..
Declassified video shows US drone strike on civilians
The botched US air raid killed 10 civilians in Kabul, most of them children
Afghanistan, August 29, 2021. © US Department of Defense / New York Times
The Pentagon has released surveillance videos showing a US airstrike that killed 10 civilians in the Afghan capital last year, one of the final American combat missions in the country as Washington ended its two-decade war.
Published by the New York Times on Wednesday, the declassified 25-minute video shows the moment an Afghan aid worker and nine other non-combatants, including seven children, were killed in the US strike, all captured by two drones flying over Kabul during the August 29, 2021 bombing raid.
While the military initially claimed the strike targeted members of Islamic State who were transporting explosives – with one senior official deeming the operation “righteous” – it was later forced to backtrack and acknowledge that only civilians were killed in the attack.
So, then, it was "unrighteous", or, in other words, "evil"! It was a very difficult time for the American military, very embarrassing. They seemed to be out-performed by other countries in removing personnel, either military or civilian, and the loss of hundreds of vehicles - including tanks and helicopters, etc., if I remember correctly. So, it seems to me that there was probably some pressure to do something to make the military look a little less pathetic in Kabul. Unfortunately, what they did was to just make it worse.
Ahead of the strike, two MQ-9 Reaper drones trailed a white Toyota Corolla driven by a man later identified as Zemari Ahmadi, an aid worker with the US-based Nutrition and Education International. After following him for some time, Ahmadi’s car was struck as he pulled into the driveway of his home, seen around eight minutes into the footage. The blast engulfed the property, instantly killing Ahmadi and several children who rushed out to greet him, as well as other family members nearby.
A probe by the Air Force concluded that the operation did not violate any laws and recommended no disciplinary action. Though the investigation did find that surveillance footage showed the presence of at least one child near the site of the strike about two minutes before it was launched, the Pentagon said that would have been easy to miss in real-time.
“[In] two independent reviews that I conducted, the physical evidence of a child was apparent at the two-minute point. But it is 100 percent not obvious; you have to be looking for it,” Air Force Inspector General Sami Said told reporters in November following the inquiry, insisting the massacre was a “mistake” and not an act of “negligence.”
The declassified footage was obtained in a months-long Freedom of Information Act suit led by the Times, which was the first to uncover evidence the drone strike may not have killed any IS terrorists as the military initially claimed. The Pentagon also attempted to pin the loss of innocent life on a “secondary explosion” near Ahmadi’s home – suggesting he was indeed carrying a bomb in his car – but later said the fireball was likely caused by a propane tank, effectively abandoning any notion that he was a militant.
US nearly wiped out tens of thousands of civilians
with dam strike in Syria – NYT
The military then dismissed reports of the bombing as “crazy”
and preemptively blamed ISIS
In 2017, the US bombed a piece of strategic infrastructure in Syria, the Tabqa Dam on the Euphrates River, despite it being on a no-strike list, the New York Times reported.
A B-52 bomber dropped some of the heaviest weapons in the US Air Force arsenal on the target, including at least one BLU-109 bunker buster, which is designed to destroy fortified concrete targets. This bomb pierced through five stories in one of the dam’s towers, but didn’t explode.
If the Soviet-designed earth-and-concrete structure had failed, tens of thousands of people living in a valley below would likely have died.
The dam wasn’t immediately destroyed, but damage to its equipment rendered it inoperational and at risk of overflowing. An unprecedented truce involving the terrorist group Islamic State, US-backed forces on the ground, and Syrian government forces was hastlily struck with Russia’s help to allow a crane controlling emergency floodgates to be repaired.
After the work was done by a crew of 16 workers, a drone strike ordered by the same taskforce that called in the initial strike obliterated a van carrying some of them back. It killed a mechanical engineer, a technician, and a Syrian Red Crescent worker.
The events were described by the Times based on interviews with unnamed US military officials as well as people in Syria, including an engineer who was present at the dam on the day of the strike. It is the newspaper’s latest expose of Talon Anvil operations, which critics call reckless. The taskforce was created to coordinate the war effort against IS and was staffed by US Army Delta Force commandos, according to previous reporting.
