MotherJones Blog: US Air Raids Quietly Continue to Kill in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan

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US Air Raids Quietly Continue to Kill in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan

Obama may want to pre-emptively strike Pakistan, but we're already well on our way.

From June to September Afghan and Pakistani civilians were killed during U.S.-led air strikes in record numbers. Afghan civilian casualties reached its climax in August, when 168 civilians died. Two-thirds of the deaths were attributed to "military operations conducted by international forces." And today it was reported that over 2,500 families have been displaced in southern Afghanistan due to the Taliban; of that, hundreds were forced to flee due to "intense aerial bombing by international forces."

Some have pointed out that there is a gruesome air war quietly going on in Iraq, Pakistan, and Afghanistan. Foreign Policy in Focus points out that some of these air strikes are conducted by unmanned aerial vehicles called MQ-1 Predators (which we fly over our south-west border, I might add). The missiles are guided from a base in Nevada. There has been a "five fold increase in the number of bombs dropped on Iraq during the first six months of 2007 over the same period in 2006," and more than 30 tons of that have been cluster bombs. More civilians, the writer suggests, are being killed by coalition forces than the Taliban.

Furthermore, 59,787 pounds of cluster bombs have rained upon Iraq since April 2003; the Air Force dropped 111,000 pounds of bombs over Iraq in 2006 over a span of 10, 519 "close air support missions." This figure does not include all the other types of weapons and munitions dropped over Iraq, as well as some Army, Marine and private security contractors' operations. Overall, an average of 75 to 100 airstrikes are carried out in the 2 countries everyday by the U.S.

The Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission remarks how Coalition bombardments against civilians come "at a time when the government and people of Afghanistan expect...international forces to cooperate and assist them in ensuring security, rule of law and reconstruction of Afghanistan. But, regretfully, the people of Afghanistan have always been witnessing civilian casualties in their operations against terrorists, particularly during last year [2006]."

— Neha Inamdar

Comments

Do the Democrats have anything on the legislative table that would bring this to an end?

Rhetorical question, as we already know the answer is a resounding "NO!"

Do the Democrats even have anything in play that would prevent this atrocity from spreading to Even MORE Countries?

Again: "NO!"

Matter of fact, they're giving George Dubya just what he has wet dreams about, in that regard.
They're giving him EXCUSES to spread hostilities into Iran, rather than passing legislation to tell him that he May Not!

["Yesterday, the Senate, by a vote of 76-22, including about half the Democrats (MORE than half, actually. gvc), moved the United States one step closer to war with Iran.

The Senate did this by urging the President to add the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, an arm of the Iranian state, to the list of international terrorist organizations.

This gives President Bush additional cover to use military force against Iran, which could include military raids into Iranian territory. We have been here before. This is how the Vietnam war was expanded into Laos and Cambodia, which led to the deaths of millions of Cambodians.

The result in this case could be the further radicalizing of the Islamic world, making us more vulnerable to terrorist attacks rather than less.

It is important to note that the President still has no explicit authority to attack Iran, but this won't necessarily stop him. He has shown a great willingness to violate both statutory law and the constitutional limits on his power.

Under the President's theory of the Unitary Executive he believes he has the authority to do anything he thinks is necessary to defend the nation."]
Source: http://www.downsizedc.org/blog/2007/sep/28/iran_vote

So WHY are so many Democrats FEEDING him EXCUSES?!?!

FYI: All of the 22 NAY votes did NOT come from Dems. There were a couple of Republicans with the spine to tell Bush 'NO' on this one.
In my own state, the Dem voted YEA, while the Repub Senator got it right, and said NO.

Posted by: gvc on 09/28/07 at 5:59 PM Respond

When you make that statement do you really know the number being kill by the extremist compare by coalition forces? The press are you lazy to count up the number of extremists killed by coalition forces let alone the number of civilians kill be extremists. That's a BULL SHIT statement.

Posted by: allen smithee on 10/08/07 at 6:01 PM Respond

Doesn't a "preemptive strike" philosophy, when followed by all parties to its logical conclusion, dictate that we must all attack each other immediately?

Posted by: Shoe Lover on 10/08/07 at 6:26 PM Respond

Why is it that liberals always claim that all terrorists killed by U.S. forces are innocent civilians, while all civilians killed by terrorists are pro-american conspirators? Let's face it, this constant barrage of "opinion" articles by reporters who insist on remaining ignorant of the facts is getting terribly boring.

Posted by: dbuer on 10/08/07 at 9:16 PM Respond

ahamda manyak

Posted by: Porno on 05/15/08 at 6:08 AM Respond

If insurgents live amongst the general population, and this is allowed to continue, how can they possibly be fought without some collateral damage (casualties)? The solution, while not easy, is to have zero tolerance for Taliban and other insurgents in their local communities. As long as they are allowed to mingle, no rules of engagement are going to be 100% effective.

Posted by: Johnny boy on 05/15/08 at 3:43 PM Respond