The CIA's Relentless War on Civilians

Dear Mr. President,
Senator Feinstein’s blind adherence to the Administration’s line that civilian casualties in your drone wars are in the single digits, took a hit Tuesday. In yesterday’s NYT, buried at the bottom of page A6, was an article, “11 Afghans Killed in Military Actions Near Pakistan Border.” The article was a masterpiece of obfuscation. The first few paragraphs give the impression that some civilians in a remote village in the mountains of eastern Afghanistan got caught in the crossfire during a nighttime ground/air operation. You know, the collateral damage thing. But then halfway through the article, a spokesman for the International Security Assistance Force—more obfuscation—i.e., the NATO-U.S. military, a Major Wojack is quoted as saying they had no information about the operation but were looking into it. An Afghan official also states that none of their security forces were involved either, but “Sometimes U.S.. government agencies other than the military use special commandos”—Afghan paramilitaries. A few paragraphs further, a man from the village carrying a wounded boy into the hospital describes a precise hit on two adjacent houses: “Two homes were totally destroyed,” and by now it’s clear that the non-military ground/air operation is a CIA death squad with drones overhead. They got their man, a Taliban commander named Shahpour along with a Pakistani Taliban commander who was visiting family. But in the process, they also killed 4 women, one man and 5 children, ages 8 to 13, and 4 teenagers, 3 girls and a boy were wounded. Right there’s double digit civilian casualties—unless you go by Brennan’s Rules of Engagement that anyone killed by the CIA is a militant until proven otherwise. The other civilian casualty occurred on a heavily traveled highway that was being checked for IEDs. When a car wouldn’t stop—or when the car stopped and then sped away, both versions are described—NATO troops opened fire and killed the driver. The occupants of the car were returning home from a wedding. Collateral damage unless you go by Brennan’s Rules of Engagement. But the latter incident reminds me of the police shooting up the pickup of the two women delivering newspapers in Torrance during the Dorner manhunt hysteria. Except NATO troops are better shots. “The Obama administration’s covert drone program is on the wrong side of history. With each strike, Washington presents itself as an opponent of the rule of law, not a supporter.” David Rohde, Reuters.