Years ago, there was a military comic strip, possibly Terry and the Pirates, wherein civilians were referred to as sillyvillains.
Is that reflective of military attitude towards civilians?
2
Presidential candidate Sanders co-authored and pushed a resolution to get the US out of Yemen and to hold Saudi's responsible for war crimes.
It was well received in congress. Trump vetoed it.
Drone wars started under Biden.
1
Let's try to play attention to reality. Vice presidents generally have little influence on major policy matters and there's no reason to think Biden had much influence on the Drone Ranger's decisions.
On the other hand, Biden, as a senator, was a strong supporter of the Iraq catastrophe and a number of other military misadventures.
As for Sanders, his reputation as a peacemaker is not particularly well-deserved. Not only has he been a key proponent of the insanely-expensive F-35 project (jobs for Vermont, ya know), but there's this:
"In an interview with NBC’s Meet the Press scheduled for broadcast on Sunday, host Chuck Todd asked the independent senator from Vermont if drones or special forces would play a role in his counter-terror plans.
'All of that and more,' Sanders said. "
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/oct/11/bernie-sanders-drones-counter-terror
And so on.
2
Unfortunately there will be civilian casualties when fighting terrorist organizations. Not excusing it but facts are facts. Remember what happened when ISIS was allowed to operate and grow into the killing machine it became.
3
These actions in Somalia would never occur if Obama was President. I never read about actions in Somalia while he was President.
@Shamrock:
There were at least 29, publicly-known airstrikes in Somalia under Obama.
You can begin to read about them here:
https://www.newamerica.org/in-depth/americas-counterterrorism-wars/somalia/
2
@Shamrock
I hope you are just being ironic...right?!
The Drone Wars "are" Obama.
Obama authorized over 10 times more drone strikes than George W Bush, and automatically painted all males of military age in these regions as combatants, making them fair game for remote controlled killing.
The final year of Pres. O., he avg. 3 bombs dropped around the world, every hour. His two terms in office is the longest war term of any president.
In '16, US special operators could be found in 70% of the world’s nations, 138 countries – a staggering jump of 130% since the days of the Bush administration.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/jan/09/america-dropped-26171-bombs-2016-obama-legacy
3
This is a no-win game. In order to get the average American to care about actions in Somalia, the news has to be reported in an American fashion by an American reporter although the people who experienced the actions were Somali.
This is like a restaurant goer who has never eaten at a particular restaurant being given the green light to publish a reinterpreted version of a review by a New York Times food critic.
Maybe we should be worried about reinterpretive green lights instead of made-up terms with no clear understanding like "gaslighting".
A quick search reveals that a Lebanese site reported last month's civilian air strike deaths in Afgoye, Somalia based on a statement of a relative. Simple process, right?
In contrast, I read this article and I get no directness, rather the author seems to explain at length his own personal troubles in accomplishing his job instead providing clarity. Sheesh, sounds like my coworkers!
In this case, Somalia was more mystified and obfuscated than explained by stating "proving ...is...difficult". Please Mr. Castner, "difficult" for whom?
3
This is an important article.
The author states: "By denying these casualties, our government is essentially trying to gaslight an entire country."
Let's state that clearer: The US government has lied and continues to lie about the innocent, civilian casualties it causes in Africa and the Middle East. That was true under Obama, and is more egregious under Trump, if that's any consolation to Obama worshippers and Trump haters.
4
At some point, journalists need to abandon trying to convince us of what we already know -- that President Trump and those in his administration are habitual liars.
Instead of reporting the lies and later reporting the truth, ignore the lies until you can document their falsehood with concrete evidence of the truth.
I know it is difficult when one's competitors lazily get viewers or readers by the hyperbolic coverage of a liar and his minions, but it is the truth, and not ratings or readership, that ultimately sets us free of falsehoods.
1
It's only a matter of time before these drones are used against us. Imagine a baseball stadium or the New Years crowd at Times Square.
Waiting to be hoisted by our own petard I remain Tullymd specializing in the pathophysiology of dysfunctional societies.
5
President Trump, on March 6, 2019, signed an executive order revoking the requirement that U.S. intelligence officials publicly report the number of civilians killed in drone strikes and other attacks on terrorist targets. Why is his administration cloaking this information from the public? He seems to be intent on reversing an Obama-era mandate for intelligence professionals to provide an "unclassified summary of the number of strikes" as well as "assessments of combatant and non combatant deaths resulting from those strikes" each year. Obama may have been acting from a position of remorse for his own deadly drone program but Trump seems to be acting out of political malice and disregard for the deaths of innocent civilians. For him they need not be counted as human beings caught up in a war which is not of their making. As naive as I may be, I would welcome making America a peaceful power but alas, have no hope of experiencing such in my lifetime with or without more precise drones.
28
@HP
You believe that the intelligence services under Obama were accurately reporting civilian deaths.
Enough said.
1
The problem with most Americans is they're blissfully ignorant of their own history around the rest of the world. This is nothing new. And it's also a drop in the bucket compared to most of America's war crimes. Read some books like Richard Blum's "Killing Hope" where he illustrates very clearly that America loves to portray itself as thee force for democracy when, point in fact, they're the very antithesis of it.
10
Yet, despite all our faults, we are still a million times better than Russia.
Civilians are persons not serving in regular armed forces. In Somalia, Syria, etc. about 99% of the enemy combatants, those killing American and allied soldiers, are civilians.
2
@Burton Care to cite some verifiable research statistics to back up that statement? 99%? Really?
