So we’re supposed to believe the same people who can’t vet refugees, who can’t tell us how many SIVs have been evacuated, who ditched Bagram, and who are relying on the Taliban for security in Kabul were suddenly able to identify and kill the terrorist who planned the attack? Oh, sure.
Pentagon: “Just fire some missiles into the desert and we’ll announce we got the guy.”
According to the Associated Press, the U.S. military said it used a drone strike to kill a member of the Islamic State group’s Afghanistan affiliate Saturday.
The strike came amid what the White House called indications that ISIS planned to strike again as the U.S.-led evacuation from Kabul airport moved into its final days. Of course, no evidence of this was presented, and there is no real evidence the person killed had anything to do with the attack in Kabul.
Biden authorized the drone strike and it was ordered by Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, a defense official said, speaking on condition of anonymity to provide details not yet publicly announced.
Indiscriminate Drone Strikes–Here we go again. It’s like Deja Vu all over again. This was also not even a top target.
Going back to 2016, the Stimson Center, a nonpartisan research organization, gave the Obama administration an “F” for failing to provide a clear legal justification for its use of drones to kill al Qaeda or Islamic State extremists in countries where the United States is not at war. And the administration also receives an “F” for failing to ensure strong oversight and accountability for the secret program, which has become a signature of Obama’s tenure. There are also “Ds” and “unknowns” awarded to the White House on other aspects of the drone program.
Obama, while Biden was Vice-President, ordered roughly 500 strikes. Obama deployed them in Yemen, Libya, and Somalia, with at least six American citizens among the many hundreds of innocent civilians killed.
“The rhetoric has not matched the reality with regards to the U.S. drone program,” Rachel Stohl, the author of the report said. “At this point, with this many years behind us in the drone program, saying, ‘Just trust us,’ isn’t enough anymore.”
What we are seeing is a kneejerk reaction to the situation in Kabul.
Killing innocent people to avenge the deaths of innocent people should not be policy.
About the Author
A big amen to that last sentence!
Reminds me of a monument I saw in the main square of a small city in the west of Ireland, County Clare, dedicated to the victims of a “decimation” of city residents by the Brits back in the day of the “troubles” in that country as it sought independence from the Brits.
A “decimation” means that when an “enemy” soldier is killed, all the people in a town or village or city are rounded up and put on line, and then every tenth person is pulled out and executed, whether man, woman or child, makes no difference.
People like the Irish, at least, have long memories and do not forget such things.
And here we are, supposedly a civilized nation that also won independence from the Brits, employing those same tactics, except we use drones as our “firing squad,” and we are expecting to win “hearts and minds” where all the Brits earned was hatred and revulsion from the populace, as was the case in the west of Ireland?
What fools, us!
History of Ireland
June 03, 1921
British Chief Secretary for Ireland Thomas Hamar Greenwood, 1st Viscount Greenwood, PC, KC issues order that official reprisals are to cease.
This would seem to have come about as the IRA were burning the houses of prominent unionists in retaliation for official British Army burning of houses
near ambush sites.
Townshend (1975), pg 185; Townshend (2014), pg 289
Old Joe just added some more civilian body count to his score as he tries to be another Hussein Obama with a drone strike in a residential area of Kabul that netted Old Joe ten civilians – including several children, the youngest victim being a 2-year-old girl, according to CNN.
The brother told CNN that the individuals killed were “an ordinary family,” adding: “We are not ISIS or Daesh and this was a family home – where my brothers lived with their families.”
A neighbor described the harrowing scene in an interview with CNN.
“All the neighbors tried to help and brought water to put out the fire and I saw that there were five or six people dead,” they said to the network.
“The father of the family and another young boy and there were two children.”
“They were dead.”
“They were in pieces.”
“There were [also] two wounded.”
Another neighbor told CNN that there could possibly have been up to 20 people who perished in the strike, relaying that “not much is left of their house and nothing can be recognized.”
This is the same Joe Biden featured in this following exchange from his Remarks by President Biden on the Drawdown of U.S. Forces in Afghanistan” on July 08, 2021:
Q Mr. President, I’m from Afghanistan.
I am Afghan (inaudible) woman.
Any message — good message for Afghan women in future?
Because they have achievement — they are really concerned about their achievement.
THE PRESIDENT: They are very concerned, with good reason.
end quotes
And that little two-year old girl Joe just killed found out why that is so, because despite all the rhetoric, civilian lives in other countries are considered valueless by American politicians like Joe Biden – just some more collateral damage YAWN!.