10th Anniversary: Civilian death toll in Afghanistan has doubled under Obama's command

[moderate libertarian]

from four years ago:


Afghan war at 10: Unhappy anniversary

Sunday, October 9, 2011

So far this year more than 450 U.S. and allied soldiers have died and more than 1,500 civilians have been killed in Afghanistan. That civilian number is double the toll of four years ago. With its addition, by very conservative estimate, 12,500 Afghan women, men, and children have been killed by all parties while trying to go about their lives since the 2001 invasion.

One trend is particularly worrisome. NATO and International Security Assistance Force air strikes killed civilians in the first six months of 2011 at a rate slightly higher than they did in 2010. These strikes obviously deeply alienate the people the U.S. asserts that it is helping. Reuters interviewed a survivor of one such strike, Noor Agha, last May. “My house was bombarded in the middle of the night and my children were killed,” he said.

http://www.projo.com/opinion/contributors/content/CT_afghan9_10-09-11_VKQPC1S_v15.987ba.html

[oyarde]

THis has been since the rules of engagement were changed by McChrystal to lower this ? How so ?

[moderate libertarian]

This came with Obama's new policy to escalate war in Afghanistan and increase revenge drone attacks from air.


CIA suicide bombing 'was revenge for drone attacks' - Telegraph

Jan 7, 2010 ... The aim of the deadly bombing of a CIA outpost in Afghanistan was to avenge
drone attacks carried out by America ...

www.telegraph.co.uk/.../CIA-suicide-bombing-was-revenge-for-drone-attacks.html


Drones are Being Used to Avenge the CIA Killings |

January 20th, 2010

http://www.militaryringinfo.com/current-events/1135-drones-are-being-used-to-avenge-the-cia-killings/



CIA Avenges Suicide Bombing With Barrage Of Predator Drones

01-23-10 11:01 AM

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/01/23/cia-avenges-suicide-bombi_n_434128.html

[heavenlyboy34]

from four years ago:


Afghan war at 10: Unhappy anniversary

Sunday, October 9, 2011

So far this year more than 450 U.S. and allied soldiers have died and more than 1,500 civilians have been killed in Afghanistan. That civilian number is double the toll of four years ago. With its addition, by very conservative estimate, 12,500 Afghan women, men, and children have been killed by all parties while trying to go about their lives since the 2001 invasion.

One trend is particularly worrisome. NATO and International Security Assistance Force air strikes killed civilians in the first six months of 2011 at a rate slightly higher than they did in 2010. These strikes obviously deeply alienate the people the U.S. asserts that it is helping. Reuters interviewed a survivor of one such strike, Noor Agha, last May. “My house was bombarded in the middle of the night and my children were killed,” he said.

http://www.projo.com/opinion/contributors/content/CT_afghan9_10-09-11_VKQPC1S_v15.987ba.html
Just goes to show ya, they hate us for our freedoms.:(

[klamath]

I really believe Obama's new policy is to strike any and every target they have even the slightest suspicions might be a terrorist with drones. So 1 out of 999 turns out to be a wanted terrorist and it is this one they crow up and make political hay. The other 999 that end up being women and children and US troops killed with friendly fire, it is hushed and pushed under the table. Kill them all and let God sort them out!

[moderate libertarian]

The other 999 that end up being women and children and US troops killed with friendly fire, it is hushed and pushed under the table. Kill them all and let God sort them out!

That kind of racism based views are not lately heard loud from Obama's masters but end result is still killing of large number of civilians by dropping bombs from air.


U.S. deaths in drone strike due to miscommunication, report says

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/afghanistan/la-fg-pentagon-drone-20111014,0,5628010.story


Marine Staff Sgt. Jeremy Smith, 26, of Arlington, Texas, was killed along with a Navy medic on April 6 in Afghanistan's Helmand Province. The Pentagon says Smith and Navy Hospitalman Benjamin Rast, 23, were killed by a Hellfire missile fired by a U.S. drone in a friendly fire incident. (unknown / October 14, 2011)
So six months ago these killed by drones were reported as "terrorists" and this is updated news version?

One can only imagine how many innocent civilians, children, women, men are killed by these violent remote control video games and never get reported in US media. Had read whileback that vast majority of killed are civilians.

[moderate libertarian]

Bad "intel" on Iraq would end up costing tax payers $3 Trillion, many lives and a national moral/political/economic depression lasting years if not decades. Are we repeating Iraq mistakes in another country that is only less forgiving for foreign empires?



Will Uncle Sam Go Postal in South Asia?

by Eric Margolis

It’s awfully hard for the world’s greatest power to admit its high-tech military forces are being beaten in Afghanistan by a bunch of lightly-armed mountain tribesmen that we dismiss as "terrorists."

But that’s what’s happening in the "Graveyard of Empires." Washington can’t and won’t admit it has blundered into a bloody, trillion dollar fiasco in Afghanistan.
Much of CIA’s intelligence on Afghanistan comes from two sources: electronic intercepts, and the Afghan government’s intelligence service.

Most anti-US fighters are far too experienced to use electronic communications they know are easily picked up by US satellites, aircraft, drones, airships, and ground stations.

The Afghan government intelligence service is dominated by Tajik Communists from the old Soviet-created KHAD intelligence agency who are blood enemies of Pakistan and Afghanistan’s Pashtun majority.

Afghan spooks have become a primary source of disinformation to US military and civilian intelligence outfits, and likely the source of claims that Pakistan’s ISI was behind recent attacks on US targets in Afghanistan. US intelligence was similarly misled in 2003 over Iraq by a "friendly," self-serving intelligence service.

Official Washington is reacting with free-form rage rather than careful thought. No doubt, the example of the Soviet 1989 defeat in Afghanistan increasingly haunts Washington.

http://lewrockwell.com/margolis/margolis261.html