Samuel Oakford: The White House bombs civilians
Samuel Oakford writes in the Daily Beast that “Trump’s Air War Has Already Killed More Than 2,000 Civilians“. No, really;
Airwars researchers estimate that at least 2,300 civilians likely died from Coalition strikes overseen by the Obama White House—roughly 80 each month in Iraq and Syria. As of July 13, more than 2,200 additional civilians appear to have been killed by Coalition raids since Trump was inaugurated—upwards of 360 per month, or 12 or more civilians killed for every single day of his administration.
Yeah, neither the White House nor the President are “overseeing” airstikes in the Levant. If you want to blame someone for the civilian casualties, you have to blame the troops who have eyes on the targets, but that’s not politically expedient, is it, Sam? Neither is the fact that ISIS should own the blame for hiding behind civilians as human shields.
First, you have to prove to me which casualties are civilians and which are non-uniformed fighters. Which are camp follower women supporting the fighters and which are innocent by-standers.
The high civilian toll in part reflects the brutal final stages of the war, with the densely populated cities of Mosul and Raqqa under heavy assault by air and land. But there are also indications that under President Trump, protections for civilians on the battlefield may have been lessened—with immediate and disastrous results.
Yeah, the Obama Administration was willing to sacrifice the lives of Americans to spare civilians. Read Dakota Meyer’s book Into the Fire to understand the ridiculous extremes that policy reached, costing lives of Americans as a result.
“Remarkably, when I interview families at camps who have just fled the fighting, the first thing they complain about is not the three horrific years they spent under ISIS, or the last months of no food or clean water, but the American airstrikes,” said Belkis Wille, Iraq researcher for Human Rights Watch. “Many told me that they survived such hardship, and almost made it out with the families, only to lose all their loved ones in a strike before they had time to flee.”
OK, maybe they tell that story, because it’s more profitable to tell about their losses due to American culpability than blaming ISIS which seems to be slower in paying for hardship stories.
On Feb. 27, Secretary of Defense James Mattis delivered the new war plan to Trump.
“Two significant changes resulted from President Trump’s reviews of our findings,” Mattis later said at a May 19 meeting of the anti-ISIS Coalition. “First, he delegated authority to the right level to aggressively and in a timely manner move against enemy vulnerabilities. Second, he directed a tactical shift from shoving ISIS out of safe locations in an attrition fight to surrounding the enemy in their strongholds so we can annihilate ISIS.”
Though the U.S. military had shifted to such annihilation tactics—a change cited with glee by the Trump White House—Mattis claimed there have been no updates to U.S. rules of engagement. “There has been no change to our continued extraordinary efforts to avoid innocent civilian casualties,” he told reporters.
“Avoiding” civilian casualties is a reasonable goal, but like I said, this war has gone on for as long as it has because these fellows in the Taliban, al Qaeda, ISIS, al Shabbab, etc…, like to hide themselves in among civilians, so some civilians are going to get hurt and killed when they do it more often as the war closes in on the insurgents. It’s not like the troops are doing it on purpose – targeting civilian centers, it’s the insurgents hiding behind them that have determined where the fighting takes place.
But for people like Samuel Oakford, it’s much more satisfying to portray the President and the troops as the bloodthirsty terrorists rather than the actual terrorists.
Category: Politics
The BS is strong with this one.
Someone ask this simple minded P.O.S. just exactly how many civilians have been killed by the muslim scum? how many babies blown up? how many used as shields by the cowardly bastards?
I’m sure there’s more good stuff to come from him. Should we show him pictures of bombed-out villes in France from WWII?
Two words for ya, Oakford, if ya wanna talk *real* civilian bombing casualties:
Dresden
Tokyo
So dry up and blow away.
Sheesh. He probably never heard of either instance.
JSF
Not to mention Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Those acts saved a million lives, both military and civilian.
And to be fair those two relatively unknown cities were chosen precisely because the 67 larger cities of Japan larger than Hiroshima and Nagasaki were so destroyed that the bomb would not have made the same impression it did on those two cities which up to that point were not regular targets…those other 67 cities were firebombed…nothing like magnesium bombs followed by napalm bombs to make a point.
London.