3
@Burton: That's an old and tired, and shameful, excuse for massacring innocents.
In Syria, by the most recent count I could find, a total of seven (7) American troops have died, while at least 4,000 civilians, including children, have been killed by American air strikes.
I'm not aware of *any* US military fatalities in Somalia since 18 were killed in Mogadishu in 1993.
3
@John Harper
Do your own research. Somalia does not have an army fighting Americans and it allies in Somalia. Therefore, the people attacking Americans and their allies are civilians.
"The U.S. usually underreports civilian deaths caused by its airstrikes. Proving it in Somalia is uniquely difficult."
what is NOT difficult to prove is the success of drone strikes eliminating the upper echelons of terrorists organizations with very few deaths of US personnel and much fewer civilian deaths had conventional means been utilized.
https://www.longwarjournal.org/us-airstrikes-in-the-long-war
3
I read some comments, I see the consensus appears to be Americans don't give a hoot because we let endless war continue.
That is HOGWASH. President Eisenhower warned us. He was a wise man who KNEW power and greed were corrupt. He said, "In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists, and will persist."
The American people are NOT responsible for this. The military industrial complex is. That would be the Pentagon et. Al. These are unelected officials who lie to us on a regular basis, obfuscate, and lose vast sums of money somewhere, according to Ernst & Young.
I can appreciate the Afghan war, that makes sense to me, for 9/11. All of the other wars and "regime changes" we've pursued, with the exception of the Revolutionary and Civil Wars, were political or for exactly what Eisenhower said: to feed the military industrial complex. By doing so, we have become what we abhor, terrorists.
We have NO business going into other countries and telling them how to govern. Our righteous arrogance blinds us to our inhumanity. The military industrial complex is greedy, it needs war to profit. It is THAT simple.
1
given that the source for this reporting is a former Air Force officers one must factor into this information as explained in Foreign Policy 18 months ago...
"...bureaucracies often build their identities around technology , turning threats to the technology [manned air craft] into threats to the organization’s very essence. The resulting entities are often large, complex, and full of self-interested actors who seek to maintain and expand their bureaucratic realms."
https://foreignpolicy.com/2018/01/29/americas-military-is-choking-on-old-technology/
Western media are not very concerned with finding out how many civilians the US kills. During the Iraq the death toll was about a half million. Most were not killed directly by us but we still set up the circumstances for these people to die. Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11. In Somalia it's too difficult to find out? However, the NY Times keeps score of how many Arabs die when Israel is defending itself based on the "Gaza Health Ministiry's" claims. There is no working government in Gaza except a terrorist organization. The media always accept its numbers as reliable. The Times should be just as careless in collecting facts about how many we kill and keep a running score on the front page. I'm sure their estimate would be a fraction of reality because the US armed forces is above reproach when it comes to destroying other countries.
1
The Trump Administration and Republicans have shown us our shadow; a violent, greedy, inhumane and perversely narcissistic body politic. Whether we can cop to it as a nation and, at the very least, strive to live up to an ideal put forth by our founding fathers is a remote fever dream. Shame on us all.
2
So...when Ilhan Omar suggests that thousands died in Somalia during the "black hawk down" incident, it's at least possible. The actual number? Certainly hundreds, but no one actually knows or will ever know.
And now Trump is using drones to kill more civilians. No doubt, some terrorists are hit too. I wonder how much fake information is fed to the US military to eliminate rivals. It's so easy to just wipe them out from the comfort of the drone strike center. Sounds like the mercenaries motto: "kill them all and let god sort them out."
1
we lose something priceless when we don't measure up to our own ideals
3
You mean some of the information the government puts out through CNN and the NY Times is not entirely accurate, or not entirely true, or intentionally false? Does the word fake apply? 2 years ago there was an uproar at the idea that fake news existed, it was outrageous Trump delusions, now we accept it. Please stop proving Trump right.
There is really only one solution to the wanton killings of innocents by drones. Weaponized drones should be banned, similar to efforts to ban land mines, or the largely successful elimination of weaponized gas and chemical weaponry after WW1. These are cowardly weapons being used for what are illegal, targeted assassinations. Obama is largely responsible for the ramping up of the use of these horrid weapons - he opened the door to the abuses now being spread upon the world by Trump. Most Americans still consider the US military and the foreign policies as enacted by such abroad to be a benevolent force for good. This perception does not match the reality.
25
I never realized what collateral damage meant until a friend who worked with Red-cross/local medical teams during early days of US incursion into Afghanistan- told me this story.
They were few hours away from Kabul, having tea on road side cafe, before going to the next medical camp. It was a hot day, road was mostly empty. They saw an afghan man, with something on his shoulder steadily running in the middle of the road. Later, they could see his clothes were torn, barefoot with a bazooka on his shoulder- people were afraid to approach him but 4-5 older men started reciting Koran & he stopped. He had a 100-yard stare (my friend says, he'll never forget those eyes), shell-shocked. They made him drink water, use towels to cool him down, his feet were bloody and torn-- he was in bad shape. Much later, he told them that something fast and burning came out of the sky & destroyed his village (100-120 individuals), there was a marriage party, everyone was there- he had been in the fields. (later in the week, there was report of a daisy cutter). He said, everyone was dead, pieces of meat hanging from the walls and trees. Somehow he had gotten hold of a bazooka, now when they found him, he was on his way to blast this thing at the first thing of Americans, group, camp he would see. He was a farmer who had never even been to Kabul, but had heard of a military base nearby.
This is the last & the only thing he said was left to do-- everyone he knew was dead.
