The Human Toll of America’s Air Wars

December 21, 2021 8:47 AM

Airstrikes allowed America to wage war with minimal risk to its troops. But for civilians on the ground, they brought terror and tragedy. [NYT investigation]

See the data: The Civilian Casualty Files

The New York Times is making public hundreds of the Pentagon’s confidential assessments of reports of civilian casualties resulting from U.S.-led airstrikes in Iraq and Syria. The documents lay bare how the air war has been marked by deeply flawed intelligence, rushed and often imprecise targeting, and the deaths of thousands of innocent civilians, many of them children.

posted by Ahmad Khani (19 comments total)

Three days later, on the evening of March 5, Abdul Aziz heard the explosions, maybe a dozen in all. They came from the direction of his brother’s house. He wanted to see what happened, but because bombings were often accompanied by a second round of missiles, he waited. Later, when he approached the block, he saw the flames and fire consuming what was once his brother’s home. “The place was flattened,” he told me when I first met him, nearly four years later. “It was just rocks and destruction. There was fire everywhere.” They returned at dawn, with blankets to carry the dead. “We searched for our relatives,” he told me, “picking them up piece by piece and wrapping them.”

Across town, Ali Younes Muhammad Sultan, Sawsan’s father, heard the news from his brother. Everyone at the dinner had been killed: Zeidan and his wife, Nofa; Araj, Ghazala and their four children; Zeidan’s adult son Hussein, Hussein’s wife and their six children; Zeidan’s adult son Hassan, Hassan’s wife and their two children; and Sawsan, their own beloved daughter. Sultan and his wife went to the hospital where Sawsan’s remains were taken.

“If it weren’t for her clothes, I wouldn’t have even known it was her,” he later told me. “She was just pieces of meat. I recognized her only because she was wearing the purple dress that I bought for her a few days before. It’s indescribable. I can’t put it into words. My wife — she didn’t even know whether to go to her daughter, or the rest of the family first. It is just too hard to describe. We’re still in denial and disbelief. To this day, we cannot believe what happened. That day changed everything for us.”

posted by Ahmad Khani at 8:47 AM on December 21, 2021 [9 favorites]

We're the baddies.
posted by Gadarene at 9:13 AM on December 21, 2021 [21 favorites]

This is important reporting, and I was glad to see it on the front page, although I wish that NYT had mentioned Daniel Hale, who blew the whistle on these war crimes and just this July was sentenced to almost 4 years in federal prison. NYT should call for Biden to pardon him.
posted by icebergs at 9:40 AM on December 21, 2021 [28 favorites]

Re Daniel Hale
Ilham Omar requested his pardon.
Of course he's been sent to a CMU with al qaeda terrorists and white supremacist gang leaders
posted by lalochezia at 9:46 AM on December 21, 2021 [7 favorites]

Per this NPR story, CMUs are designed for "people convicted of terrorism, prisoners who have dealt drugs or tried to recruit or radicalize others behind bars; and prisoners who have abused their communications privileges by harassing victims, judges and prosecutors."

Where would Hale even fit into that?
posted by the sobsister at 10:40 AM on December 21, 2021 [4 favorites]

NYT: What to Know About the Civilian Casualty Files (archive link)

"The records show little effort by the military to identify patterns of failure or lessons learned. ... Taken together, the 5,400 pages of records point to an institutional acceptance of civilian casualties."
posted by Gerald Bostock at 11:36 AM on December 21, 2021 [6 favorites]

Here's a link to the full companion piece: HIDDEN PENTAGON RECORDS REVEAL PATTERNS OF FAILURE IN DEADLY AIRSTRIKES

(As the piece states, all these records were obtained through thousand of FOIA requests, and are completely separate from the material Daniel Hale gave to the Intercept in 2014.)
posted by neroli at 12:29 PM on December 21, 2021 [1 favorite]

The 1977 Protocol I amendment protocol to the Geneva Conventions "[prohibits] the deliberate or indiscriminate attack of civilians and civilian objects, even if the area contained military objectives ... the attacking force must take precautions and steps to spare the lives of civilians and civilian objects as possible."

The US is a signatory to Protocol I but, as is so often the case with international law, has not ratified it. So, yeah, we're the baddies.
posted by jedicus at 12:32 PM on December 21, 2021 [5 favorites]

I'm glad to see this data out in the open, and I also hate to be this person, but...

