![]() ![]() Of course, both Anwar al-Awlaki and Samir Khan were, at the very least, traitors to their country - they had both gone to Yemen and taken up with Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, and al-Awlaki had proven himself an expert inciter of those with murderous designs against America and Americans: the rare man of words who could be said to have a body count. He was the son of Anwar al-Awlaki, who was also born in America, who was also an American citizen, and who was killed by drone two weeks before his son was, along with another American citizen named Samir Khan. The second notable statement concerns the killing of 16-year-old American citizen Abdulrahman al-Awlaki. forces in Afghanistan." The vast majority would never make their way to New York or Washington, D.C., and the Obama Administration would never agree to rules that permitted only the killing of threats to "the homeland." "The agency now aims many of its Predator strikes at the Haqqani network, which has been blamed for attacks on U.S. "As Obama nears the end of his term, officials said the kill list in Pakistan has slipped to fewer than 10 al-Qaeda targets, down from as many as two dozen," the Washington Post reports. ![]() Take Pakistan, where the CIA kills some people without even knowing their identities. drones are targeting people who've never pledged to carry out attacks in the United States. Asked how their kill list can be justified, Gibbs replies that "When there are people who are trying to harm us, and have pledged to bring terror to these shores, we've taken that fight to them." Since the kill list itself is secret, there's no way to offer a specific counterexample. “The information you request is not immediately on hand in our office as it spans between multiple operations/campaigns within a span of between 18 and 20 years,” Centcom said.First, it's vital for the uninitiated to understand how Team Obama misleads when it talks about its drone program. The issue of civilian casualties of western airstrikes and other military activities during the war on terror has always been highly contested territory, with the US and its allies insisting that strenuous efforts have been made to minimise civilian death and injury.Īnd despite the wide-ranging umbrella of operations that have encompassed the war on terror, the US – according to a statement issued by the Pentagon – has never sought to calculate a total of civilian deaths ascribed to actions under its aegis.Īn email reply to Airwars from the Pentagon’s Central Command (Centcom) said that it did not have information available on the total number of civilian deaths from airstrikes. The death toll from US airstrikes – which the group admits is imprecise – compares with an estimated 387,000 civilians who are believed to have been killed by all parties during the war on terror, according to work done by Brown University’s Costs of War Programme. ![]() However, going by the maximum estimates, 2017 emerges as the worst year for civilians, with up to 19,623 killed, almost all in the bombing campaign against IS. The next deadliest year was 2017 when at least 4,931 civilians were likely killed, the vast majority in coalition bombing of Iraq and Syria. Since taking office Biden has reduced US reliance on airstrikes amid a formal review of US drone policy, and has withdrawn from many of the foreign interventions that marked the time in office of his three predecessors George W Bush, Barack Obama and Donald Trump, since the 2001 attacks on the US by al-Qaida.Įncompassing attacks on Islamic State in Syria, the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as strikes against militant and terror groups in Yemen, Somalia, Pakistan and Libya, the US has said it had conducted at least 91,340 strikes in 20 years – including 9,000 against the Islamic State, the Airwars report said.īased on that total, Airwars has calculated that “US actions likely killed at least 22,679 civilians, with that number potentially as high as 48,308”.Īccording to the group’s research, the deadliest year in the past two decades for civilian victims of US airstrikes was 2003 when a minimum of 5,529 civilians were reported to have been killed, almost all during the invasion of Iraq that year. The figures, released just ahead of the 20th anniversary of 9/11, come as the US president, Joe Biden, promised to end the “forever wars” that have marked the past two decades, and with the US withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
Details
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |