Wednesday, March 16, 2016

I blame Joe Biden

The thing about anger and blame is: It doesn't have to be justified.

So maybe it' not really Joe Biden's fault, but he's who I blame.

If he'd tossed his hat in the ring, we wouldn't be seeing Hillary march to the nomination.

It's Hillary Clinton, so there's still a good chance she could go to prison or be caught with a barnyard animal.

But barring that, she's going to be the nominee in November, I fear.


And I can't think of anything worse.

She's a War Hawk.

She's a liar.

Again, I blame Joe Biden -- right or wrong.

Sorry, Joe.

New content this week at Third:




Here's C.I.'s "Iraq snapshot:"




Tuesday, March 15, 2016.  Chaos and violence continue, Hillary Clinton lies again about Iraq, David Brock's Bordello tries to spin for Hillary, and much more.



Noted War Hawk and increasingly overweight politician Hillary Clinton has won at least three primaries tonight -- change that to apparently four.

But she's still the ugly War Hawk whose husband publicly cheated on her repeatedly.


And, yes, that is an issue.


Bill cheats.

It was one thing for her to stand by him as First Lady.

What would the world think of a president who allowed their spouse to cheat on them?

Again, Bill cheats.

This is not the past.


So, if Hillary gets the nomination and then the presidency, what happens when one of Bill's affairs explodes?


Does she walk away from him?

Or does she stand on the world stage humiliated -- the leader of the free world with egg on her face?


It's a question that has to be asked considering her marriage and what she would represent on the world stage.


Hillary will never be anyone's first choice.

But she will always be a War Hawk.

Last week, she was hugging fellow War Hawk George W. Bush.



Thanks Hillary for your vote on Iraq! U & 28 other Democrats. Ah, those were the days! Bi-partisanship (pic:3/11/16)







They look so happy together, her chins waving in the breeze, same breeze fluffing whatever's left of his hairline.


She showed up Monday night on MSNBC's HARDBALL to yet again lie about why she voted for the Iraq War.  Excerpt.



Chris Matthews:  Were you smart about Iraq?  Endorsing the president's position on Iraq?  Did you believe ever that Saddam Hussein -- when you had a chance to vote to authorize that war in Iraq -- did you ever believe Saddam Hussein had nuclear weapons?

Hillary Clinton:  I did.

Chris Matthews: Who told you?

Hillary Clinton: Well I know at the end of the [my husband's] Clinton administration there was a strong sense that he was reconstituting his nuclear weapons program.  And I like to remind people that at the end of the 90s there was a sense of the Congress passed that my opponent [Senator] Bernie Sanders voted for basically talking about regime change in Iraq --

Chris Matthews:  That was neocon stuff.

[Cross talk]

Hillary Clinton: Bernie Sanders voted for it!

Chris Matthews:  Why --

Hillary Clinton:  Chris, I'm just telling you.  That was the prevailing opinion.  And look, I've said it was a mistake

Chris Matthews:  I want to know about the facts.  Because if you were told by someone that he had nuclear weapons, they weren't telling the truth because Mike Morrell, who was the chief CIA briefer on the subject told me on my show that they never told anybody because they had no evidence that they had nuclear weapons.  So who, if it wasn't the CIA told you that they had nuclear weapons?

Hillary Clinton:  Well what was going on was a continuing intensive inspection program.  Remember Hans Blix?

Chris Matthews:  I remember it all.

Hillary Clinton:  And Hans Blix and his team of inspectors were trying to get to the bottom of this.  Now here's what was misleading is that Saddam Hussein could have ended it immediately.  He could have said come anywhere, look anywhere, we have nothing.  But he didn't choose to do that.  And so inspectors were racing to get to all the sites --

Chris Matthews:  Yeah.

Hillary Clinton:  -- because they were worried because remember, at the end of the first Gulf War, we did find evidence of a nuclear weapons program.  Then we had a number of years where we were flying a no-fly zone  over Iraq and where we saw him diverting a lot of money not just into building palaces but building, we thought, programs.

Chris Matthews:  In the fall of 2002, Dick Cheney said Saddam Hussein had nuclear weapons even though the CIA never told him that.

Hillary Clinton:  Well --

Chris Matthews:  No, the question is was Donald Trump right when he said they lied?

Hillary Clinton:  Well you know, I think that -- What Mike Hayden and others have said was an intelligence failure.  Now I don't know --

Chris Matthews:  Yeah but they never said they had nuclear weapons.  How could it be a 'failure'?