36
@Ash.
My "bazooka" was my M-67 recoilless rifle and my "daisy cutter" was my 81 mm mortar rounds. Thankfully, I never use these weapons in war but only in training. Flying shrapnel are like flying razor blades and if you ever seen heat distorting the horizon in the distant then you can image the distortion of an explosion compressing the air to make a visible "shell". Forget about the noise.
"War... What is it good for? Absolutely nothing...".
5
Great reporting.
During the Bosnian War, here in the US it was reported that NATO was air dropping food and supplies. Yet, I was living in in Europe and the news channels showed footage using infrared lens from planes under NATO command conducting middle-of-night air raids dropping daisy cutter bombs. Each bomb wiped out whole villages and it was not uncommon to see buildings collapse to rubble and two to three nearby hilltops to be shredded apart.Typically it was reported the intended target was one or two combatants.
The following day the footage would show families walking with whatever clothes they could wear and carrying whatever they could manage, aged grandmother in a wheelbarrow ... it was a somber, yet technical version of the pogrom exodus scene from Fiddler on the Roof. These people were reports as refugees fleeing their homes, not combatants.
Ever since, I have believed daisy cutter bombs do far too much destruction when the intent is to eliminate one person; US and NATO have been bad actors; daisy cutter bombs ought to be banned; and federal government should be obligated to report # bombs/military strikes as well as the impact of those strikes including # dead, # injured, and # displaced of non-combatants and # dead and # captured of combatants.
At the time whenever I talked with family and friends in the U.S. I asked if they were seeing any of these reports which filled the nightly news in Europe. These generally informed people were not aware.
7
This goes back as far as Vietnam (at least). What it is not is "News".
Under-reporting deaths; in particular, collateral damage deaths. We have contributed more than any other country to the destruction of 2 generations of Syrians. To be honest, let's just say "numerous Middle East countries".
Truly, how many non-combatant casualties are there? How many homeless? How many countries have been demolished like a wood chipper?
The answers must be staggering. Casualties in the millions; easily. Homeless people in the tens of millions. Countries demolished about half a dozen.
I cannot believe the naivete of so many people in America (and elsewhere). You cannot believe what is on "TV". It is difficult to believe honest reporting (which I believe the New York Times strives for; however, it is slanted, sometimes. And I am a person whose beliefs it is slanted towards.
Regardless, massive under-reporting of casualties committed by our government is the rule; not the exception. I learned that from Vietnam.
Thank you for doing your best to be honest in reporting. Truth is an extreme rarity in today's world.
5
You will never be able to obtain an accurate count. That said, there are only two questions. First, is US participation justified to protect US citizens and/or the US national interest? Second, assuming the answer to the first question is "yes", is the US military doing all it can to limit collateral damage? If the answer to both questions is "yes", the rest doesn't matter.
1
The gist of this article is probably accurate and, based on the track record of U.S. military commands since at least the Vietnam war, entirely plausible. Truth has always been a casualty -- often the first, as the saying goes -- of war. Everyone agrees on that.
So bear with me while I risk what some people will consider to be trivializing.
What this article is about is not "gaslighting." It is about *lying*, to the extent that the reports of casualties are intentional fabrications. That is not "gaslighting," whether of an individual (such as Ingrid Bergman's character by Charles Boyer's in the 1944 movie) or an entire nation.
Gaslighting (well defined in a Wikipedia entry) entails the undermining of someone questioning the accuracy of truthfulness of something. That's not what this article describes.
"Gaslighting" makes for a catchy headline but here it is what George Orwell called "slovenly" language. Times copyeditors, you can do better.
3
This reporting is on a par with the story essentially proving that chlorine gas was used in Syria. It is a lot of dangerous work, and unfortunately probably doesn't galvanize as much action as it should.
During Iraq, epidemiological studies showed a much higher number of civilian casualties than had been reported. Other commenters have mentioned Vietnam. We all know about Puerto Rico. So it is not surprising that we are killing far more in Africa than reported. I hope the census is not performed by these people, who seem to be really good at hiding the numbers of poor.
2
reading comments of my fellow Americans who are aghast at what an imperial power does by necessity to protect its empire has always amazed me going back to the Viet Nam war.
I have to ask, "Exactly which economic benefit and privilege are those who are outraged at what we ask our armed forces to do on our behalf and for our economic benefit willing to forego?"
4
It’s tragic that some rich heirs seem to be oblivious of their need to examine why they need to share their wealth philanthropically:
“According to the report, based on analysis of 23 years of tax returns, the heirs [of Sam Walton] have donated to the family foundation a mere 0.04 percent of their present net worth of some $140 billion. As the nation's richest family, the report says, the Waltons ‘have enough wealth and power to literally change the world.’ Jun 17, 2014”
Ironically, this quote was taken from an article decrying “philanthro-shaming”, from the Washington Post, no less. Apparently the entitlement of riches by very wealthy families who believe that they “did it all themselves” is firmly entrenched in the elite. (I mean by elite, people who have power, regardless of their political leanings). We have a long way to go in sensitizing the wealthy to their role in society, although there are many who do generously share (e.g. Warren Buffett).
1
@Robin Underhill
A charitable family foundation is a mechanism for wealthy people and their heirs to retain control of their wealth in perpetuity and to avoid paying taxes on unrealized appreciated assets. The foundations build monuments to their founders and hire high priced money managers to increase the value of the endowment in order to pay high salaries to "philanthropists" who dole out small money to actual philanthropy.
