There are a few questions raised by a sorty in the New York Times which accuses The White House and The Pentagon of being too scared of hitting civilians to attack ISIS strongholds in Iraq and Syria. The first is “When did the liberal New York Times align itself with neo – con warmongers.
The second of course is “When did fear of killing civilians ever stop The Pentagon from carpet bombing enemy targets?
The answer to the first is of course that to US ‘liberals’ the colour of the current President’s skin absolves him of everything, if he says war is good then there can be no argument against that.
Could the answer to the second by any chance lies in the ‘conspiracy theory’ that thanks to a recent whistleblower was proved to be true: ISIS was set up with the aid of the CIA to assist the Sunni Muslim fundametalist government of Saudi Arabia overthrow several Shi’ite and secular Muslim middle eastern dictatorships?
This story in Information Clearing House makes things a lot clearer.
NYT Trumpets U.S. Restraint against ISIS, Ignores Hundreds of Civilian Deaths
The New York Times this morning has an extraordinary article claiming that the U.S. is being hampered in its war against ISIS because of its extreme even excessive concern for civilians. American officials say they are not striking significant and obvious Islamic State targets out of fear that the attacks will accidentally kill civilians, reporter Eric Schmitt says.
The newspaper gives voice to numerous, mostly anonymous officials to complain that the U.S. cares too deeply about protecting civilians to do what it should do against ISIS. We learn that many Iraqi commanders, and even some American officers, argue that exercising such prudence is harming the coalitions larger effort to destroy ISIS. And a persistent complaint of Iraqi officials and security officers is that the United States has been too cautious in its air campaign, frequently allowing columns of Islamic State fighters essentially free movement on the battlefield.
The article claims that the campaign has killed an estimated 12,500 fighters and has achieved several successes in conducting about 4,200 strikes that have dropped about 14,000 bombs and other weapons. But an anonymous American pilot nonetheless complains that we have not taken the fight to these guys, and says he cannot get authority to drone-bomb targets without excessive proof that no civilians will be endangered. Despite the criticisms, Schmitt writes, administration officials stand by their overriding objective to prevent civilian casualties.
But theres one rather glaring omission in this article: the many hundreds of civilian deaths likely caused by the U.S.-led bombing campaign in Iraq and Syria.