Latest Coverage of Afgan War Articles

	posted by Scott on Monday November 26, @02:15PM from the media dept.
	Marc Angelucci writes "This opinion article from the LA Times gives us yet another imbalanced perspective on gender and the Afgan war. It emphasizes human rights. But it only mentions gender when it comes to women, as usual. It even refers to "women and civilians," as though "civilians" would not do, and as though male soldiers who are forced to fight are somehow less innocent. They printed my letter on this two weeks ago, so I can't write again for a while. But they do print letters from other states, so please write them at letters@latimes.com." Also of note, Neil Steyskal writes "The Christian Science Monitor published a letter from Cary Roberts about Afghan men. Thanks Carey!"

	Source: The Los Angeles Times [newspaper] Title: After Bombs Must Come Civil Rights Author: Rosa Ehrenreich Brooks Date: November 25, 2001

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civilians by housewife_activism on Tuesday November 27, @02:39AM EST (#1) (User #375 Info) Is it just me, or is there something a little bit disturbing about the way military casualties are sometimes dismissed? It seems to me, especially in the case of those FORCED to fight, a military casualty can be just an heinous as(if not MORE heinous than) a civilian one. I understand this sounds a little reduculous, particularly after the mass murder of several unsuspecting, unarmed office workers. The separation between civilians and soldiers made more sense in conventional pre-bomb warfare. But if a bomb hits you, it really doesn't matter what you're armed with, how you're trained or whether or not you've been informed that you might die. You just die and thats it. It seems as though this bias in reporting is uneccesary. Casualties are casualties. Just a thought.

Re:civilians by Marc Angelucci on Tuesday November 27, @05:19AM EST (#2) (User #61 Info) I think you're right. I do think there is legitimate reason to provide separate civilian casualties, though, since most people agree that in a war we should especially strive to avoid such casualties (even if the forced combatants are just as innocent as the civilians). What is most disturbing to me is the blatant devaluing of male lives even *among* civilians. The author of this article refers to "women and civilians." "Women" are a subset of "civilians" in this context, so it shouldn't even be necessary to use the word "women." But the author uses it to separate "women" civilians from the male civilians, who clearly are not considered as innocent. It's outrageous how the public gulps this down with their danish and coffee. Business as usual.

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