Hillary Clinton:  They led some people to believe that --

Chris Matthews:  Yeah, but not with evidence. You didn't have evidence did you?

Hillary Clinton:  We had -- What we had -- what I had, let me speak for myself --

Chris Matthews:  You never had evidence of nuclear weapons.

Hillary Clinton:  No.  But that was because the inspection program had not been completed and where I stood was I believed George W. Bush when he said we are going to let the inspectors finish the job.  This vote will give me the leverage, he claimed, to make sure that happens.  Read Hans Blix's book --

Chris Matthews:  Why did you trust George W.?

Hillary Clinton:  Well, you know, I-I thought that using diplomacy -- which seemed to me was what he was offering -- made a lot of sense.


She's lying yet again.

She can only lie, that's all she has to offer.

She never objected when Bully Boy Bush refused to let the inspectors finish their job.

She's a liar.

But let's let her have her lie -- Bully Boy Bush tricked her!!!!!!

How stupid do you have to be to get tricked by George W. Bush?

How stupid do you have to be?


This is Bully Boy Bush who couldn't get the quote right, "Fool me once, shame on you.  Fool me . . . I won't get fooled again!"

The quote is fool me once, shame on you.  Fool me twice, shame on me.

The fool here would be Hillary Clinton.

If that's how she wants to play -- tricked by the idiot Bush -- then she's the fool.


Michael Moore noted the Iraq section of the interview.




  • Matthews: "We have 100K people dead in iraq. Why do u keep wanting to do regime change? What's in your thinking - just knock off leaders?"





  • Tonight Chris Matthews asked Clinton 3 times who told u Iraq had WMD. She wouldn't answer. Evaded truth again by invoking 9/11. Shame again.

  • There was much more to the HARDBALL interview.  Philip Weiss (MONDO WEISS) notes:

    “Part of what certainly influenced me” to support the Iraq war was George Bush pledging billions to rebuild New York after 9/11 a year before her vote, Hillary Clinton said last night. The comment is getting a lot of attention: folks are asking whether Hillary Clinton got bribed to support the Iraq war.


    Francesca Chambers (DAILY MAIL) notes another aspect of the interview:


    Hillary Clinton claimed during a town hall that its unfair to compare her vote for the Iraq War to her support for forced regime change in Libya because 'we didn't lose a single person' in the latter country. 
    The statement ignores the terrorist attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya, on September 11, 2012 that killed four Americans, including American Ambassador Chris Stevens, while she was secretary of state.
    Clinton's regime change record came up during an interview with Chris Matthews yesterday evening on MSNBC in the context of the Democratic presidential race and Bernie Sanders' opposition to U.S. involvement in both conflicts.
    The four Americans known to be killed* were Sean Smith, Tyrone Woods, Glen Doherty and Chris Stevens.
    *Known to be killed?
    Hillary has offered Congressional testimony of meeting with other victims of the attack in a military hospital and some of them dying.
    It's Congressional testimony -- in an open forum -- and no one ever wants to question her on that.
    Even though she's a serial liar who repeatedly gets caught lying.
    Her latest lie ("we didn't lose a single person") has generated strong responses such as this Tweet:
    That bitch already forgot Clinton:Libya not like Iraq because 'we didn't lose a single person'








    Over at David Brock's Bordello, professional whores Tyler Cherry, Nick Fernandez and Bobby Lewis try all forms of positions to try to make believe Hillary was not forgetting Benghazi, just speaking of the conflict.


    David's service boys should close their mouths and legs and probably bathe in something stronger than soap to get rid of the crabs.



    They're lying and whoring.

    Reality, Barack didn't put US boots on the ground in the battle.

    Hillary knows that.

    So her self-praise that "we didn't lose" a person in Libya?


    Her concern should be with the people of Libya.

    She supported war on Libya and she should be concerned about what the support brought.


    As for her little whore David Brock, no one believes a word that comes out of David Brock's Bordello.


    And not everyone is as quick as Brock to strip off their ethics.


    Some reaction on Twitter includes:





  • Nothing is more weaselly than US pols who voted for the Iraq War blaming their choice on "intelligence failure," unless they mean their own.





  • Bob Graham, one of few senators who actually read CIA report on WMD in Iraq, changed his vote to NO after reading it














  • Oh my god, just home from an event, seeing Hillary openly admit she had no evidence of WMD in Iraq & that her vote was a favor trade with W.