The study you cite indicates that the Walton family has used 0.04% of its wealth through this specific tax vehicle. You infer that the Walton family is not generous. In order to make that evaluation, you would have to examine 23 years of the Walton family tax returns, which you do not have.
The thought that occurred to me while reading this is that epic movies would cast the US as the evil Empire, not the good guys. We want to believe we are the wise and courageous rebel forces, but having the big guns is so much easier.
2
The author of this piece and his organization, among others, are working for a noble cause, but it is almost certainly a lost cause.
Why? Well, there are many reasons, but the most intractable problem is that a majority of Americans do not care about the death and destruction we visit on poor, dark people far away. Most of us are always willing to construct or accept rationalizations for our indiscriminate killing and maiming.
This is who we are, as a nation, and a sober, clear-eyed look at our history demonstrates that it is who we have been, always. We are not good guys, but we firmly believe we are and we refuse to consider that we may not be.
8
"... a majority of Americans do not care about the death and destruction we visit on poor, dark people far away."
How do you know that? Cite some evidence, such as polling data, instead of posing as a mind reader.
"Most of us are always willing to construct or accept rationalizations for our indiscriminate killing and maiming."
Speak for yourself. Are you in that group or not?
We are in a war. The question of whether we should be in the war is one that Congress has abdicated its responsibility for, so that would be one debate.
However, in a war there are civilian casualties. How many civilians died during the bombing raids from both sides during WW II? Did reporters on the fire bombing of Dresden have an accurate count of how many non-combatants were killed?
Somehow, we have come to a belief that war can be a perfectly clean, surgical operation where only bad people are killed, and at no risk to the good ones on both sides. This, like Boyle's perfect gas, may well be the ideal but the real world imposes constraints that must be worked around.
If you really want to eliminate US caused civilian casualties, the answer is simple. Keep the US out of foreign interventions.
5
Thank you for bringing this disturbing trend to our attention. Unfortunately, we need to be hit over the head with things that are not being broadcast either by our officials or in much of the news. It’s easy to take for granted that we don’t have blood on our hands, when we do. It’s easy not to ask many questions.
Every innocent life should be protected, and losses accounted for, no matter where they are. No one is worth less than the next person’s, even if they have horrid governance or are caught between competing factions.
119
"It’s easy to take for granted that we don’t have blood on our hands, when we do."
Speak for yourself.
"Every innocent life should be protected, and losses accounted for, no matter where they are."
You talk real nice, but you failed to defend due process for alleged "fighters". But you have company, because Castner doesn't mention due process either.
2
@NM
Thank you NM. For the most part, I do agree.
My only exception is use of the word "trend". This is no trend; it is typical behavior.
I believe honest reporting by our government would be "atypical".
4
>>> NM: "It’s easy to take for granted that we don’t have blood on our hands, when we do."
>>> PRG: "Speak for yourself."
No, PRG. It is the right and the duty of citizens to speak for and to all of us.
If you think we (and it absolutely is "we") do not have "blood on our hands," speak up and tell us why.
3
Castner is lamenting poor accounting more than the deaths. What if the counts had been 100 percent accurate? What then? What does Amnesty International change? I don't believe 10,000 recorded civilian deaths would stop covert US airstrikes in Somalia or anywhere else.
Not accounting, at least publicly, is convenient for leaders who support these tactics. However, there is absolutely no political will to stop the practice entirely.
A national moral consensus has arisen somewhere over the past ten years. A US pilot in a trailer is more agreeable than a US Marine on the ground even when innocents get killed. That doesn't make it right but that's the truth. That's how the American public squares the math.
If you're going to struggle over accounting though, we should ask how many civilian deaths are prevented by US airstrikes. We can't accurately figure that number either. It's the continuous problem of attribution. How many deaths do you attribute to whom?
You kill one person, you're a murder. You kill 1 million though? Well, where do we start sorting the bodies?
2
Pentagonian crocodile tears when someone is watching... The War Department could care less about civilian casualties. Have we killed one million or two million in the last 15 years?
3
My tax dollars and fellow citizens at work. I am so ashamed.
8
In our national narcissism we lose sight of the fact that we are a terrorist nation.
We use drones and other weapons that keep us at a distance, but the reality is no different for our victims than for the victims of ISIS and other terrorist organizations.
7
When someone tells me something is true and my response is that proving it otherwise is ‘uniquely difficult’ it really means that I know it’s true but I don’t want it to be.
4
First of all I am an American Patriot. However, it is very disappointing to me that 9/11 has seemingly given the United States a green light in predominately Muslim countries to seek and destroy. It is true that these countries do very little to suppress terrorism and in some cases enable it.
Enemy combatants of the United States should be sort out and brought to justice whether that be Killed, "Droned" or arrested. But to kill civilians must not be an acceptable practice. To acknowledge civilian deaths as "Collateral Damage" is not forgiveness of our sins.
Even one civilian death in our war on terrorism is one too many.
25
@ThisIsSparta
"first of all..." making a claim about what one is or isn't on threads such as this has absolutely zero credibility.
3
Our tax dollars pay for this kind of atrocity so we are all culpable. But, I don't see any way around that or a fix that will work. We can contact our Senators and Representatives but doubtless nothing will come of that. Our tax dollars should at least pay reparations but probably won't and there really is no reparation for that kind of loss. The United States' power has become and may have always been a blight on the world: power certainly does corrupt. And, now that we have a corrupt and indecent 'president' backed by a feckless senate there is no real remedy at hand to protect the innocent people in this world. It's all just collateral damage. It's all just obscene.
