that balance (WP:WEIGHT)" - that policy actually supports what I'm recommending as it states that "An article should not give undue weight to any aspects of the subject but should strive to treat each aspect with a weight appropriate to its significance to the subject. For example, discussion of isolated events, criticisms, or news reports about a subject may be verifiable and neutral, but still be disproportionate to their overall significance to the article topic. This is a concern especially in relation to recent events that may be in the news. Note that undue weight can be given in several ways, including, but not limited to, depth of detail, quantity of text, prominence of placement, and juxtaposition of statements.". It's obviously biased to have the article very heavily focused on casualties caused by the NATO forces when the majority of casualties (the great majority in recent years) have been caused by the Taliban and other 'anti government' forces. User:Nick-D|Nick-D (User talk:Nick-D|talk) 06:39, 27 November 2011 (UTC)"

Like I stated previously, if someone had created a page called "Nazi atrocities of World War II" and after a few years of the page existing under that name, someone had argued that the Nazis had not been the only ones to commit atrocities during that war, but instead of creating new pages called ""XX atrocities of World War II" had edited the title of the page to be "Atrocities of World Wat II". Then the same person who would have changed the title could then accuse the article of being unfairly biased against the Nazis when several other groups had also committed other atrocities during the same war. And of course, the editor of the article's title would happen to be from Germany.

The problem with this article was not its unbalanced contents. It became unbalanced when people renamed it for what it wasn't at the outset. Hudicourt (talk) 21:57, 17 February 2012 (UTC)

Table wording

For the estimates of the no. of civilians dying indirectly due to US actions from the likes of starving, why is it worde like this, this implies it is the US's fault they are starving but more people were dying prior to the invasion from starving, malnutrition and exposure so in fact many of indirect deaths from starving and malnutrition would have died without the us invasion as malnutrition and starvation decreased as the war progressed. I suggest a change of wording as the us were most likely not responsible for many of the indirect deaths. Also many indirect deaths could be attributed to the taliban. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.104.218.11 (talk) 20:39, 7 May 2012 (UTC)

Aggregation Table

An aggregation table like this should have a total accumulated figure of each year creating a total civilian death toll. These yearly civilian death tolls are well sourced, so there nothing wrong with creating a total to the table. Most tables containing like this have totals and it just stupid that there is no ranged total here. Please add it for the sake of this article. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.104.218.11 (talk) 23:08, 8 May 2012 (UTC)

This would violate WP:Synthesis — Preceding unsigned comment added by Rgambord (talk • contribs) 15:17, 21 February 2013 (UTC)

Why so much focus on NATO operations and so little on Taliban activities?

Was just reading Taliban which states that between 75% to 80% of civilian casualties were caused by the Taliban in 2009-2011. Yet the article is clearly centered around civilian casualties caused by coalition forces. That list of Karzai quotes kinda smells like WP:UNDUE to me. Why such an emphasis on coalition inflicted casualties and barely no mention of Taliban inflicted casualties? I made a quick edit to help that a bit, but this all reeks of WP:POV. 159.1.15.34 (talk) 22:36, 28 November 2012 (UTC)

More than that, I'm probably going to cut down on a few things, such as the Karzai quotes, so if you have objections, please speak up now. Might even make another article for all the incidents. Long lists like that in a non-list article are a subtle POV push to make the evidence overwhelming. There are a few other things to argue about it, if anyone is still watching the article. 159.1.15.34 (talk) 19:10, 29 November 2012 (UTC)

Made a bunch of changes, but there is still a lot of work to do. Takin a break. 159.1.15.34 (talk) 20:19, 30 November 2012 (UTC)

No actual number

This entire article catalogs Civilian casualties in the War in Afghanistan yet there is no actual total number estimate given, how is this excusable?

Revrant (talk) 20:23, 2 March 2013 (UTC)

Are you aware of a reliable source which provides an estimate for the total number of civilian casualties? If so, please add the figure with a supporting reference. Nick-D (talk) 22:23, 2 March 2013 (UTC)

Talk:Civilian casualties in the War in Afghanistan (2001–present)#Aggregation_TableRgambord (talk) 22:28, 3 March 2013 (UTC)

Documented deaths, estimated deaths from violence, and estimated indirect deaths

I've just updated the article on the number of documented deaths resulting from the conflict according to the latest "Cost of War" report. That report also estimates possible indirect deaths (on all sides), and I've placed this number - 360,000 and conservative according to the study - in the article as well.

Modern epidemiology uses cluster based sampling methods to gather data on pre-war and wartime mortality rates, because documented death counts radically underestimate total deaths, direct or otherwise, in a conflict. I've been searching for data on this in Afghanistan and haven't yet found it. If anyone does find a study using these methods, please add it and/or make a note here. -Darouet (talk) 22:31, 23 June 2015 (UTC)

Holy NPOV Violations, Batman!