Haven't most thoughtful people been saying for years that this is what would be happening? Didn't we know as much about the military accepting civilian casualties when the US was trying to cover up the murder of journalists? Whatever you think of Assange, the release of Collateral Murder was proof back then that the military had more than just an "institutional acceptance of civilian casualties." That's putting it mildly, it's almost like civilian casualties were/are "bonus points" to these guys.

I remember finding out about DARPA research into "self-healing minefields" during the Bush era, which were minefields that wouldn't, as the name wrongly implied, heal themselves by disabling themselves over time. Because you know, dismantling minefields is the most costly and dangerous aspect of minefields, and so it would make sense for them to have a simple remote kill switch. No, they "self-heal" by being a network of mines that "hop" into new positions to fill the gaps from when one mine explodes. Fucking grim.

Point being, our military obviously doesn't give one flying fuck about the long-term effects. They seem to be approaching climate change similarly. Despite being the biggest polluter on the planet, they're leaning into stealing and commanding all the worlds resources for so-called "American interests."

I mean, isn't that just scratching the surface? Can't we go back decades to see the same behavior? While the research to support it is indeed good, we're at a point in history where it feels like no amount of research or proof matters enough to actually change anything. I feel strongly that Zizek was correct in his assumption that we're at a point in history where evidence of corruption is swept away so quickly that society forgets and moves on before anything can be functionally done. In a post-truth era, the evidence only matters to the people who value the evidence, society, the future, and so on. It's not surprising that this is the case, but I also think that this evidence will change very little.

I mean, we're literally one of the nations who also recently wouldn't sign on to a UN resolution to not make autonomous weapons. The US is rip rarin' ready to make automated manhacks that tear "perps" to shreds with the touch of a button. That's some Black Mirror George Jetson shit, sitting at the button all day, pressing it to release another killer drone.

"We're the baddies."

Always have been.

---

The worst is, as the world falls apart, this attitude will (like all things) make its way from the warzone to the homeland (as the homeland steadily becomes a warzone itself). Don't expect them to care about civilian casualties of US citizens when the time comes.
posted by deadaluspark at 12:41 PM on December 21, 2021 [16 favorites]

> The 1977 Protocol I amendment protocol to the Geneva Conventions "[prohibits] the deliberate or indiscriminate attack of civilians

What's crazy is, it even goes beyond that (Article 57):

(i) do everything feasible to verify that the objectives to be attacked are neither civilians nor civilian objects and are not subject to special protection but are military objectives within the meaning of paragraph 2 of Article 52 [ Link ] and that it is not prohibited by the provisions of this Protocol to attack them;

(ii) take all feasible precautions in the choice of means and methods of attack with a view to avoiding, and in any event to minimizing, incidental loss of civilian life, injury to civilians and damage to civilian objects;

(iii) refrain from deciding to launch any attack which may be expected to cause incidental loss of civilian life, injury to civilians, damage to civilian objects, or a combination thereof, which would be excessive in relation to the concrete and direct military advantage anticipated;

What I mean by "crazy" is, even from the viewpoint of a hawk who really, really wants to wage war and feels like we "need" to take out terrorists, and so on, this document is written very, very moderately. As in, it allows you to wage that kind of war and even kill civilians to a degree as long as you are taking some reasonable precautions, doing a decent job at minimizing civilian casualties, and continually weighing the loss of civilian lives vs the military advantage gained by the attacks.

In short it requires the military to do a reasonable job at reducing civilian damage, not just accept it as "Oh, well."

And this report shows that what we are doing is exactly accepting it as "Oh, well." We're not even trying half-assedly to avoid civilian casualties. We're not trying at all.

Point is, this standard requires the very bare minimum degree of humanity to be exercised in order to avoid being classed as a war criminal and we can't even be arsed to do THAT bare minimum amount.
posted by flug at 2:06 PM on December 21, 2021 [6 favorites]

Not sure who we is but yes, we certainly did know.
posted by Ahmad Khani at 2:07 PM on December 21, 2021 [1 favorite]

This is indescribably sad and tragic. And also, duh. Maybe next time, the NYT shouldn't beat the drums of war so loudly and persistently, but then again, war is business, and the business of the USA is war, so...
posted by nikoniko at 2:27 PM on December 21, 2021 [3 favorites]

Troop casualty reduction is one aspect in the history of air strikes, another is pacification/terror. The idea is to weigh the options to prevent losses to troops. I remember after studying The Philippine–American War, the infamous Smith dispatch.