  • Says a woman who voted in favor of the Iraq War.






  • We can ask women in Iraq and Syria if they have benefited from Hillary's interventionist policies







  • Today, the US Defense Dept announced/bragged:


    Strikes in Iraq
    Rocket artillery and attack, fighter and remotely piloted aircraft conducted 14 strikes in Iraq, coordinated with and in support of the Iraqi government:
    -- Near Huwayjah, a strike suppressed an ISIL mortar position.
    -- Near Hit, four strikes struck a large ISIL tactical unit and an ISIL improvised weapons factory, destroying four ISIL fighting positions and suppressing an ISIL rocket position.
    -- Near Kirkuk, two strikes destroyed an ISIL heavy machine gun and an ISIL fighting position and suppressed an ISIL fighting position.
    -- Near Mosul, four strikes struck an ISIL training camp and two ISIL improvised explosive device factories and destroyed four ISIL assembly areas.
    -- Near Qayyarah, a strike destroyed an ISIL mortar position.
    -- Near Ramadi, two strikes struck two large ISIL tactical units.

    Task force officials define a strike as one or more kinetic events that occur in roughly the same geographic location to produce a single, sometimes cumulative, effect. Therefore, officials explained, a single aircraft delivering a single weapon against a lone ISIL vehicle is one strike, but so is multiple aircraft delivering dozens of weapons against buildings, vehicles and weapon systems in a compound, for example, having the cumulative effect of making those targets harder or impossible for ISIL to use. Accordingly, officials said, they do not report the number or type of aircraft employed in a strike, the number of munitions dropped in each strike, or the number of individual munition impact points against a target.



    The Iraq War started under Bully Boy Bush continues under Barack Obama and would continue under Hillary Clinton.






    Sunday, March 13, 2016

    SEINFELD, the old man's show

    First up, earlier today  Isaiah's THE WORLD TODAY JUST NUTS "Low Road" went up.


    low road


    Kasich?  Is that how you spell his name?

    I love Valerie Jarrett popping back in.  :D  I agree with Isaiah that she's been the savior for the second term of Barack -- savior in the comics.  I love wee Valerie Jarrett and her little sidebars. :D

    Okay, SEINFELD.  I wasn't even in high school when that show went off the air.  :D

    That's an old man's show.

    And if you doubt it, creator and main writer Larry David was on SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE yet again and this time mocking Bernie Sanders supporters.

    Bernie is the choice of young people.

    SEINFELD is the tired old show that features Kramer -- an actor who uses the N-word in public.

    Now we've got Larry David trashing Bernie Sanders supporters?

    I think it's time we all stopped watching that tired show in syndication and on HULU.

    I think it's time Bernie supporters sent Larry David a message of "ENOUGH!"



    Here's C.I.'s "Iraq snapshot:"


     
    Saturday, March 12, 2016.  Chaos and violence continue, the daily bombings continuing, AIRWARS notes the civilian dead from the 'coalition' bombings, the Defense Dept wants to talk short term interrogations, the press doesn't want to address the issue, and much more.



    Oh, how the US government manipulates information.

    Wednesday, Cheryl Pellerin with DOD News or Propaganda, wrote the following:


    Leaders of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant who are captured by the Expeditionary Targeting Force and held for questioning will be detained by the force only for short periods of time and the detention will be coordinated with Iraqi authorities, a Pentagon spokesman said today.
    Navy Capt. Jeff Davis told defense reporters here that ETF missions, first announced in October, are conducting operations as part of the coalition fight there against ISIL.

    “One of the missions that we anticipate they will do is to capture a small number of ISIL leaders,” Davis said. “The detention of these [leaders] we anticipate will be very short-term [and] coordinated with Iraqi authorities.”


    Well that's interesting where did it come from?

    It came from the Defense Dept trying to seize the narrative.

    Wednesday morning, they were still concerned that the US press might actually actually get off their lazy and useless asses and do their damn job.

    The Defense Dept should never have sweated it because the US press never does their job.



    Tuesday the Senate Armed Services Committee held a hearing which we covered in Tuesday's Iraq snapshot, "Magical Bernie trumps Tired Hillary" and in Thursday's Iraq snapshot.


    Three generals testified before the Committee, Gen Lloyd Austin (CENTCOM),  Gen Joseph Vogel (Special Operations Command) and Gen David Rodriguez (US Africa Command).  The Chair of the Committee is Senator John McCain, the Ranking Member is Senator Jack Reed.

