THE CIVILIAN CASUALTY FILES: Hidden Pentagon Records Reveal Patterns of Failure in Deadly Airstrikes

[WhiskeyGrinder]

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/12/18/us/airstrikes-pentagon-records-civilian-deaths.html

The trove of documents — the military’s own confidential assessments of more than 1,300 reports of civilian casualties, obtained by The New York Times — lays bare how the air war has been marked by deeply flawed intelligence, rushed and often imprecise targeting, and the deaths of thousands of civilians, many of them children, a sharp contrast to the American government’s image of war waged by all-seeing drones and precision bombs.

The documents show, too, that despite the Pentagon’s highly codified system for examining civilian casualties, pledges of transparency and accountability have given way to opacity and impunity. In only a handful of cases were the assessments made public. Not a single record provided includes a finding of wrongdoing or disciplinary action. Fewer than a dozen condolence payments were made, even though many survivors were left with disabilities requiring expensive medical care. Documented efforts to identify root causes or lessons learned are rare.

The air campaign represents a fundamental transformation of warfare that took shape in the final years of the Obama administration, amid the deepening unpopularity of the forever wars that had claimed more than 6,000 American service members. The United States traded many of its boots on the ground for an arsenal of aircraft directed by controllers sitting at computers, often thousands of miles away. President Barack Obama called it “the most precise air campaign in history.”

This was the promise: America’s “extraordinary technology” would allow the military to kill the right people while taking the greatest possible care not to harm the wrong ones.

[sboatcar]

1. What I wonder about this

Is is there a comparison between using drones/airstrikes vs boots on the ground as far as civilian casualties goes? I think any civilian casualty is a tragedy and should be avoided, but is it better or worse this way? I don't know if there is an answer for that.

[WhiskeyGrinder]

3. From the article:

To understand how this happened, The Times did what military officials admit they have not done: analyzed the casualty assessments in aggregate to discern patterns of failed intelligence, decision-making and execution. It also visited more than 100 casualty sites and interviewed scores of surviving residents and current and former American officials. In the coming days, the second part of this series will trace those journeys through the war zones of Iraq and Syria.

Taken together, the reporting offers the most sweeping, and also the most granular, portrait of how the air war was prosecuted and investigated — and of its civilian toll.

There is no way to determine that full toll, but one thing is certain: It is far higher than the Pentagon has acknowledged. According to the military’s count, 1,417 civilians have died in airstrikes in the campaign against ISIS in Iraq and Syria; since 2018 in Afghanistan, U.S. air operations have killed at least 188 civilians. But The Times’s analysis of the documents found that many allegations of civilian casualties had been summarily discounted, with scant evaluation. And the on-the-ground reporting — involving a sampling of cases dismissed, cases deemed “credible” and, in Afghanistan, cases not included in the trove of Pentagon documents — found hundreds of deaths uncounted.

[Wounded Bear]

2. Aerial bombardment has always had the problem of civilian casualties...

back in the 20th Century, up to and including WWII/Korea that was a feature more than a bug. Hell, the rather accurate label of "terror bombing" was thrown around quite liberally, even by the "good guys."

Starting in Vietnam, we started developing "smart weapons" that were supposed to minimize civilian casualties, but the truth remains that if you set off explosives in crowded urban areas, you're going to hurt/kill more people than the few you might be aiming at. Sure, the guidance systems have improved, but that one fact remains, collateral damage is pretty inevitable.

In the fluid, rapidly changing environment of a combat zone it is impossible for intelligence to keep up and quick decisions, which are necessary, inevitably lead to more "mistakes" and more civilian deaths/injuries.

It's not surprising that they have been hiding the data. It's kind of human nature to not want to publish the "bad" data, which is why we need better disclosure laws to enforce improved transparency.

[ShazamIam]

4. OP, I consider these suddenly important but old stories to be more anti-Democratic propaganda.

I don't think they deserve a click when I see them out scanning the news feeds.

[WhiskeyGrinder]

5. Wait, what?

How is this an old story, and how is it anti-Democratic propaganda?

[ShazamIam]

6. Like that 3 week long anti-Biden blitz during and following the Afghanistan exit.

And how many people in the U.S. right now are worried about Syrians?

[WhiskeyGrinder]

7. How is this article anti-Democratic if it's covering 2016-present?

And how many people in the U.S. right now are worried about Syrians?

Dunno, but if people get mad about massive military budgets being approved without a hiccup while infrastructure and direct aid plans are whittled down to nothing, these kinds of articles can help keep the military accountable about what it does in our names.

[ShazamIam]

8. Any anti-Democratic story works, especially one that is showing it in that, both sides are the same,

kind of messaging. Along with the failure of BBB.

[WhiskeyGrinder]

9. If "Democrat" and "Republican" don't appear in the story I posted, how can this be an

anti-Democratic story?

[ShazamIam]

10. It is not even presented by NYTimes as a investigative report but as a human interest story and

reads very anti Obama Adm. even as we have seen reports of disloyalty to the Adm. during that conflict that according to others was deliberately created, and not by U.S. gov., to get Syria's oil under a more privatized arrangement like Iraq and Brazil and why Iran is still a target.

[WhiskeyGrinder]

12. It is actually presented as an investigative report, with access to the files the Pentagon fought to

keep away from the press. It's a massive, massive piece of reporting.

Presidential administrations are mentioned only briefly to outline a timeline or a policy a president might enact. But it's focused on the military and its work. Can we not critique the work of a supposedly nonpartisan institution when that work occurred during Democratic administrations? That's ridiculous.

[ShazamIam]

13. I would like to see a report about the Trump Afghanistan withdrawal agreement. An agreement that so

far seems to be a secret agreement. I think that would be more valuable that more anti-Obama stuff.

[WhiskeyGrinder]

14. It's sad you see this as anti-Obama.

[BlackSkimmer]

15. This isn't anti-Obama.

Recently it was determined that no one is being held responsible for that ghastly drone strike during the withdrawal. Outrageous.

That was neither tfg nor Obama.

[gratuitous]

11. Maybe we shouldn't be indiscriminately dropping bombs and firing missiles?

Crazy talk, I know. But just in case anyone seriously wonders why people around the world hate the United States, this is Exhibit 1. Yes, our country does some very nice things sometimes, but when your child or your father or your entire family was wiped out in an "oops" moment, you're not going to have warm fuzzy feelings about the country that unleashed the ordnance.

[WhiskeyGrinder]

17. Makes too much sense.

[WhiskeyGrinder]

16. Evening kick.

[WhiskeyGrinder]

18. Nighttime kick.

[Solly Mack]

19. K&R

[WhiskeyGrinder]

20. Deep-dive kick because this report about the U.S. killing kids just won a Pulitzer.