The Allies behavior in the latter part of the war was colored by what Hitler had done to London and the other English towns. They had no moral qualms about bombing any place that they thought might be of military significance.
The ground-penetrating bombs dropped on Berlin almost got my aunt, who was a child in one of the shelters there. (I have her story on video.) But they were also intended to get the German soldiers in their bunkers.
The Germans are still finding unexploded ordinance from WWII in Berlin and other towns.
Especially when the nazi bastards took
American GI’s and shot them down with a shot to the back of the head, with their hands bound! You have compassion on shytbirds like that? NO/ ME EITHER!!
Hamburg, Germany July 1943:
40,000+ dead German civilians.
‘Operation Gomorrah’
http://www.airforcemag.com/MagazineArchive/Pages/2007/March%202007/0307gomorrah.aspx
‘RAF Bomber Command all but annihilated the German city of Hamburg at the close of July 1943. In the view of Air Chief Marshal Arthur T. Harris, the attacks on the so-called “second city of the Reich” were “incomparably more terrible” than any Germany had suffered to that point. The name bestowed on this series of raids seemed to fit its wrath-of-God nature. The RAF called it Operation Gomorrah.
The redoubtable “Bomber” Harris was right. His Bomber Command threw 2,355 sorties at Hamburg in three massive nighttime raids on July 24-25, July 28, and July 30. The United States Army Air Forces also flung itself into the attacks; Eighth Air Force, based in Britain, generated 235 daylight sorties in two raids during July 25 and July 26.
The main result was a horrendous July 28 firestorm that killed more than 40,000 persons in and around Hamburg. Most died of asphyxiation while huddling for shelter in their basements, or in the above-ground flames and melting asphalt of the streets.
[…].’
That is an interesting read.
Before Tokyo, Nagoya, Hiroshima, or Nagasaki, there was Nanking, Peking, and Shanghai. Except then it was the Japanese doing it to the Chinese, so it apparently doesn’t count.
Before Berlin, Hamburg, or Dresden, there was London and Coventry. Except then it was the Nazis doing it while the outnumbered RAF Fighter Command mounted one of (if not THE) most badass underdog defenses in history. And before that, there was Guernica, but that was the Nazi Condor Legion firebombing those damn dirty Basques, ostensibly on Franco’s behalf (speaking of assholes…), so who cares, right?
Hippie hypocrisy is appalling.
Absolutely right.
When the collectivists do it, the hippies don’t care.
When it’s on the Daily Beast it is already past suspect, and well into full-on partisan bullshit.
War never solved anything. Except tyranny, slavery, oppression, genocide, nazisim, fascism, communism, and a recent radical caliphate.
Col DuBois would have something to add to that.
(Starship Troopers, Robert Heinlein)
Why doesn’t this little pussy go and interview those people that are still in the cities, instead of those in safe havens in the camps? Why doesn’t he get a first hand look at areas held by ISIS, Al Queda, etc.?
Does he think that war is clean? Does he think that there were no civilian casualties in any other wars? What an idiot.
No one likes civilian casualties, but if his whine-tit attitude was prevalent during WWII, then it would be an entirely different world right now.
His editor told him that there are no safe spaces, warm blankets, and lullabies sung to him in a falsetto at night in either Iraq or Syria. Investigating the story first hand was immediately discarded for the usual anti-American tripe he heard repeated by his professors and certain politically connected coastal elites.
Ah yes, the old “targets of the American military are the innocent people of Vietnam” story. Except with a Middle Eastern twist.
What was it during WWII? “The targets of the American military are the innocent people of Europe”? “The targets of the American military are the innocent people of the Pacific islands”?
In the mean time we are supposed to “try and understand why militant islamists want to kill western people because they feel so marginalized because their homelands are being overrun by cultures that have turned their religion aside and made them feel marginalized so it’s really understandable that they would kill us and so they are justified in taking civilian lives because of this marginalizing…..oh, and the lack of jobs.”
“…and global warming”
It happens. I am very sure 1. We are not going out of our way to bomb civilians. 2. No Country engage in active Warfare has done more to mitigate collateral damage then Our Country.
To the great lengths of enormous cost in money and loss of Our Troops Lives.
He probably complains about the high cost of the DOD as well. Smart bombs are not cheap.