"I want no prisoners. I wish you to kill and burn, the more you kill and burn the better it will please me. I want all persons killed who are capable of bearing arms in actual hostilities against the United States."

(SMajor Littleton Waller asked:)

"I would like to know the limit of age to respect, sir."

"Ten years", Smith responded.
posted by clavdivs at 3:32 PM on December 21, 2021 [5 favorites]

Thank you for your service.
posted by fnerg at 3:56 PM on December 21, 2021 [1 favorite]

refrain from deciding to launch any attack which may be expected to cause incidental loss of civilian life, injury to civilians, damage to civilian objects, or a combination thereof, which would be excessive in relation to the concrete and direct military advantage anticipated;

This is really just a get-out-of-jail-free card, isn't it? Any amount of civilian deaths can be hand-waved away by pointing to the anticipated military advantage, if the decision-makers could even be bothered to consider it. One of the reports in the released documents stated several times that the impact of secondary explosions from an airborne bombing run was not considered as it could not be predicted. The report was about an attack on an alleged active IED factory that destroyed or damaged hundreds of civilian buildings. Even I can predict that dropping bombs into a fucking bomb factory is going to cause massive secondary explosions.

I doubt that military leadership anywhere really gives a toss about civilian casualties of bombing raids anyway - they're all the enemy, right?
posted by dg at 9:40 PM on December 21, 2021 [1 favorite]

> This is really just a get-out-of-jail-free card, isn't it?

It's the old foxes guarding the henhouse problem.

Still, they are not even doing the bare minimum that is clearly in our own national interest.

Blasting random civilians does not advance the U.S. national interest - it undermines it in a whole bunch of ways, from fueling the next generation of anti-American extremists to undercutting the work to promote human rights and democracy.
posted by flug at 1:56 AM on December 22, 2021 [3 favorites]

Blasting random civilians does not advance the U.S. national interest - it undermines it in a whole bunch of ways, from fueling the next generation of anti-American extremists to undercutting the work to promote human rights and democracy.

So more weapons will be sold, and profits increase. I suggest your definition of "U.S. national interest" isn't the same as the definition used by those who profit from it.
posted by DreamerFi at 3:39 AM on December 22, 2021 [3 favorites]

If 'US national interest' is an economic measure, there is huge incentive to keep wars going and, wherever possible, get involved in new conflicts. Civilians are merely consumables in the ongoing 'war on x' and have no economic value to the corporations that profit from creating misery. Foreign civilians even more so.

Beyond paying lip service, the US as a nation (distinct from the bulk of its people), to an outside observer, doesn't appear to have much interest in promoting human rights or decency.
posted by dg at 3:49 PM on December 22, 2021

If 'US national interest' is an economic measure, there is huge incentive to keep wars going

A metric to "precision" munition targeting grew from the Vietnam war. The other end was B-52, etc..."carpet bombing" by US/allied air campaigns that is naplam and personel munitions fucking laying waste across S.E. Asia for years. Hell, the madman theory is like the uber-WTF bombing I can think of And we're at the beginning of the end of the Energy war started in 1990. Which led to more precision to today's Variants. So, Vietnam taught us only how not not lose... troops. Thus the military culture steeped deep by 1968 flailing apart.

I doubt that military leadership anywhere really gives a toss about civilian casualties of bombing raids anyway

I'm sure if someone looked you could find reports on for instance limiting civilian casualties and precision bombing etc....can offer an example. my uncle was a second generation German, born in Chicago, was a radio operator during World War II bombing Nazis. they did pay consideration to civilian targets for what it's worth there are many examples that contradict, Dresden for example. but my uncle only flew three missions shot down on his fourth. thought of bombing civilians was in the back of the mind and they did study charts. On his second mission, it was successful run. The bombardier can get really close in for a view and after they dropped their bombs, quiet assent and in this instance the bombardier replied over radio that he thought he might have hit a cow. they had dropped their bombs three blocks from a school and four from a hospital. The BDA concluded that their bombs hit all their targets which was sort of amazing...hence the joke, "today, your bombing the last Nazi oil field". Because the targets.never.ended.
my overall point is that it was basically down to the crew and not the hierarchy of military decision that helped if anything reduce civilian casualties during the second World War.
posted by clavdivs at 7:01 PM on December 22, 2021