    What had the Defense Dept sweating bullets was the following exchange from that hearing.



    Senator Kelly Ayotte:  I wanted to follow up on an important question.  Both General Rodriquez and General Votel, this is something I've actually asked both your predecessors about and my concern is if we capture Ayman al-Zawahiri or Baghdadi -- [Abu Bakr] al-Baghdadi tomorrow where will we detain these individuals under long term law of war detention -- most importantly to interrogate them to find out all that we need to know about al Qaeda and ISIS?  And as I asked your predecessor going back to 2011, I asked -- I asked General [Carter] Hamm, your predecessor in AFRICOM, what would happen if tomorrow we captured a member of al Qaeda in Africa?  And you know what he told me?  He said I'm going to need some lawyerly help on answering that one.  I also asked the same of Admiral  [William] McRaven, your predecessor, General Votel.  And he said to me that it would be very helpful if there was actually a facility that was designated for long term, law of war detention and interrogation.  So I guess my question to both of you is tomorrow, if we capture these individuals, given the phenomenal work that the men and women who serve underneath you do ever day, where are we going to interrogate them?  Do you know that?  Do you know what you would do with them?  Especially if you wanted to have a long term interrogation of them?  


    Gen Joseph Votel:  Senator, in my experiences, we've looked at operations where we're actually going to detains somebody we have had a plan in place before we actually conducted the operation for how we were going to potentially detain them and what their legal disposition would be -- whether that was back in the US courts --

    Senator Kelly Ayotte:  No, General, we just recently captured someone in ISIS and as I understand it, they're not being -- they're being held short term and then they're going to be turned back to the Kurds.  So what about long term detention?  You would agree that long term interrogation is quite helpful, for example, in gathering the information that we needed to get [Osama] bin Laden.  That's what worries me

    Gen Joseph Votel:  I --

    Senator Kelly Ayotte: What do we do in a long term setting?  Do we know?

    Gen Joseph Votel:  I--I would agree that there is a requirement for long term detention, Senator.

    Senator Kelly Ayotte: And do we know where that would be now?



    Gen Joseph Votel:  I-I don't know that.  That is a politica -- a policy decision that I think is being debated.

    Senator Kelly Ayotte:  I think it's a policy decision that has basically never been made under this administration.  It's one that has been left up in the air which means it's left up in the air in a way I think undermines our national security interest.


    So a captured member of the Islamic State can't be held and will be turned back over to the Kurds.


    You'd think the CBS EVENING NEWS would open with that news or NBC NIGHTLY NEWS or . . .

    No one wanted to touch it.

    The news was, for those who can't catch it, in Iraq a member of the Islamic State was captured, the US briefly interrogated him and would now be handing him back to the Kurds.  This was due to not having a facility and this did not seem, to Gen Joseph Vogel, to be the appropriate thing to do.

    You can disagree with him, agree with him or have no opinion on what should be done.

    But it is news.

    And news is what we're supposed to debate and discuss in a democracy in order to be informed citizens participating in our self-governance.


    The day after the hearing, THE NEW YORK TIMES, for example, was front-paging 'news' like "Fasting Diets Are Gaining Acceptance" by Anahad O'Connor.

    You know who does the most fasting in America?

    The extreme poor.

    It's not 'trendy' or 'buzz worthy,' so it doesn't make it onto the front page of THE NEW YORK TIMES -- or inside.


    Nor does news that really matters like the Tuesday Senate Armed Services Committee hearing.


    The issue even arose Friday in a Defense Dept press briefing with Col Steve Warren (in Baghdad, briefing was via teleconference).


    Q: Colonel Warren, what is the U.S. military's policy on detaining ISIS operatives?

    COL. WARREN: Our -- our policy can -- I guess would best be summed up as short-term and case-by-case. So there's -- there hasn't -- there's only been two so far, and neither one has -- has been -- neither of those two have been the same. In the case of the first one, Umm Sayyaf, we held onto her for some time, and then eventually moved her over to the custody of the Iraqi government. In the second case, this -- the chemical guy, we only held onto him for a very short time, about two weeks, and then we moved him over.

    So we're not equipped for long-term detention, we're not set up here for that, and so we're not in that business. But there's no real one-size-fits-all answer. As we take people off the battlefield, we're just going to have make, you know, the decisions as we go.