The March 26 strike on the Tabqa Dam was attributed to US forces by Russia and Syria, but then-Lt. Gen. Stephen J. Townsend, under whose purview the taskforce operated, dismissed it as “a lot of crazy reporting.”
“The Tabqa Dam is not a coalition target and when strikes occur on military targets, at or near the dam, we use non-cratering munitions to avoid unnecessary damage to the facility,” he assured journalists.
If something happens to the Tabqa Dam, it will be at the hands of ISIS, not the coalition.
But ISIS has never had bunker-busting bombs or the planes that can deliver them!
According to Times sources, Talon Anvil routinely used a trick to circumvent the airstrike vetting process by senior command, citing the urgency of defending US allied forces from an imminent attack. The strike on the dam was also justified that way, but witnesses said no major fighting in the area was taking place before the bombs hit.
US Central Command acknowledged dropping three 2,000-pound bombs, but said they were targeting towers, not the dam itself. And that the fact it didn’t fail proved the safety of the operation, a spokesman for the military suggested. He denied that the usual procedures were sidestepped in authorizing the strikes.
The Times said a report requested from specialized engineers in the Defense Intelligence Agency’s Defense Resources and Infrastructure office prior to the strikes recommended against using any sort of explosives in the vicinity of the dam. Even relatively small munitions like Hellfire missiles could damage concrete structures controlling the flow of water, the four-page assessment said, according to the newspaper.
Talon Anvil had not reported the dam strikes. The US military had to piece together what had happened by reviewing logs from the B-52 bomber, a source told the Times. No disciplinary action was taken against members of the secret unit, the newspaper reported.
There is no room in NATO for military commanders to speak honestly and truthfully; it just can't happen!
German navy chief resigns over Crimea & Putin comments
Vice Admiral Kay-Achim Schoenbach has stepped down amid a diplomatic row
caused by his ‘personal opinion’
Germany’s Navy chief, vice-admiral Kay-Achim Schoenbach, has vacated his post on Saturday evening – just a day after he said that Crimea “will never come back”, and that Putin and Russia “probably deserve respect.”
Schoenbach asked Defense Minister Christine Lambrecht to “relieve me from my duties with immediate effect,” with the minister accepting his resignation, according to a statement cited by Reuters.
Speaking at an event organized by an Indian think tank in New Delhi on Friday, the vice-admiral dismissed as “nonsense” the notion that Russia was “interested in having a small and tiny strip of Ukraine soil and integrating it into their country.”
Schoenbach went on to claim that what President Putin wanted was the West to “respect” Russia, adding that “it is easy to give him the respect he really demands — and probably also deserves.” Addressing the issue of Crimea, the German Navy commander opined that the “peninsula is gone” and “will never come back — this is a fact.”
Schoenbach’s comments, which he insists were made in a private capacity, stirred up a diplomatic scandal, with Ukraine’s foreign ministry summoning the German ambassador to the country, Anka Feldhusen, on Saturday. Kiev described his remarks as “unacceptable.”
Germany’s defense ministry immediately distanced itself from the controversial statements, with its spokesperson characterizing the vice-admiral’s comments as not reflecting “in any way the position” of the ministry, both “in terms of the content and choice of words.”
In an apparent bid to diffuse the situation, the now former Navy commander took to Twitter earlier on Saturday, saying that he “should not have done it that way,” and describing his remarks as a “clear mistake.” Several hours later, his name and photo disappeared from the official Navy chief’s Twitter handle and its bio was changed to “currently vacant”.
Moscow has consistently rebutted claims made by Western media and senior officials, according to which Russia is allegedly planning to invade its neighbor any day now. The Kremlin has called the idea “fake news,” while raising issue with the fact that some Western nations are sending weapons to Ukraine. Last month, Russia sent proposals to the US and NATO for treaties with security guarantees, but so far negotiations were unsuccessful in finding terms for an agreement.
========================================================================================
No comments:
Post a Comment