Thousands of civilian deaths, including many children. A massacre resulting from the US air raids. The military campaign in the skies of the Middle East was to be “the most accurate in history” as defined by the former US president Barack Obama, But this did not happen. Incorrect intelligence information and hastily and inaccurately chosen targets have led to the deaths of thousands of civilians. This is the picture that emerged from the Pentagon documents published by the New York Times which shed light on the dark side of the US-led precision wars.
The NYT explained that the perpetrators went unpunished as well as the mistakes. No disciplinary action, just some compensation to the families of the victims, less than a dozen.
“In the rare cases where errors are publicly acknowledged, they tend to be characterized as unfortunate, inevitable and uncommon,” the Times reported. “Even with the best technology in the world, errors based on incomplete information or misinterpretations of available information occur. And let’s try to learn from those mistakes, ”the captain explained to the NYT Bill Urban, spokesman for the United States Central Command, and added: “We work diligently to avoid such damage. We examine every credible instance and we regret every loss of innocent lives ”.
According to a calculation by the military, 1,417 civilians died in air strikes against ISIS in Iraq and Syria, but the Times investigation revealed that hundreds of deaths were not included. Between the Obama and Trump administrations, air strikes in Iraq, Syria and Afghanistan would have reached over 50 thousand. And in the meantime, thousands of civilians were being shot for imprecision and negligence.
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