    Q: And what is the definition of short-term detention, and is case-by-case, is that a -- the de facto policy?

    COL. WARREN: Yeah. That is the policy, I think. That's -- at least that's how we're approaching it here at the CJTF. There isn't even a hard definition of short-term, 14 to 30 days is a ballpark figure. But even that is not really completely nailed down.

    Q: How do I explain to my mother-in-law, Betty Harper, from Laurel, Mississippi and other Americans out there who are a little confused that if this war against ISIS is this comprehensive war, it's by all accounts going to take years to fight ISIS, how do you swear that with only holding a detainee for 14 to 30 days when there, I'm sure, a lot of information to glean from this person months down the road?

    COL. WARREN: Well, I mean, this is not a catch-and-release program, Lucas. I mean, we've already captured them, and then we don't have the means to hold them. We just give them to the Iraqis to hold. You know, if we've got to go back and talk to them, we'll go back and talk to them. You know, if there's more information that comes, you know, if we have to confirm a piece of info or whatever the case, I mean, they're right -- they're still here in Iraq. We'll go get them and, you know, we'll interrogate them some more.





    While the press wasn't interested in that, they did go overboard this week reporting on the capture of a major event -- according to the Defense Dept -- the capture of a big official in the Islamic State.

    But, thing is, that story's already in doubt.




    ALSUMARIA reports that the Chair of Parliament's Defense and Security Committee has announced that, despite us claims, there has been no chemical weapons officer of the Islamic State that has been captured.  These reports, he insists, are attempts to breed fear and terror.


    On the Dept of MisInformation, US President Barack Obama said he would end the Iraq War.  He didn't.  He said he wouldn't put US troops back on the ground in Iraq again.  He did.  He said they wouldn't be in combat.  They are.


    He recently sat down with fellow War Hawk Jeffrey Goldberg and the two talked war and more war for THE ATLANTIC.


    At Brookings, Shadi Hamid offers a critique of A COUPLE OF WAR DICKS SITTING AROUND TALKING:

    Obama’s tendency to distort beyond recognition the positions of his critics goes hand in hand with an apparent disdain for those critics and, perhaps more worryingly, an unwillingness to even so much as question his own decisions after he’s made them. Over the course of his conversations with Goldberg, the only thing he really blames himself for is having “more faith” in the Europeans than they apparently deserved. Elsewhere, he faults himself for underappreciating “the value of theater in political communications.” Of course, what Obama is faulting himself for is not clearly appreciating the faults of others.
    It is jarring to hear, in such measured words, a president so confident in his own abilities (George W. Bush, contrary to popular perception, was willing to reassess his policies, shift direction, and accept outside counsel during his second term). The colorfully rendered Obama doctrine of “don’t do stupid s[**]t,” itself a phrase dripping with disdain, is little more than a reaction to critics who Obama thinks, presumably, support doing stupid s[**]t.
    As troubling as all of these things are, especially in a president, they are not the most troubling thing that emerges from Goldberg’s interviews. As much as he himself might insist otherwise, Obama is basically a Huntingtonian at heart. I had seen flashes of a “clash of civilizations” in Obama’s various speeches, but these usually seemed like momentary lapses rather than omens of a more coherent philosophy. I think about Obama’s universally panned and seemingly non-representative endorsement of the “ancient hatreds” thesis to explain Middle Eastern conflicts (something I argued against in these pages). I think about his remarks from the Oval Office just a month prior, where he suggested that Muslims had some communal responsibility—just by virtue of them being Muslim—to do more to condemn and confront extremism.

    I am not against the notion that Islam is in some way different than other faith traditions. I argue in my new book that Islam is “exceptional” in how it relates to politics, and that this has profound implications for the future of the Middle East. But this is not quite the same thing as viewing “Islamic exceptionalism” as something bad, unusual, or at odds with history. Being the liberal determinist that he is, Obama, like so many others, seems frustrated by both Islam and Muslims. Why can’t they just get their act together and stop being such a nuisance, distracting me from dealing with “emotionally contained” technocrats in Asia? This was a sentiment I noticed more and more after the Charlie Hebdo attacks in Paris in January 2015: the desire, sometimes a demand, to see Muslims embrace liberalism, and an anger that many simply won’t. Too many Muslims, it seemed, were intent on defying the arc of history.



