Source: Global Times
[Global Times reporter Ding Jieyun And Cong Chao] The US military has once again been exposed to a major scandal. According to the New York Times on the 18th, the US Pentagon seriously downplayed the number of civilian deaths caused by its so-called "precision" strikes in Syria and Iraq.
Citing more than 1,300 newly acquired classified documents about the Pentagon, the New York Times said that since 2014, U.S. airstrikes in multiple countries in the Middle East have been labeled as "serious intelligence deficiencies," hastily and inaccurately targeted, and have directly resulted in the deaths of thousands of civilians, including many children, on the ground. This stands in stark contrast to the U.S. government's portrayal of a war waged by omnivision drones and precision-guided missiles.
The New York Times cites several cases that actually happened. In November 2015, U.S. forces attacked a building in Ramadi, Iraq, after observing a man dragging an "unknown weight" into a "defensive combat position" of the extremist group Islamic State. Later military reviews found that the "object" was actually "a diminutive child who died in an airstrike." At about 3 a.m. on July 19, 2016, U.S. special forces bombed three "assembly areas" on the outskirts of the village of Tohar, which they believed were the Islamic State, in northern Syria. At the time, the U.S. military reported that 85 militants had been killed and that between 7 and 24 civilians had been killed. In fact, they attacked civilian houses far from the front lines, and more than 120 civilians were killed by mistake. In early 2017, an American warplane attacked a black car believed to be a car bomb in a neighborhood in Seymour, Iraq. In fact, there were no bombs on the vehicle, but local civilians and their families. Moreover, even if the United States acknowledges civilian casualties, it is not eager to pay compensation to the victims, the New York Times reported that "less than a dozen condolence payments were paid."
The Pentagon claims that U.S. airstrikes in Syria and Iraq have killed a total of 1,417 civilians, and 188 civilians have been killed in Afghanistan since 2018. But the New York Times said one thing is certain: The exact death toll is much higher than the Pentagon acknowledges.
Bill Urban, a spokesman for the U.S. Central Command, responded to the New York Times report on the 18th: "Even with the best technology in the world, errors will still occur, whether based on incomplete information or misreading of existing information." We try to learn from these mistakes. ”
In recent days, the US military has been exposed to the crime of indiscriminate killing of civilians. The New York Times reported on November 15 that the U.S. military concealed two airstrikes launched in Syria in 2019 during the fight against the Islamic State group, which killed 64 women and children. On December 12, the media broke the news that a covert air strike operation team affiliated with the US Army has long disregarded military regulations and fired dozens of bombs and missiles into buildings in Syria within several years, killing dozens of civilians. In addition, the U.S. Department of Defense recently decided not to impose any form of punishment on military personnel involved in the August 29 drone strike in Kabul, Afghanistan, which killed 10 civilians.