More Civilians May Die In The U.S. Campaign In Syria Than In Iraq, At Least At First

[Purveyor]

by Hayes Brown Posted on September 23, 2014 at 2:36 pm

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Administration officials also told reporters during a background briefing call that the munitions used in Syria were almost all precision-guided to reduce the chance of casualties. “We haven’t seen any claims of collateral damage or civilian casualties thus far,” one senior administration official said.

But there are several journalists who aren’t so sure that the operation came off as clean as the Pentagon would hope. One rebel commander from Idlib province in Syria told BuzzFeed’s Mike Giglio that strikes had already killed civilians there. “They’re going to turn every Syrian into ISIS and Nusra,” the commander told Giglio according to the reporter’s tweet. Likewise, Foreign Policy’s Shane Harris tweet that a source with contacts in Syria said at least “10 killed in a strike NOT against ISIS.”

Likewise, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a London-based NGO with many sources on the ground in Syria, did claim that at least eight civilians were killed in the strikes. And Bellingcat, a new website devoted to using social media to to report on conflict zones, says that videos and pictures from the aftermath of the strikes near the city of Kafar Deryan, in Idlib, show civilians killed. In this case as well, it’s eight civilians who were reportedly killed during the strikes, and another eight wounded. Another six — including three women and three children — were reportedly killed.

In contrast, across the border in Iraq, airstrikes against ISIS have been carried out for months. Even with the recent increase in tempo, there have been no major reports of civilians dying as a result of American airstrikes. So why, then, did one day’s worth of bombs in Syria kill more than nearly two hundred missions flown in Iraq?

The answer, as the saying goes, is location, location, location. In Iraq, ISIS is operating mostly in open spaces, easy targets for the U.S. sorties overhead. While the hasty retreat of Iraqi soldiers during ISIS’ surge this summer left a lot of heavy weaponry in their hands, that same weaponry has also made them an easy target. Just based on the Pentagon’s list of targets it has hit so far, it’s clear that the Humvees, armored personnel carries, Mine Resistant-Ambush Protected (MRAP) vehicles, and mortars have come to make up the bulk of just what the U.S. is lashing out at. Until recently, the mission was also focused on ISIS positions around the Mosul and Haitha dams, providing the military with knowledge of exactly where there militants are operating.

more...

http://thinkprogress.org/world/2014/09/23/3570871/why-the-odds-of-the-us-causing-civilian-casualties-are-higher-in-syria-than-in-iraq/

[morningfog]

1. So sad and so sick that we are doing this.

And all the bloodthirsty Americans wanted to kill. What a disgusting bunch of soulless assholes.

[blkmusclmachine]

3. +1

[quadrature]

2. job approval rating by Syrians, of Obama and ISIS?

I wonder what the numbers would be?