23
@James Mignola
It is more than obscene, it is criminal. When will we quit complaining about corruption in other countries and start eliminating the corruption in our own?
5
What the heck are we doing in Somalia and Yemen? or in the entire continent of Africa? We are killing civilians and making new terrorists, who will potentially attack us if they had the chance and the means?
Shame on us, both Republicans and Democrats. And let me not forget the "independents." We are all complicit in a crime against humanity.
30
@Gary Valan, Yemen is not the fight US picks, it's a fight that Saudia Arabia picks.
1
@tiddle: Saudi Arabia has not picked that fight without US approval and support. The dynamics of the relationship and Saudi dependence on US weapons makes it a basic requirement.
Both nations see the war on Yemen as part of their effort to weaken and constrain Iran (indeed, in the case of KSA, to weaken and constrain Shi'ism).
2
@Gary Valan
China.
Thank you for this article. Thank you for trying to uncover the truth. There is something especially disturbing about using drones in warfare. Isn't it too easy, too detached, too impersonal, especially if there is no accountability for civilian loss of life? Should we not lose sleep that a young boy herding his goats was blown to smithereens?
29
Many years ago my country’s military trained me - alongside others - in specialised ambush techniques. Reading about the strike on the vehicle described by ‘ali’ it is completely obvious yo me that you could get a good sized team into this country and get them to an ambush site and take those guys with 100% precision - and with relative safety for the team doing the work (although I know from experience it would be an uncomfortable few days to get into position.
The problem is that governments are too scared to take the political risk to do this kind of thing in case it goes wrong. Call it Carter-incompetence syndrome. But it would be worth it to prevent these completely unnecessary civilian deaths. Although having said that, it’s highly questionable, given the experience in Afghanistan and in the so-called ‘war on drugs’, that selectively taking out ‘management’ ultimately achieves almost nothing.
20
@Dave I believe it was Obama who began pulling Special Forces/Sniper teams from war zones and replaced them with drones. His intent, though laudable, was to save U.S. lives. He and his team seemed to have relied on the idea that 'collateral damage' is a cost we can afford, while maintaining the optic of few U.S. casualties. Apparently then, as now - and as always - American lives are worth more than the lives of Black, Brown, and Asian lives.
8
"Many years ago my country’s military trained me - alongside others - in specialised ambush techniques."
Your experience may or may not be relevant to Somalia. In particular, explain how you knew where to set up an "ambush".
"... you could get a good sized team into this country and get them to an ambush site ..."
Define "good sized". What you seem to be describing are special ops, and such teams would be instantly spotted in Somalia. Indeed, special ops teams have been wiped out because they were so obvious to the locals. The "Black Hawk Down" shootout is the best known example.*
"... and take those guys with 100% precision ..."
Define "those guys". What you seem to be assuming is that perfect intelligence is available. You also seem to be assuming that no bullets or fragments will hit anyone but the intended targets.
* See the book by Mark Bowden.
4
@Dave Getting a team in place takes time and solid, stable intelligence. Some of the information about the whereabouts of these targets is unstable, and highly perishable. A drone can be in place far faster and act on rapid intelligence changes better than a team of men in one place.
Not to mention a potential firefight, or reverse ambush by locals during extraction operations. Black Hawk Down?
1
I'm not sure what to make of this report. Basically the writer was saying, we don't know much and we can confirm even less. So, maybe he's right that Pentagon is gaslighting the american public, but who knows, maybe he is gaslighting the american public too. Who is there to tell?
Groups like Amnesty International always have an agenda to side with the victims. That's a noble goal. But here's the grey area: What is worse for the average somalis? Is it better to live under the day-to-day terror of Al Shabab than the occasional drone strikes by US? Should US stop pressuring terror groups like Al Shabab and ISIS, and just let them take over the whole region? Is that what Amnesty International wants?
I do believe US has its heart in the right place, for the most part. Unfortunately the execution of it falls short of the noble goal, all of which started with the naivete of George W Bush to spread western-styled democracy to the Middle East. If there is any gaslighting, it was the neo-cons like Cheney and Rumsfeld and W that led us down that path. For eight long years we marched, with no success, and Obama failed to revert course (necessitating him to continue that march). The realistic question is, what do we do now, going forward? Simply claiming that Pentagon's drone program gaslighting the nation doesn't contribute to that question one iota.
Or, does Amnesty International want to gaslight us to take in everyone from Somalia as refugees. Is that it?
10
"We report only what we can prove."
If the current administration followed the same guidelines as Amnesty International our country might make decisions based on facts and not on the inflammatory rhetoric of the tweets of the POTUS.
5
Little wonder if, under the moral guidance of the Trump administration, the military is blithely 'juking the stats'. How many other federal departments are also engaged in misleading reporting so the boss doesn't blow his top and acting heads (who answer to no one else, evidently) keep their jobs? With this crew it wouldn't be surprising if the latest numbers on the economy are bogus as well.
3
War is ALWAYS terrible, whether between you and perfect strangers on the other side of the planet, or men from the other half of your country shooting at you as you realize you have a relative on each side.
A tech-heavy war will kill people but kill a LOT less than any previous conflict. The fact that our side's fighters are often out of immediate personal danger allows them the comfort of going to pains to protect non-combatants like perfectly innocent children.
But going back decades later to sit in judgment of either side during that civil war's period of cruel warlords is one of progressivism's goofiest impulses.
3
"In five of those airstrikes alone, Amnesty International can identify by name 14 civilians killed."
Guess what? That's probably as good as it's going to get.
