{"id":217042,"date":"2016-01-18T04:35:23","date_gmt":"2016-01-18T04:35:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/playing-games-with-war-deaths\/"},"modified":"2016-01-18T04:35:23","modified_gmt":"2016-01-18T04:35:23","slug":"playing-games-with-war-deaths","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/playing-games-with-war-deaths\/","title":{"rendered":"Playing Games with War Deaths"},"content":{"rendered":"
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There\u2019s a double standard in how the U.S. mainstream media reports civilian deaths depending if\u00a0the U.S. military is fighting the wars or not, accepting absurdly low numbers when the U.S. is at fault and hyping\u00a0death tolls when \u201cenemies\u201d are involved, a\u00a0manipulation of human tragedy, says Nicolas J S Davies.<\/p>\n

By Nicolas J S Davies<\/p>\n

How many people have been killed in\u00a0the wars\u00a0in Afghanistan, Iraq,\u00a0Syria, Yemen\u00a0and Somalia?\u00a0On Nov. 18, a UN press briefing<\/u><\/a> on the war in Yemen declared authoritatively that it had so far killed 5,700 people, including 830 women and children.\u00a0But how precise are these figures, what are they based on, and what relation are they likely to bear to the true numbers of people killed?<\/p>\n

Throughout the U.S.-led war in Afghanistan, the media has cited UN updates comparing numbers of Afghans killed by \u201ccoalition forces\u201d and the \u201cTaliban.\u201d\u00a0Following the U.S. escalation of the war in 2009 and 2010, a report by <\/u>McClatchy<\/u><\/em><\/a> in March 2011 was headlined, \u201cUN: U.S.-led forces killed fewer Afghan civilians last year.\u201d\u00a0It reported a 26 percent drop in U.S.-led killing of Afghan civilians in 2010, offset by a 28 percent increase in civilians killed by the \u201cTaliban\u201d and \u201cother insurgents.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"U.S.