I realize I wasn't voting for Noam Chomsky when casting a vote for Barack Obama. I can understand the strikes early in his administration that went wrong and give him a pass on those.
Five years ago, on January 23 2009, a CIA drone flattened a house in
Pakistan’s tribal regions. It was the third day of Barack Obama’s
presidency, and this was the new commander-in-chief’s first covert drone
strike.
Initial reports said
up to ten militants were killed, including foreign fighters and
possibly a ‘high-value target’ – a successful first hit for the
fledgling administration.
But reports of civilian casualties began
to emerge. As later reports revealed, the strike was far from a
success. At least nine civilians died, most of them from one family.
There was one survivor, 14-year-old Fahim Qureshi, but with horrific
injuries including shrapnel wounds in his stomach, a fractured skull and
a lost eye, he was as much a victim as his dead relatives.
Later that day, the CIA attacked again – and levelled another house. It
proved another mistake, this time one that killed between five and ten
people, all civilians.
And since it was three days earlier, he couldn't have foreseen this tragic start to the drone program under his control.
Three days earlier, in his inauguration address, Obama had told the world ‘that America is a friend of each nation, and every man, woman and child who seeks a future of peace and dignity.’
The fact that the number of drone strikes we've conducted since Obama took office has increased is really no surprise. When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like al-Qaeda.
Across Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia, the Obama administration has
launched more than 390 drone strikes in the five years since the first
attack that injured Qureshi – eight times as many as were launched in
the entire Bush presidency. These strikes have killed more than 2,400
people, at least 273 of them reportedly civilians.
And I'm not sure this is as reassuring as it's meant to be.
Although drone strikes under Obama’s presidency have killed nearly six
times as many people as were killed under Bush, the casualty rate – the
number of people killed on average in each strike – has dropped from
eight to six under Obama. The civilian casualty rate has fallen too.
Strikes during the Bush years killed nearly more than three civilians in
each strike on average. This has halved under Obama (1.43 civilians per
strike on average). In fact reported civilian casualties in Pakistan
have fallen sharply since 2010, with no confirmed reports of civilian
casualties in 2013.
Among many painful truths is that Noam Chomsky (or his clone) are never going to be elected president of the United States. And of course, McCain or Romney "would have been worse." Still hurts, though.
MAGA DEI
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Apparently the Navy is planning to have an aircraft carrier that was
supposed to be named after a Black war hero named after President Bone
Spurs instead...
6 hours ago
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