So you have a choice: continue and accept these levels of collateral damage or stop our military involvement in Somalia.
Let Al Shabab have it.
3
Arguably, none of the civilian deaths in the aftermath of U.S. strikes on terrorists are "caused by" the air strikes. They are caused by terrorists violating international law by operating in civilian areas.
8
Northrop makes a fortune providing devices to kill the innocent. As well as Boeing and the others of the industrial military complex. This is our tax dollars doing this and we should know to the cent how it is spent.
3
Wrong choice of a word. What Trump is doing is gaslighting. What the US military is doing is simply deception. In some sense it’s despicable, but there’s no attempt to utterly addle our confidence in our actual perceptions. Propaganda is not synonymous with gaslighting, though both are hideous, With respect to the needs of a democracy.
1
What can the US really gain in Somalia? What US interest can it advance?
People this far out of modern life cannot do terrorism across continents.
We can't kill all the terrorists there. We've killed as many as we can for a very long time, and there are just more than ever now.
Somalia has been without any real government for decades. The last time one started to emerge, the US funded an invasion by the traditional foe in Ethiopia, and destroyed it. The terrorists are free because we help prevent government.
This is not only murderous, it is also to no point at all.
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Thank you the resources devoted to produce this article and the research that it required. It should be tweeted and shared nationally.
This is disgraceful and barbaric behavior by multiple and successive governments of the "land of the free."
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Thank you, Brian Castner and NY Times. A very important story. We have made millions of enemies due to our leadership's haphazard use of force during and after the Bush/Cheney Iraq War. The people that you profile and millions of others now have nothing to lose. How do we think that will end for America?
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We have "suspected" terrorists needing elder care in Guantanamo Bay, so I wouldn't be optimistic that our government wont do everything in it's power to deny the problem, delay the solutions and denounce the messengers. The biggest "gaslighting of a nation", continues to be, that America always wears the white hat.
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Sometimes a lot of civilian deaths are unavoidable when enemy terrorists use them as human shields. I fault the US Military for being too reticent in using munitions in such cases and prolonging these wars.
These civilian deaths happen because not only are the people in the United States are ok with it, we want civilian deaths in enemy lands to avenge all the innocent Americans lives lost to terrorist atrocities. Personally I am perfectly ok with them.
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Sounds like the military mentality regarding civilian deaths has not changed much since the Viet Nam war. You would think by now that the top dogs would realize that if they want support from the public, they need to quit lying and hiding the reality of war.
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Is the United States actually at war with people in Somalia? That is to say, has there been a Declaration of War by Congress. Or is this simply extra judicial killing of foreigners? And/or extra judicial execution of American citizens? Of course, it is all illegal, so the guys giving their service by shooting up villages in the middle of nowhere by drone are criminals, as are their commanders. Americans should make this a ballot issue in 2020.
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"American air wars are opaque by design, and we could pierce the veil only a few times."
And that's why it's called "gaslighting".
America needs to shake its collective head in shame.
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The other side of this story is that the Shabab terrorists kill a lot of civilians almost certainly many more than US drone strikes. The US is not the instigator in this war. We are on the defense side. But war is a blunt and imprecise undertaking and also very dangerous. Would you rather have the murderous terrorists kill an entire village, rape the girls and women, or would you rather make a desperate attempt to stop them and in the process accidentally kill 6 innocent people?
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I think the self righteous NYTimes readers so ready to criticize the United States are riven with naïveté. Any civilian death is a tragedy. But blame the terrorist and the nations harboring them before attacking our troops.
We are not in Somalia for our health but to combat those who pose an existential threat to our being.
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"... a Toyota SUV was thundering through his tiny hamlet ..."
If Castner wants to be taken seriously, he should not describe SUVs as "thundering". If his source used the word, Castner should put the source's exact words in quotation marks.
"The first missile missed the vehicle but hit his cluster of makeshift huts."
Castner is making an unfounded assumption when he says "missed". The "huts" could have been a secondary target.
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If you take a terrorist into your home with your family do you cross the line from civilian to complicit enabler? I think some of these “civilians” need to rethink their association with the thugs and rather than offer them aid and comfort turn them in to the authorities.
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This administration lies to us about everything: crowd size, walls, everything. Why would anyone think they would be truthful about this?
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The escalation of airstrikes in Africa makes it crystal clear that the only life President Trump cares about is his own.
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Drone strikes are summary executions; targets, families, bystanders as well. They were criminal acts when executed by Bush, Obama, no less criminally so than Trump. A policy doctrine that relies on killing enough of the right bad guys to solve our grievances with any country or ethnic region is logically, morally, and politically bankrupt.
Bush and Obama are arguably culpable at a higher level than Trump because they possess the ability to think and reason rationally. Trump, being an incoherent megalomaniac and afflicted by psychotic narcissism, is culpable in the ways of those mentally unfit to stand trial.
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News sources in the Middle East are way ahead of the NYT in accurately reporting civilians killed (by the US and by others). Especially in Yemen.
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This is how to create enemies, terrorists, and spies. Lie to people about what you've done to their country. Even if there is evidence, deny it. Prayers are not enough. Reparations won't bring back the dead but if money is involved sometimes it can buy a better life.
All I can say on my part is that I'm sorry and I never wanted this to happen to any person. And the other thing I can say is that no weapon is one hundred percent accurate. I'm sorry our government won't admit it.
For all the souls who have died this way:
Exalted and hallowed be God’s great name
in the world which God created, according to plan.
May God’s majesty be revealed in the days of our lifetime
and the life of all Israel — speedily, imminently, to which we say: Amen.
