US Relaxing Standards For Killing Civilians In Iraq And Syria

drone cartoon

US Relaxing Standards for Killing Civilians in Iraq and Syria (Common Dreams, Oct 1, 2014):

Obama administration official says 2013 reforms to reduce civilian deaths in covert drone strikes do not apply to expanding war against ISIS

The Obama administration has admitted that it is relaxing its standards for avoiding civilian deaths when it comes to ongoing air bombardments on Iraq and Syria.

Yahoo News reported Tuesday that Caitlin Hayden, a spokesperson for the National Security Council, told the news outlet that a standard imposed last year by President Obama, which requires “near certainty” that civilians will not be harmed in drone strikes, does not apply to the expanding war on Islamic State (ISIS) targets in Iraq and Syria.

Journalist Michael Isikoff reports:

The “near certainty” standard was intended to apply “only when we take direct action ‘outside areas of active hostilities,’ as we noted at the time,” Hayden said in an email. “That description — outside areas of active hostilities — simply does not fit what we are seeing on the ground in Iraq and Syria right now.”

Hayden added that U.S. military operations against the Islamic State (also known as ISIS or ISIL) in Syria, “like all U.S. military operations, are being conducted consistently with the laws of armed conflict, proportionality and distinction.”

It is impossible to verify the impact of Obama’s 2013 drone strike reforms on civilian deaths and wounds, because U.S. drone attacks are shrouded in near complete secrecy. Furthermore, the impact of drones extends far beyond killings and physical wounds, to include psychological trauma and economic devastation.

But the best public information that does exist, provided by the UK-based Bureau of Investigative Journalism, finds that, following the 2013 changes, civilians in Yemen continued to die in U.S. drone strikes, with no civilian deaths reported in Pakistan. However, the causal relationship between the rule change and the number of recorded deaths is not clear, in a drone war where loss of life fluctuates and is difficult to calculate.

What is clear, say critics, is that the rolling back of these limited reforms with regard to Iraq and Syria will be certain to risk the killing of ordinary people already under siege by ISIS.

“They are going back to the pre-reform policy in Pakistan and Yemen,” Robert Naiman of Just Foreign Policy told Common Dreams. “Why are they doing that? They are sending a message in the ISIS controlled area: ‘Screw you.’ They are saying, ‘We have a list of bad guys, and that’s who we’re trying to kill. If you don’t want to die, get away from our target.'”

As Common Dreams reported earlier this week, reports are emerging of civilian deaths in Iraq and Syria, which the U.S. military has repeatedly denied.

++ Iraq: al Baghdadi appare in immagini in moschea Mossul ++
A welcome distraction: the Islamist dude with the $6.500 James Bond watch.

Related info:

Israel And Turkey Are Directly Supporting ISIS And Al-Qaeda Terrorists In Syria

The Khorasans: As Fake As the Kardashians

What Iraq Thinks: “It Is Obvious To Everyone That ISIS Is A Creation Of The United States And Israel”

The Fake Beheadings of the Arch-Zionist Crime Syndicate

ISIS EXPOSED 100% AS CIA OPERATION: ‘The Next Osama Bin Laden is Here’ (Video)

Meeting ISIL (Documentary)

ISIL Leader Al-Baghdadi Is Mossad Agent Simon Elliot

McCain and his buddy, ISIS leader Al-Baghdadi:

ISIS-leader-Al-Baghdadi-Mccain

McCain-ISIS

The U.S. has armed and trained ISIS:

Veterans Today: CIA And US Military Fight Under Al Qaeda Command In Syria (Video)

U.S. Special Forces Train Syrian Rebels In Jordan (Le Figaro)

Americans Are Training Syria Rebels In Jordan: Spiegel (Reuters)

CIA-Armed And Trained Syrian Rebels ‘On Way To Battlefield’

‘Military Intervention In Syria’, US Training ‘Rebels’ Since 2011 And The Complete Grand Plan – The March 2012 Leak

mossadISISmeme

Baghdadi Mossad Trained
Source

Flashback:

… all of them coming directly from from our Al-CIAda unit …

Robin-Cook-There-is-no-al-qaeda

Why Was A Sunday Times Report On US Government Ties To Al-Qaeda Chief Spiked? & Gladio B

Hillary Clinton: ‘We Created Al-Qaeda’ — The Protagonists Of The ‘Global War on Terrorism’ Are The Terrorists (Video)

‘GLADIO, THE LIVING PROOF THERE IS NO AL-QAEDA, NO WAR ON TERROR’ – ‘GLADIO Is AL-QAEDA’ (Veterans Today)

Just one month after this article has been published in the Guardian Robin Cook DIED:

Former British Foreign Secretary Robin Cook: ‘Al-Qaida, Literally “The Database”, Was Originally The Computer File Of The Thousands Of Mujahideen Who Were Recruited And Trained With Help From The CIA To Defeat The Russians’

Al Qaeda Doesn’t Exist or How The US Created Al Qaeda (Documentary)

BBC: Al-Qaeda Does Not Exist (Documentary)

Retired U.S. General Wesley Clark

… at the Commonwealth Club of California:

U.S. 4 Star General Wesley Clark, Oct 3, 2007: ‘We’re Gonna Attack And Destroy The Governments In 7 Countries In 5 Years’ … ‘Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan And Iran (Video)

… or here in this interview with Democracy Now:

Interview With US General Wesley Clark (Ret.): US Government Planned To ‘Take Out 7 Countries In 5 Years’: ‘Starting With Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan And Finishing Off Iran (Video)

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