I guess he is also not able to spot a plant nor ulterior motives. ISIS will not pay up for civilian casualties by Uncle Sammy might. He has deep pockets. They probably even have some ambulance chaser running ads on TV on how to get compensation.
“Are you a victim of a coalition air strike? You deserve compensation! If you have a phone, or a Daily Beast reporter, you have a lawyer. Let the lawyers at Bernath And Associates get you the compensation you deserve.”
“Better call Saul”…
…’cause you can’t call DanniBoi a lawer no more.
Human Rights Watch
Which is the bullshit tag right there.
If these groups gave a single fuck about human rights, they’d be up the collective asses of the Taliban, ISIS, etc.
Totally agree with you SEA! It is a lot safer to be critical of the nice safe country which we live in alongside these dingdongs live; the one that allows them spout such drivel without fear of being rounded up at midnight and shipped to some hellhole.
How is that Free Speech thing maintained? Im all for people speaking their minds, Id hope it was well thought out and reasoned. Id hope that there is at some level, recognition that a whole bunch of Americans have sworn to support and defend the Constitution so that we all can run off at the mouth.
Its easy to be an armchair activist if there is no consequence, other than putting up with us firing off. I guess if you really want me to put my two bits in on this topic; this guy and those who think like him are propagandists for the Taliban and ISIS.
It worked for the Ruskies in the 60s-70s, so…
The true power of speech and protest without the force of arms to back it up was demonstrated for all to see at Tiananmen Square.
Modern day Tokyo Rose.
Except Iva Toguri was stuck in a shitty situation and still did everything she could to help US & Allied POWs during the war, risking the kind of treatment that would leave a woman begging for death if the Kempeitei ever found out. No comparison to these retards.
It’s not nearly enough dead civilians in my opinion, these shit bag nations have become the production source of sustenance for those who would kill us…if our fucking useless legislators would do their jobs and declare war on Afghanistan and Iraq instead of abdicating their responsibility and just authorizing some use of force to exercise some silly action to correct some other silly violation of some idiotic ruling at the UN….
Declare war on the nation harboring our enemies and make it so painful that all those watching learn a valuable lesson…
Oderint Dum Metuant was a lesson the Romans forgot, when they did the Huns were happy to re-educate the Romans…let us not fail to remember that historical reality.
With respect to the Taliban, ISIS, Al-Qaida, etc., I’m not so sure there is such a thing as a “civilian” over the age of about 5yo.
So, Sammy, how ’bout your hero Barry droning wedding parties and the like? Whaddaya got to say about that, huh? Since you’re so concerned about innocent lives (the same ones who get brutalized and murdered by the daesh-bags on a daily basis).
Sorry, Sammy, but presidential micromanagement of individual air strikes and such was the MO of the previous administration. They took it from the playbook of that other great democrat hero Lyndon “I’ll have the n****rs voting democrat for 200 years” Johnson AKA “I will not send American boys to Asia to do a job that Asian boys should be doing for themselves” Johnson. And that worked out so wonderfully, didn’t it?
Shove your virtue-signaling up your dickhole, Sammy.
‘By most accounts, the Obama administration became increasingly focused on reducing civilian casualties from U.S. actions—both on and off the conventional battlefield.’
This is a flat-out fvcking lie. Fvck this guy with an SDB chucked from a UAV.
The targeting restrictions/requirements under Obama were greatly relaxed? Why? Nobody is going to report on increased innocent/civilian death as a result of strikes in the tri border region, for example.
The powers-that-be (management) were specifically warned by the guys on & near the sharp end that the lifting/easing would have a direct effect on the # of innocents being killed. Management also knew damn well that the guys at the very point of the spear were fine with the way things were, even though they were often at increase risk of winding up KIA/WIA.
Basically, lack of accountability and reduced potential political vulnerability (less US/coalition KIA/WIA) took precedence over the lives of innocents without a second thought.
Don’t ask me how I know all this. Don’t even trust me. A select few actual, real ‘reporters’ tried to bring this into the light during Obama’s years as CiC but nobody wanted to hear it.
The data and reports are out there, just do a little digging. A very shameful period in terms of the history of the USA and UW/’low intensity’ conflict.