    Meanwhile, in Iraq, life is getting even worse for refugees.  Friday, UNHCR issued the following alert:




    The UN Refugee Agency is concerned about a rising trend of newly-displaced Iraqis being forcibly transferred to camps where restrictions on their freedom of movement are imposed in a manner disproportionate to any legitimate concern, including those related to security.
    "While recognizing the responsibility of authorities to undertake security screening of people fleeing territory controlled by extremist groups, we urge the government to set up clear procedures and facilities for this purpose that are separate from camps established to provide shelter and other humanitarian assistance to displaced Iraqis," UNHCR spokeswoman Ariane Rummery told a news briefing in Geneva on Friday (March 11).
    Nazrawa camp, in Kirkuk Governorate, was opened by UNHCR in November 2015 for internally displaced Iraqis seeking safety from conflict and severe human rights abuses, thanks to flexible funding from over ten donor countries.
    It was opened in response to a long-standing request by the Kirkuk authorities for more support from the humanitarian community in their efforts to provide protection and assistance to large numbers of internally-displaced persons, or IDPs, in the governorate currently numbering nearly 400,000.
    Approximately 2,000 displaced Iraqis are currently residing in Nazrawa camp. However, authorities have progressively imposed movement restrictions on residents of the camp. Since February 22 all residents have been confined to the camp, irrespective of whether or not they have completed security screening procedures.
    Instances of forcible relocation of Iraqis into camps, as well as disproportionate restrictions on their freedom of movement, have also been recorded by protection partners elsewhere in Iraq.
    In Garmawa camp in northern Iraq, Iraqis who were forcibly relocated to the camp from villages in Tilkaif District in 2015 continue to face restrictions on their freedom of movement. Similar concerns are also emerging in Salah Al Din and Anbar Governorates.
    "We are concerned about this developing trend as freedom of movement is key to displaced people being able to exercise other rights, such as access to work, food, healthcare and legal assistance," Rummery told reporters.
    "With the prospect of further displacement as military operations against extremist groups escalate, it is becoming increasingly urgent for the authorities to ensure both that IDPs are granted access to safety in a timely manner, and that camps maintain their humanitarian character," she added.

    In addition to nearly one million Iraqis displaced since 2006-7, there are more than 3.3 million people in Iraq who have been displaced since January 2014. The displaced in Iraq continue to face challenges, including exposure to violence, disproportionate restrictions on access to safety and freedom of movement, forced encampment, and constrained access to basic services.



    The continued suffering also includes living  in a country where bombs are dropped daily by planes flying overhead.  Today, the US Defense Dept announced/claimed/bragged:


    Strikes in Iraq
    Attack and fighter aircraft conducted nine strikes in Iraq, coordinated with and in support of Iraq’s government:

    -- Near Baghdadi, a strike destroyed an ISIL heavy machine gun position.

    -- Near Hit, a strike struck an ISIL tactical unit.

    -- Near Ramadi, five strikes struck three separate ISIL tactical units and destroyed an ISIL rocket position, two ISIL vehicles, an ISIL fighting position and three ISIL tunnel systems and denied ISIL access to terrain.

    -- Near Sinjar, two strikes struck two separate ISIL tactical units and destroyed two ISIL fighting positions and an ISIL weapons cache.




    Task force officials define a strike as one or more kinetic events that occur in roughly the same geographic location to produce a single, sometimes cumulative, effect. Therefore, officials explained, a single aircraft delivering a single weapon against a lone ISIL vehicle is one strike, but so is multiple aircraft delivering dozens of weapons against buildings, vehicles and weapon systems in a compound, for example, having the cumulative effect of making those targets harder or impossible for ISIL to use. Accordingly, officials said, they do not report the number or type of aircraft employed in a strike, the number of munitions dropped in each strike, or the number of individual munition impact points against a target.


    This week, Chris Woods, Kinda Haddad, Latif Habib, Alex Hopkins and Basile Simon (AIRWARS) noted the civilian deaths:


    Latest assessments suggest more than 1,000 civilians may now have died in 18 months of Coalition airstrikes across Iraq and Syria. The estimate is fifty times greater than the number of civilian deaths so far admitted by the US-led alliance.
    Airwars researchers have so far identified 352 reported civilian casualty events, in which Coalition aircraft allegedly killed between 2,232 and 2,961 non-combatants in the war against so-called Islamic State.

    Based on credible public reports and confirmed Coalition strikes in the vicinity, some 166 of these incidents are currently assessed as having likely led to civilian deaths – with a reported range of 1,004 to 1,419 killed.