David Hambling at Wired’s Danger Room blog ventures a guess as to why so many people died in the newest drone-strike embarrasment. According to eye-witnesses, the drones dropped bombs instead of firing missiles, fueling Hambling’s hunch: …the Predator has now been joined by the much larger MQ-9 Reaper, which can carry a heavier payload, around [...]
Posts Tagged ‘airstrikes’
Mechanics of a Slaughter
Posted: June 24, 2009 in UncategorizedTags: Afghanistan, airstrikes, civilian casualties, drones, Pakistan
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Drone Attack Kills more than 60 in Pakistan
Posted: June 24, 2009 in UncategorizedTags: Afghanistan, airstrikes, civilian casualties, drones, Paksitan
U.S. drone attacks in support of a pending Pakistani offensive against Taliban leader Baitullah Meshud has likely caused another major civilian casualty event–by using tactics similar to those used by suicide bombers. Democracy Now! reports: At least 60 people have reportedly died in the South Waziristan region of western Pakistan after a US drone attack [...]
On Becoming What You Hate
Posted: June 23, 2009 in UncategorizedTags: Afghanistan, airstrikes, civilian casualties, drones, Pakistan
Reports are surfacing that U.S. drone operators are firing initial missiles at targets, and then firing secondary missiles at crowds that gather. This is a tactic we’re used to seeing…from suicide bombers. On Thursday, US drones launched an attack on a compound in South Waziristan, and when locals rushed to the scene to rescue survivors, they [...]
Dead Civilians in the Spin Cycle
Posted: June 23, 2009 in UncategorizedTags: Afghanistan, airstrikes, civilian casualties
Gareth Porter penned a great piece for IPS on the place of civilians in military thinking in Afghanistan: U.S. officials at a NATO conference in Brussels last Friday were telling reporters that “public relations” are now considered “crucial” to “turning the tide” in Afghanistan, according to an AFP story on Jun 12…. The new emphasis [...]
Stupid and Unjust: Smart Bombs and Just War
Posted: June 16, 2009 in UncategorizedTags: Afghanistan, airstrikes, Bala Baluk, Christianity, civilian casualties, Col. Greg Julian, Gulf War, Jesus, just war tradition, nonviolence
Remember that airstrike that killed 30-to-140 civilians in Afghanistan? Remember how the U.S. military said they weren’t to blame and they had video to prove it and that they were eager to release it? Here, let me remind you: The footage shows insurgents streaming into homes that were later bombed, said Col. Greg Julian, the [...]
Contesting Jihad within Radical Islam, Part 1
Posted: June 10, 2009 in UncategorizedTags: Abdul Ghaffar Khan, Afghanistan, airstrikes, CIST, civilian casualties, Countering Ideological Support to Terrorism, drones, Islam, Khudai Khidmatgars, McKiernan, Michael Doran, Obama, strategic communications
President Obama’s speech in Cairo last week shows that he’s taking the advice of folks urging the U.S. to drop the us-versus-them “War on Terror” rhetorical frame in favor of one that reinforces the idea of a conflict within Islam about the use of violence in political conflict. For quite some time, proponents of “strategic [...]
Epic Failure of “Smart Bomb” Hype in Afghanistan
Posted: March 2, 2009 in UncategorizedTags: Afghanistan, air strikes, airstrikes, Christianity, civilian casualties, hauerwas, just war, just war theory, nonviolence, smart bombs
This morning, AP published a story featuring Red Cross officials expressing anxiety about the escalating Afghanistan conflict: ”The daily lives of people living in areas where the fighting is taking place are being disrupted, be it because of airstrikes, night raids, suicide attacks, the use of IEDs, or because of intimidation and the population being [...]
The Math of Civilian Casualties
Posted: August 29, 2008 in UncategorizedTags: Afghanistan, airstrikes, civilian casualties, Herat
Here’s the kind of math that doesn’t help [emphasis mine]: A U.S. military review of an airstrike last week in western Afghanistan maintains that only five civilians were killed, Pentagon officials said yesterday, a finding that starkly contradicts reports by the United Nations and Afghan officials that the civilian death toll from the bombing was [...]
Convergence
Posted: August 28, 2008 in UncategorizedTags: Afghanistan, airstrikes, civilian casualties, Georgia, Herat, just war theory, Maximillianus, Russia
Two things come together at the United Nations: UNITED NATIONS: Russia, at odds with the United States over Georgia, tried unsuccessfully to push the UN Security Council on Tuesday to condemn US-led air strikes in Afghanistan that killed dozens of civilians. The Russian delegation had drafted a statement that would say the council’s 15 member [...]
