On Monday, the Pentagon said Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin has ordered the head of US Central Command to brief him on a 2019 Syria airstrike that killed dozens of women and children.
The order comes after The New York Times published an investigation on the airstrike that revealed the Pentagon had done everything it could to suppress the real death toll. The strike, conducted by US warplanes near the town of Baghuz on March 19, 2019, was one of the largest civilian casualty incidents during Washington’s war against ISIS. About 70 were killed, the vast majority of them women and children.
The report said the military knew the real death toll almost immediately but did everything it could to hide the slaughter. “At nearly every step, the military made moves that concealed the catastrophic strike. The death toll was downplayed. Reports were delayed, sanitized and classified. United States-led coalition forces bulldozed the blast site,” the report reads.
Pentagon spokesman John Kirby declined to discuss the airstrike but claimed that no other military in the world works as hard as the US “to avoid civilian casualties.” But civilian casualties in US airstrikes are incredibly common in US airstrikes, and the Pentagon is notorious for downplaying them.
On August 29th, the US conducted its last known drone strike in Afghanistan. The strike, fired by drone, killed 10 civilians in Kabul, including seven children. The Pentagon initially claimed it killed ISIS-K fighters but was forced to admit it only killed civilians after another report from the Times proved the US targeted an innocent man.
The Pentagon assigned an Air Force inspector general to investigate the August 29th strike, who concluded that the massacre was not the result of “misconduct or negligence” and recommended no disciplinary action. Considering how the military handled the Kabul strike, it’s unlikely there will be any accountability for the 2019 Syria airstrike.
Documents leaked by whistleblower Daniel Hale in 2015 revealed the grim statistics behind US drone warfare. During a five-month period between 2012 and 2013, 90 percent of the people killed by US drones were civilians. Hale was recently sentenced to 45 months in prison for leaking the documents.
45 months for Daniel Hale who revealed war crimes. Nothing for people who committed mass murder. Gawd freakin’ bless the USA…
Of course not, those people who committed mass murders were saving the people who were murdered from being murdered by a “brutal dictator.” This reminds me of someone playing tennis without keeping an eye on the tennis ball. Wait! Does that explain “the racket” in Smedley Butler’s “war is just a racket?”
Yes, stunningly bold thuggish criminality. This is what we get when our worst element takes power.
So everyone was going on believing the propaganda of “humanitarian interventions” and “precision bombings” until NYT decided to publish a small and carefully sanitized portion of the truth? Then all MSM outlets start quoting it along with more propaganda from the Pentagon’s chief weasel, John Kirby. All that while jailing Daniel Hale, the actual truthteller whose only crime was truthfully telling us that this was happening all the time? Anyone asking, why does NYT get to decide the truth? The world is so messed up. The entire US and west population seems asleep.
The NYT is the ministry of information. Information goes from NYT to other news outlets, to MSM. NYT has been governed by the Sulzberger family since 1896.
The US military are notorious for war crimes for as long as i can remember and i`m past 70 years of age they have yet to be bought to justice for any of the war crimes committed , they are given a free pass by the all the NATO countries because they are involved in the war crimes , with the UN being completely useless.
Does the U.S. admit to these relatively small number of killings to distract from the bit slaughters such as the bloodbaths at Raqqa and Kabul where we killed thousands of civilians?
I know you meant “big” slaughters.
Pentagon spokesman John Kirby declined to discuss the airstrike but claimed that no other military in the world works as hard as the US “to avoid civilian casualties”.
Now there is a statement that should make any American beam with pride. Claiming to be the most conscientious killers on the planet. I get misty eyed with pride.
https://responsiblestatecraft.org/2021/11/16/the-us-makes-the-rules-and-syria-massacre-was-no-exception/
I would order investigations and trials for war crimes for the American leaders who commanded this mass murder.