People arriving for a dinner party after a 3 day walk don’t deserve to wind up dead or maimed because there was a meeting of bad guy leadership in the same village that the innocents had no way of knowing about. We are better than that, again, I hope.
Samuel Oakford sounds like yet another candyassed pisspants cream puff of a booger-munching MAMA’S BOY who has never set foot in the Middle East but yet thinks himself and expert on it from what he hears from the sneering latte-sipping liberal quiche-eaters in the mainstream mess media.
As I always say, 38 percent of all statistics are made up.
Samuel Oakford is apparently among that group of writers who are wannabe war correspondents, but can’t quite seem to pull it off. The story about civilian casualties currently under consideration came to the Daily Beast via a non-profit group called Airwars.
Oakford is a member of Airwars along with a guy named Christiaan Triebert who popped up on the TAH radar last March when the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) sent Jonn a bitchy press release demanding an investigation into an attack on a Syrian mosque. Their information was apparently based on a badly-written story Triebert did for Bellingcat.
Another of Oakford’s pieces from last July was one in The Intercept about allegations of systemic abuse toward Iraqi civilians by British troops.
People like Oakford and Triebert are professional hand wringers and pearl clutchers. It’s how they make a living.
Attacks on Mosques are a thing, huh?
Funny, they weren’t in Iraq during OIF, when Iranian-backed Iraqi insurgents slaughtered dozens of women and children in Sāmarrā and had ‘video camera teams’ waiting so when US forces cleared the Mosque of insurgent fighters, the murdered Iraqi women and kids could be ‘pinned’ on US forces.
Except we sent Iraqi Commandos (RIP to far too many of you, it was an honor and a privilege to train and fight alongside you all) in to clear it instead.
This of course spoiled their whole wet-dream-for-progressives false narrative setup.
The funny thing is, not a single reporter in-country from any of the big Western media outlets had ANY interest in the story – innocent civilians slaughtered in their place of worship in a failed PSYOP.
Why? Because it couldn’t be used to shame the USA, provide propaganda material for the enemies of the USA, etc.
Brutally murdered women and kids? Fvck ’em, because the narrative is more important.
I know, ‘shocking’.
Exactly why you want war in someone else’s backyard. After the Civil war, it took over a hundred years for wild game to reappear in many areas of the south. Both of my grandparents had farms in southwest Tn. and I never saw a wild turkey, a deer, coyote, or many others that we take for granted now. What little game survived the war was killed off during the great depression.
I believe the purpose of aerial bombing which started in WW 1 was that if bombs were dropped on cities, the populace would pressure the govt. to stop the war. I guess that didn’t work out.
I still recall when the world-renowned medical journal ‘The Lancet’ issued a ‘report’/’study’ in the early 2000s claiming that up to that point OIF had been the cause of 2,000,000 – as in ‘Million’ – civilian deaths.
I cornered a Reporter (an actual intelligent, principled, albeit a little clueless but still why I capitalized ‘R’ in her case) over some drinks (virgin alcohol drinks, I swear…and SARC would hit her with an ICBM+MIRV Bus, Twice) in ‘Safety Land’ (bad form on my part, she was off the clock and needed a break) about the ‘study’ because I knew she had colleagues involved with it.
The entire paper/study was…you guessed it…total BS being used to attack Teh Evilllll Boosh.
I simply asked her ‘2,000,000 Civilian deaths, huh? That’s cool. Ask yourself, *where are the bodies & subsequent burials?’
I think such a simple statement opened her eyes a little more than they were before re: lack of objectivity & her chosen profession.
Lancet and JAMA have become disgusting tools of the liberal media.
Is there even room to bury 2 Million people in that short of time?
That would be 5480 Funerals in one day if that was one years worth of kills.
Somebody would notice a couple thousand funerals a day.
The problem with bombing civilians is, there’s not enough of it.
I knew I liked you for a reason bro….now we’re talking.
Everybody forgets 9-11 and the death toll of over 2500 civilians in the WTC and the Pentagon and let’s not forget Flight 93…
3000 people died that day and many first responders and civilian working men and women died from respiratory illnesses after working in the dust of the clean up of the WTC site…
Oh, but that doesn’t count either…