Wow. The section entitled "Afghan President Hamid Karzai's repeated pleas to the foreign military forces" has probably the worst NPOV violations I've seen in my over 9 years on Wikipedia. I'm not debating that the content of the section may be useful for the article, but man is the phrasing biased. Karzai "tearful[ly]" and "repeatedly pleaded with the foreign military forces" to stop "maiming and killing" "Afghan children". Gimme a break.

Look, I get it. Judging from the talk page, this article has been through a long back and forth debate over what constitutes NPOV. However, if nothing else, I think it's obvious that this section really needs to tone it down on the language. It's pretty ridiculous. —Noha307 (talk) 05:29, 23 December 2015 (UTC)

If Karzai is talking/lamenting "tearful" (= talking with tears in his eyes), it's nothing else then correct and, yes, neutral reporting to say, also in Wikipedia, that he was 'tearful'. Those tears were apparently part of his message. Leaving 'tearful' out of our article would then simply be censoring the report, withholding information from our readers. --Corriebertus (talk) 21:07, 10 November 2017 (UTC)

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I have just added archive links to 7 external links on Civilian casualties in the war in Afghanistan (2001–present). Please take a moment to review my edit. If necessary, add {{cbignore}} after the link to keep me from modifying it. Alternatively, you can add {{nobots|deny=InternetArchiveBot}} to keep me off the page altogether. I made the following changes:

• Added archive {newarchive} to http://www.foreignpolicy.com/story/cms.php?story_id=3602
• Added archive http://web.archive.org/web/20150124234638/http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5hp9agRx-Y97bFaRcRTxBR7OL0ECA to http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5hp9agRx-Y97bFaRcRTxBR7OL0ECA
• Added archive http://web.archive.org/web/20120111164505/http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2008/12/18/asia/AS-Afghanistan.php to http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2008/12/18/asia/AS-Afghanistan.php
• Added archive http://web.archive.org/web/20121011142922/http://www.calgaryherald.com/news/Karzai+issues+final+warning+civilians+killed+NATO+raid/4860532/story.html to http://www.calgaryherald.com/news/Karzai+issues+final+warning+civilians+killed+NATO+raid/4860532/story.html#ixzz1NvNZ99vC
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• Added archive http://web.archive.org/web/20120113004744/http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20100121/wl_sthasia_afp/afghanistanunrestcivilians to http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20100121/wl_sthasia_afp/afghanistanunrestcivilians

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External links modified

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• Added archive http://web.archive.org/web/20121004152632/http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/03/06/2100966/karzai-rejects-us-apology-for.html to http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/03/06/2100966/karzai-rejects-us-apology-for.html

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External links modified

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• Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20120212123522/http://www.afghanistannewscenter.com/news/2006/february/feb72006.html to http://www.afghanistannewscenter.com/news/2006/february/feb72006.html
• Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20100406083558/http://icasualties.org/oef/ to http://icasualties.org/oef/
• Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20121014040037/http://www.defense.gov//News/NewsArticle.aspx?ID=55023 to http://www.defense.gov/news/newsarticle.aspx?id=55023
• Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20101226163948/https://www.securityaffairs.org:80/issues/2010/18/kemp.php to http://www.securityaffairs.org/issues/2010/18/kemp.php

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Why does this article end with 2014 when the war is still going on?

Why does this article end with 2014 when the war is still going on? A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 22:22, 10 June 2017 (UTC)

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• Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20080125202233/http://www.e-ariana.com/ariana/eariana.nsf/allDocs/6AA9DC5F52A1AFFA87257241000F11E8?OpenDocument to http://www.e-ariana.com/ariana/eariana.nsf/allDocs/6AA9DC5F52A1AFFA87257241000F11E8?OpenDocument
• Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20080509085021/http://www.unknownnews.net/casualties.html to http://www.unknownnews.net/casualties.html

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External links modified

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• Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20100119193929/http://unama.unmissions.org/Portals/UNAMA/human%20rights/Protection%20of%20Civilian%202009%20report%20English.pdf to http://unama.unmissions.org/Portals/UNAMA/human%20rights/Protection%20of%20Civilian%202009%20report%20English.pdf
• Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20110904163207/http://unama.unmissions.org/Portals/UNAMA/human%20rights/March%20PoC%20Annual%20Report%20Final.pdf to http://unama.unmissions.org/Portals/UNAMA/human%20rights/March%20PoC%20Annual%20Report%20Final.pdf
• Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20110904163207/http://unama.unmissions.org/Portals/UNAMA/human%20rights/March%20PoC%20Annual%20Report%20Final.pdf to http://unama.unmissions.org/Portals/UNAMA/human%20rights/March%20PoC%20Annual%20Report%20Final.pdf
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• Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20090806052858/http://unama.unmissions.org/Portals/UNAMA/human%20rights/09july31-UNAMA-HUMAN-RIGHTS-CIVILIAN-CASUALTIES-Mid-Year-2009-Bulletin.pdf to http://unama.unmissions.org/Portals/UNAMA/human%20rights/09july31-UNAMA-HUMAN-RIGHTS-CIVILIAN-CASUALTIES-Mid-Year-2009-Bulletin.pdf

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