Pentagon spokesman Admiral John Kirby confirmed today that the military is investigating multiple “credible” incidents of civilian casualties in US airstrikes against ISIS targets in Syria and Iraq.
It has been suggested the investigation was focused around Syria, as the comments centered around reports of casualties in ISIS territory in and around Raqqa.
This is a major shift from the Pentagon, which had previously insisted all reports of civilian casualties were false, despite mounting evidence to the contrary.
Centcom insisted that they are still probing only two airstrikes, one in Syria and one in Iraq, and that they had dismissed all the other reports of civilian deaths as false. They insisted the overall toll was “fewer than five.”
The Pentagon had declined to offer any figures on the number of people killed in the airstrikes. Several reports of US airstrikes involved them killing a large number of civilians, though its unclear if these were even investigated.
At any rate, the Obama Administration had relaxed its standards for killing civilians in overseas conflicts explicitly for the ISIS war, because given the extreme lack of intelligence on sites being attacked in Iraq and Syria, it is expected that a number of civilians would be slain.
I predict that the investigations will result in nothing. All killings will be justified and those responsible promoted. It the new American dream.
"The world will note that the first atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, a military base. That was because we wished in this first attack to avoid, insofar as possible, the killing of civilians." – pres. Truman
Gives a nice illustration of what government claims about not wishing to kill civilians, and how many civilians they kill, are worth.
Obama… relaxed its standards for killing civilians… given the extreme lack of intelligence”
But surely, quite the reverse, for Obama is not trying to liberate Iraq from tyranny, but to keep it enslaved by tyranny. For the more civilians butchered, the more terrified into submission are the people and all of Obama’s rules of military engagement are designed to accomplish his blood lust and slaughter.
So the israeli prez is opposed to what Bibi is doing. A real humanatarian.
To — Rob — “Hiroshima, a military base… pres. Truman”
Actually, as virtually all of the troops in Japan were at the battle fronts, of the 220,000 killed by our two A-bombs, less then 1% were in the military.
For a fact, Truman had a copy of Japan’s offer of surrender when he dropped the A-bombs, but he wanted a world terrified by, and in submission to, Empire USA.
Oh, I know. This was exactly my point. His statement was a brazen lie to the face of the American people.
Shame on you ALL. YOU are responsible for all the terrors in the world. FU…
…and your little dogs too.
To — Rob
Yes and I’m sure most readers caught your true meaning, I just wanted to keep your thought going as the point is well taken. For hypocrisy is the Achilles heal of our Empire, for so much of what it says is the reverse of all that it does.