Though the Obama Administration is continuing to escalate its air war against ISIS in both Iraq and Syria, officials concede that there are significant intelligence gaps on exactly what they’re targeting or who they’re hitting.
The US hasn’t got spotters on the ground at all in Syria, and officials say they’re using surveillance drones and satellite images to try to figure out what’s on the ground, and where.
That’s not a great way to conduct and air war, clearly and has led the US to incidents like Monday’s attacks on grain silos in Syria which they assumed were “jihadist bases.”
It also makes the Pentagon’s claims that no civilians were slain even less credible, since they clearly have no way of confirming who they’re killing. In that respect, the administration has simply loosened the targeting rules, so the Pentagon doesn’t have to worry about it.
President Obama’s high profile May 2013 pledge that no airstrikes would be authorized without “near-certainty that no civilians will be killed or injured” simply doesn’t apply to the new war, according to the White House.
Officials are arguing that the ISIS war is “active hostilities” and that the standard of not killing civilians is not applicable in these cases.
The reality, though, is that the Pentagon simply has no way to have near-certainty without any clue what they’re bombing, and if they abide by that, they couldn’t conduct the air war. When the choice is between not having a war and killing civilians, the administration is going to choose killing the civilians every single time.
One thing is for sure, Obama promise for regime change in Syria is still on the table pleasing the U.S. Democratic Party, the other war party, the other war party. 1.7 billion dollars of verious weapon sold to Saudis guarantees Obama's promise. I wonder, how much the buyer makes investing on stocks in what they buy?
And condemned Assad for having the “right to defend himself,” or is that ‘right’ only applies to Israel.
Any Judge who hasn't been bought would have a field day with this… What does the ICC exist for if not to prosecute stuff like this? The UN should just bite the bullet, move out of the US and then do as they intended to do from the beginning.
When government tells you that it must kill people to keep you alive, your correct response will depend upon if you think that life is a free gift that you don’t deserve. For if your illusion is that you are some kind of a living god with an “unalianable right” to life and owe no debt of gratitude to anyone for it, then a war-hawk you surely will be.
relevant. lots of detail:
Enemy or Asset? FBI documents show radical cleric Awlaki communicated with federal agent in '03
Newly released documents further support the conclusion that the FBI was working with radical cleric Anwar al-Awlaki after the 9/11 attacks – in the years before he became the first American targeted for death by a U.S. drone strike…
Watchdog group Judicial Watch has since obtained more than 900 pages of new documents in the course of its federal lawsuit against the FBI under the Freedom of Information Act. They show the cleric was emailing and leaving voice messages with an FBI agent in 2003, a year after Ammerman told customs agents at JFK airport to bypass an outstanding warrant for the cleric's arrest.
The documents further support claims that Awlaki, who eventually went overseas and linked up with an Al Qaeda affiliate, worked with the FBI and was likely a U.S. government asset.
"I have little doubt that President Obama assassinated a terrorist that was an asset of the U.S. government," Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton said… http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2014/10/01/enemy-…