Blessed be God’s great name to all eternity.
Blessed, praised, honored, exalted, extolled, glorified, adored, and lauded
be the name of the Holy Blessed One, beyond all earthly words and songs of blessing,
praise, and comfort. To which we say: Amen.
May there be abundant peace from heaven, and life, for us and all Israel.
To which we say: Amen.
May the One who creates harmony on high, bring peace to us and to all Israel.
To which we say: Amen.
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And Americans in the heartland wonder why the US is so hated in much of the world.
Or, they're so ignorant that they couch it as "They hate us for our freedom" or "They want what we have."
Thank you for this depressing, disturbing, and entirely necessary piece; thank you, Mr. Castner, for what you and your colleagues do.
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According to the CIA Inspector General writing an email about this is illegally compromising TS/SCI information. The "investigation" and blacklisting would be worse than the 10 year penalty. Therefore I have no comment.
18 U.S. Code § 798. Disclosure of classified information
https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/798
"According to the CIA Inspector General writing an email about this is illegally compromising TS/SCI information."
1. You cited the US Code, not the CIA IG.
2. You gave no evidence that Castner used any "classified information", which is the term used in the US Code that you cited:
'The term “classified information” means information which, at the time of a violation of this section, is, for reasons of national security, specifically designated by a United States Government Agency for limited or restricted dissemination or distribution; ...' (18 USC § 798(b))
This is not a disturbing trend. This is a continuation of what probably started long before Iraq but what became obvious when Scuds were being celebrated as laser guided and precision controlled? Remember the laser guided scuds that went down a bomb shelter and killed over 400 civilians in Iraq ( https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amiriyah_shelter_bombing ) ? Remember wiki leaks exposing the murder of innocent civilians being deliberately mown down from the air ( https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/July_12,_2007,_Baghdad_airstrike )? Here’s an idea: rather than having to disprove so called “official” claims of civilian deaths, military authorities should be required to prove that their claims are accurate. We are all held accountable for our honesty and integrity, why should military authorities be any different? If they are not, those dishonest claims are simply propaganda - propaganda that created the emergence and sustains and perpetuates the hate of the West that feeds terrorist organisations. Maybe that is what the military wants - an expansion of their funding. The writer for NYT has done some really impressive work to verify witness accounts. He knows that while he can’t verify to the nth degree, the witness accounts are true.
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@Philip Callil
Scuds were originally produced by the USSR and are now produced and used by its former allies. They are controlled by primitive guidance systems and are far from precision controlled.
US precision guided weapons have no relationship with Scuds.
Thanks to the NYT and to Mr Castner for this extremely enlightening piece.
The USA has over 1000 military installations around the world and we keep bombing one country after another. We are always bombing and the military industrial complex loves that. The most recent bombings are in Somalia and it is all for phony reasons; the real reason is usually oil or other commodities. Somalia was recently found to have massive oil reserves off its coast. But we always give the reason as something to do with terrorism. That is usually a lie. The military industrial complex (MIC) makes billions and billions on these fake wars. (p.s. the MIC asked recently for 500 million $ to continue the horrid disaster of building the F35 aircraft. That just to finish the design. All kinds of gaslighting (lies) to keep the MIC happy. But we can't have Medicare for All or subsidized college educations. Our military budget totals that of the next 8 countries military budget combined. We waste billions and billions on the MIC when our infrastructure is collapsing and we need better health care, better K-12 education, better wages for the working class and safety nets all over the place.
Never ending wars and lies:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fyTAxQCXuz0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BUXhjoOsIl0
Americans really need to pay attention
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Pretty soon algorithms will decide where military strikes happen. AI rears its ugly head in this ghastly time.
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This is why I cried when I stood at the edge of Arlington cemetery decades ago. Such waste
oh, please, you can't tell me you believe what the pentagon reports. they lie as much as trump does, only now it is run-of-the-mill because of trump. i am sick to death of the lies, from every faction of this administration. ever hear of pat tillman?
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First, thank you Mr. Castner for your work. This is important story that helps illuminate the real impact of American tactics and policies.
Second, it's interesting that some commenters don't understand who is getting gaslighted.
Third, compare the courage and strength of Ali to the American Commander in Chief. Hmmmmmm.
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Most Americans would be surprised if you told them we are fighting a war in Africa. More than one war, I am afraid.
We had restrictions imposed on the military to avoid civilian casualties because it is moral and also wise. How many more terrorists are we creating by our tactics?
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I don't much care for the term gaslighting.
The DOD uses drones to strike targets. The DOD would not need to use drones if there were troops in position and able to strike those same targets.
Counting civilian casualties of drone strikes is somewhere between difficult and impossible for reasons well stated in this article. When civilian politicians ask the DOD to count and report civilian casualties, they are asking the DOD to do more than can reasonably be expected.
Vietnam provided a lesson in the reliability of body count data. The DOD is burdened by institutional and confirmation bias as well as by its limitations and its need to carry out its next mission. It cannot be objective and provide accurate body count data. The politicians don't want accurate data. Any data that justifies their decision to go to war and disputes claims that the US is responsible for large numbers of civilian casualties will do.
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The generals or clan chiefs direct the wars, the soldiers whether uniformed or irregular fight the battles but the civilians always pay the price.
Whether it is through overt casualties or loss of crops and famine or loss of public health infrastructure with increasing disease or just displacement alone, civilians have always paid most heavily in armed conflicts.
