Back in the days of Vietnam the body count was all important…..that is how Westmoreland proved he was winning….bad guys died more than good guys…..so daily body counts were reported and the media would send them home for the local newspapers to run on page one.
It seems that the military will try this tactic once again…….
The White House has for the first time promised to release the death toll of civilian and non-civilian casualties from US drone strikes going back to 2009, reports the Guardian. Or at least some drone strikes: The disclosure won’t cover those in areas of “active hostilities” such as Iraq, Afghanistan, and Syria. Instead, it will include those in places such as Libya, Somalia, Pakistan, and Yemen. President Obama’s counterterrorism adviser, Lisa Monaco, told the Council on Foreign Relations on Monday that a tally of alleged terrorists and civilians killed in such strikes since 2009 would be made available in the “coming weeks.” She added that the “figures will be provided annually,” per Politico, though it remains to be seen if the next president will support the move.
Monaco said the disclosure may include tallies compiled by non-government groups; one such tally released in 2014 found that the US killed 1,147 people in Pakistan and Yemen while targeting 41 known men. But “it’s not enough to tally up the drones’ body count. We need a thorough reassessment of the program itself,” says an attorney for drone strike victims. On Friday, a Justice Department official agreed to release “a much more detailed explanation of the standards and procedures employed in both capture and lethal targeting counter-terrorism operations,” in response to a lawsuit by the American Civil Liberties Union. (The news comes just days after US strikes killed 150 suspected militants in Somalia.)
The disclosures will not include deaths by drone in the areas of “active” conflict such as Iraq, Afghanistan and Syria……now someone explain that to me….why fess up to deaths elsewhere but not where there is the most drone activity?
Is this one of those “transparency” issues that the president is always going on about?
Maybe it is just that the actual number of deaths needs to be obfuscated…..
Why bother?
Morning chuq!
🙂
Transparency?
Wot’s that?
Obama Claimed To Want Transparency. His Actions Suggest The Opposite
Trevor Timm http://gu.com/p/4hd4p/stw
p.s.
This is how we feel on this side of the pond….
I picked it up on Twitter…:)
“Really Mixed Feelings About Trump’s Antics: On One Hand: a Depraved Circus. On the other:
Exactly what the U.S. Political System Deserves.”
😉
As it is today….we deserve what we are getting….I agree
So many thoughts on this. Here’s just the first few that come to mind.
1) Fifteen years of murdering people by remote control and they’ve just decided to start putting out stats??? Why? Are they retarded? Are they trying to draw scrutiny to something virtually nobody pays attention to, or cares about? Is this some guilt-ridden insider’s attempt to sabotage the joystick “Top Guns”?
2) “Going back all the way to 2009”? Just since President Blacula took over? Why? Did Dark Lord Cheney demand another a “VP Exemption”? This is yet another Free Pass granted to the Bush Crime Syndicate.
3)“The disclosure won’t cover those in areas of “active hostilities” such as Iraq, Afghanistan, and Syria. Instead, it will include those in places such as Libya, Somalia, Pakistan, and Yemen.
Uh, because those aren’t places with “active hostilities”? Hahahaha!. To the American Empire, the entire global population are “potential hostiles”. The unending War on Terra considers everywhere the “front line”. Even your personal phone conversations.
I don’t see any point in releasing one category & not the other. They operate under the same “rules”, right? “Shoot first and ask questions never.”
4) I’m sure the stats will “prove” all the victims “deserved it”. If only because ALL males of military age are automatically classified as Enemy Combatants….even if they were just delivering pizza when the drone struck.
5) Can there be a clearer sign that remote control killing is so accepted now that they no longer feel any guilt, remorse, or fear of letting the public know the details? Also, because they’ve agreed to release stats on “an ongoing annual basis”, it couldn’t be clearer that drone strike will continue…for forever.
6) I eagerly await the drone strike that ends my misery.
You might like this op-ed…….
http://www.telesurtv.net/english/opinion/Is-the-Media-an-Accomplice-in-Drone-Murders-20160311-0039.html
Oh, yeah I just looooove it….One of my favourites parts of this 1984 theme park I’m trapped in. Flying death robots just exploding people as they go about their lives.
At least 6,000 motherfuckers get killed without anything remotely resembling…not just a “trial”…not even a Gitmo military tribunal…I haven’t even seen ANY evidence of a “process” at play at all! I doubt they even IDENTIFIED (even wrongly identified) 10% of the people they targeted, never mind killed. Because for every target they kill, they nearly always take out people just standing nearby.
It’s one thing to have a legitimate target like an Osama and track him till you can blow him up. (Oddly enough, they didn’t. They sent actual people.) That’s at least “debate worthy”. It’s another thing to blow up identified “2nd in commands of division Blah Blah”. Although, they’re so easily replaced, it’s hardly worth the missile used. It’s another to take out people in countries you aren’t at war with. (Short list, mind you.)
Nobody who isn’t a complete sociopath could possibly condone the drone-striking of people in nations you aren’t at war with…and have NO fucking clue who they are! Until I see credible evidence to the contrary…other than the only thing they ever give us “We killed em, so they must be evil”….I will consider drone strikes as nothing more than America doing random drive-by-shootings on the turf of rival gangs. Because, functionally speaking, that’s exactly what it is.
It reminds me so much of the French Man-of-War scene from the book Apocalypse Now is based on, Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness…It’s a story about how Imperialism is built upon racism & greed. And the self-justification, futility & insanity of the Empire’s violence.
“For a time I would feel I belonged still to a world of straightforward facts; but the feeling would not last long. Something would turn up to scare it away. Once, I remember, we came upon a man-of-war anchored off the coast. There wasn’t even a shed there, and she was shelling the bush. It appears the French had one of their wars going on thereabouts. Her ensign dropped limp like a rag; the muzzles of the long six-inch guns stuck out all over the low hull; the greasy, slimy swell swung her up lazily and let her down, swaying her thin masts. In the empty immensity of earth, sky, and water, there she was, incomprehensible, firing into a continent. Pop, would go one of the six-inch guns; a small flame would dart and vanish, a little white smoke would disappear, a tiny projectile would give a feeble screech—and nothing happened. Nothing could happen. There was a touch of insanity in the proceeding, a sense of lugubrious drollery in the sight; and it was not dissipated by somebody on board assuring me earnestly there was a camp of natives—he called them enemies!—hidden out of sight somewhere.” (1.30)
They had no idea what they were hitting. They did it not because it worked, but just because they could. Their power allowed them to do it from complete safety and without any possible consequences. Even if they weren’t “enemies” getting hit, but were “innocents”, they were still only “savages” whose lives would never be missed.
Does sound a bit familiar…especially if you listen to Right wing radio….they are all “savages”….