Posted on 03/24/2011 2:18:20 PM PDT by Beaten Valve
The big focus of the Obama administration in the last week has been, in President Obama's words, "to stop the violence against civilians." That's in Libya, of course, where Moammar Gadhafi was threatening to quell a rebellion based in Benghazi.
In this context, it's particularly striking to read the news from the ACLU -- which has been waging a legal battle to wring information from the government about American drone strikes -- that the military doesn't even keep a tally of civilian deaths caused by drones:
The Department of Defense has confirmed that it does not compile statistics about the total number of civilians that have been killed by its unmanned drone aircraft. The DOD disclosed this information in a letter in response to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union demanding that the government disclose the legal basis for its use of unmanned drones to conduct targeted killings overseas.
...
According to the DOD, the military’s estimates of civilian casualties do not distinguish between deaths caused by remote-controlled drones and those caused by other aircraft. While each drone strike appears to be subject to an individual assessment after the fact, there is no total number of casualties compiled. Moreover, information contained in the individual assessments is classified – making it impossible for the public to learn how many civilians have been killed overall.
(Excerpt) Read more at salon.com ...
Stuff like this is just nonsense. Why don’t they just claim it’s classified information like should be done with wartime information? That’s the adult in charge thing to do.
What is the official cause of death of these people that are droned?
Yeah, so? Are they supposed to? How would they know how many civilians, if any? Of course, this kind of article is something you'd expect from Salon as the author goes on to say that they have (unnamed) "independent" sources". Yeah, like they'll give you accurate info and not propaganda...
Kinetic ancillary damage.
No matter how “smart” the weapons, it is an unavoidable fact of war that some civilians are going to be collateral damage. It’s just like fratricide. War is an ugly business. I should know, I have done 4 combat tours in Iraq and Shitcanistan and have seen it first hand.
What these America hating ultra liberal wastes at the Anti-Christian Loyiz Union is that kind of stuff happens, regardless of how careful we are. Maybe we should give them all a K-pot and body armor and send their sorry asses over there for 6 months so they could see the realities of war for themselves. I for one, would volunteer to put one at the front of every stack I used to raid a building. Let THEM be the bullet traps instead of good, VALUABLE US soldiers.
The comments to the article are a hoot. They unload both barrels on the author!!
Kadhafi’s men are people, too. I’m sure we’ve nailed quite a few by now.
It’s because idiot Leftists like those at Salon and the ACLU never count any living person as a combatant. They are ALL civilians, according to the ACLU.
But doesn’t Obama being a black liberal Democrat make it okay? /sarc
ping
I, for one, do not believe in the concept of “civilians”. War is war, and civilians, likes chips on a poker table, are “in play”. Muslims, whose terrorist buddies specifically target civilians, have no reason to bitch. You don’t like civilian casualties? Stay out of a war.
The MSM will buy that.
Only civilians killed by nasty Republican drones will concern them.
However I still feel our (and the Brit's) bombing of civilian targets both in Germany and Japan strictly for the demoralizing effect was utterly immoral and in my opinion at least, criminal. It may have been fine for both the Germans and Japanese, but we were much better than they were. They were sociopaths.
Did I shoot some civilians I may have mistaken for combatants in Iraq and Shitcanistan? A very distinct possibility. But it still does not mean I did not regret it afterwards.
Even when it came to killing the enemy I have regrets. While in a firefight you don't even think about it. It is them or me and it's not going to be me. I stepped over their bodies like they weren't even there. But when you are back in the CP and alone with your thoughts, you have time to reflect on what transpired that day. They may have been the enemy, but they were still someone's father, son, brother, uncle, etc. And you caused their heart to stop beating. If you can just shake it off, you are either a Ted Bundy sociopath or you are lying to yourself, which will one day come back and bite you in the ass with 3" long fangs. I prayed every night that God would not hold my actions of that day agaist me on my Judgment Day. It was war and war is hell, plain and simple.
Drop the ACLU lawyers in to conduct the body count.
My comments really are directed at those elements that expect us to wail and gnash our teeth when civilian are killed. In the middle east, tyrants brutalize their own civilians. Terrorists target civilians. Leaders under attack hide amongst civilians. The U.S. takes as much care as possible to AVOID civilians. If civilians get hurt, I find it hard to shed tears.
But those people are sub-human savages who place no value on a human life. We are their polar opposites.
It pains me that even one innocent civilian is killed in a wat, but in the reality of war it happens; it is unavoidable. As I mentioned, so is fratricide.
Those America-hating loyiz in the ACLU cannot comprehend this. They live in their ultra-liberal utopia, completely disconnected from reality. They are the utterly reprehensibe wastes of $5 worth of chemicals who would defend the rights of John Evander Couey, over his victim, that wonderful little child of God, Jessica Lundsford, who he BURIED ALIVE, clutching her stuffed animal. THAT is the pathology of those miserable bottom feeders.
Personally, the only comfort I can take when it comes to them, is that they will have one hell of a lot of explaining to do on THEIR Judgment Day. And they would be able to bullshit their way, or use all their loyah tricks, to keep them from the fires of Hell.
bump
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