This has been true for centuries. In the Punic Wars, the victorious Romans plowed salt into the fields of the defeated Carthaginians. Today we just hurl weapons from the sky from a sterile terminal reminiscent of Battle School in Ender's Game.
But unlike the fictional "Ender" Wiggin, we do not come to a realization of the moral costs of our remote destruction and soldier on, never slaking the blood lust of the military-industrial complex.
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As difficult and heartrending as these personal narratives are, it is not a "new" aspect of Pentagon reporting.
During the Vietnam War weekly "body counts" of Vietnamese killed included civilians and was used to convince the public that we were "winning" the war. Yet these inflated numbers never overcame the reality that the war was being lost. Then came the war in Iraq, where the opposite was true. The Pentagon deliberately underreported the number of civilians who were killed through "acts of violence."
The Internet played no major part in either of these conflicts. It was through the courage of on-the-ground journalists and photographers that the lies promoted by the Pentagon was finally exposed.
The Pentagon will use whatever tack is necessary to "prove" that the U.S. is "doing the right thing" in wartime to hoodwink the public into believing there is some sort of moral high ground in these combat zones. This would hold for the current situation in Somalia as well. Al Shabab is using tactics that can cover up their violence against civilians in the same way that the Pentagon had done. This does excuse their abhorrent policies, but shows that they have learned by example and applied it to the modern "digital" era.
Al Shabab's policies are disgusting attempts to cover up the horrors In Somalia that are taking place on a daily basis. Africom's complicity in this is not "gaslighting" but deliberately mendacity, and as such should be roundly condemned.
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Withholding information is not gaslighting.
Gaslighting is deliberately misleading, claiming the opposite of something or claiming that something is NOT true, or obvious, when it is, and asserting that the gaslighted individual is wrong, mistaken, or "mentally" unfit or unstable.
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@Moehoward Gaslighting is the appropriate word. Through policy, education, media, the message that there are few civilian deaths is given and reinforced. Also reinforced is that the USA has the right to kill, torture, maim. War is called inevitable by those brokering arms sales, USA citizens and leaders believe it. Yes, I shall adopt the word “gaslighting” for talks on not just wars on Africa, but to explain our national psychosis about war.
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@Moehoward
Your definition sounds a lot like what's happening now, certainly at every Trump rally.
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@Kathy Barker
Why not just call it lies?
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"By denying these casualties, our government is essentially trying to gaslight an entire country."
"The Pentagon has never been particularly forthcoming about civilian deaths."
There is a difference between "denying" and "[not being] particularly forthcoming", so Castner is incoherent.
Further, withheld information is not going to cause anyone to believe they are going insane. Castner should have consulted a dictionary before using the word "gaslight":
"gaslight: to attempt to make (someone) believe that he or she is going insane (as by subjecting that person to a series of experiences that have no rational explanation)" (Merriam-Webster)
"gaslight: Manipulate (someone) by psychological means into doubting their own sanity." (Oxford)
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@PRGWhen our president gaslights us by screaming "fake news" all the time, he's not necessarily trying to push us towards insanity. He's just doing what he knows best after all those marriages.
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The vast majority of comments will express revulsion and sorrow at what has happened in African, Syrian, Yemen and all the other battlefields where US military interventions covert and overt take lives, maim, dispossess and destroy on an industrial scale. Some after expressing their sorrow will add a heartfelt codicil declaring their sense of "helplessness" in the face of what has been, for more than the last 30 years, a seemingly unending parade of US militarism and destruction - as if - that codicil with its pixie dust absolves them of any responsibility for what their country does. But don't be so quick to turn the page. Ask some questions. How in a so-called "democracy" does this disconnect between what the vast majority of American citizens want - a less lead with the military blow things up first foreign policy - persist decade after decade? Well, impartial observers would say general public sentiment has no impact on US foreign policy. (As it does with the important - read economic elements -of domestic policy.) So if the US has morphed into a militaristic plutocracy whose foreign policy is run by a military-industrial complex obsessed with profitably ratcheting up tensions everywhere around the world what are the American people going to do about it? Apparently not much, as long as Netflix is still operating and their kids can't be drafted into participating in these nightmares. Because you know they're "helpless." I mean it's not like the US is a real democracy.
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I do not have any revulsion at those deaths. They happen in war and civilian deaths are essential components of any war, especially an asymmetrical war that includes terrorism. You fight terrorism with terrorism and civilian deaths are essential in terrorizing the enemy population into submission and surrender. The United States has lost a lot of wars because we try to reduce enemy civilian deaths which is a major mistake in war. The only reason we won WWII (the last major war we won) was because we were not scared of killing civilians to attain war objectives.
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@s K I almost agree with you. The visceral, first reaction to reading your post is disgust, but then I realized that there is much truth to what you say, and the honesty is actually refreshing. It isn't a traditional war that is being fought here - it is a dirty, no holds barred street fight, where innocent casualties are acceptable, and maybe even desirable. And America, when it comes right down brass tacks, is really no better than the Shabab. Maybe even worse - America screwed people over and some of them struck back. So I guess all this is par for the course.
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Well Belasco, the GOP is all about deregulation of industry which is all about money. The US Military is a profit center somewhere in the US so more bombs and bullets are the centerpiece of that profit center. Somali lives do not enter into the equation at any point. Now do you understand?
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I offer my heartfelt apology to Ali and the numerous others with similar stories.
I am among the many USA citizens who are attempting to change our irresponsible leadership. You have every right to be angry with us, but please find in your heart a prayer that the good in America will again prevail.
We need all good people to fight for justice, democracy and the rule of law.
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