White House exempts Syria airstrikes from tight standards on civilian deaths
he White House has acknowledged for the first time that strict standards President Obama imposed last year to prevent civilian deaths from U.S. drone strikes will not apply to U.S. military operations in Syria and Iraq.
A White House statement to Yahoo News confirming the looser policy came in response to questions about reports that as many as a dozen civilians, including women and young children, were killed when a Tomahawk missile struck the village of Kafr Daryan in Syria’s Idlib province on the morning of Sept. 23.
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At the same time, however, Hayden said that a much-publicized White House policy that President Obama announced last year barring U.S. drone strikes unless there is a “near certainty” there will be no civilian casualties — “the highest standard we can meet,” he said at the time — does not cover the current U.S. airstrikes in Syria and Iraq.
It takes some balls to condemn Israel, then go and do the same thing. With the mounting civilian casualties in the strikes on ISIS, US administration, with its record of being “appalled” at Israel’s “disgraceful” actions, is yet again exposed in its cynical hypocrisy.
Not that I approve at all of what the US is doing, or is about to do, in Iraq and Syria, but if you can’t see the vast gulf between the situation there and what Israel did to the densely populated Gaza strip, with its huge civilian population and its few ineffectual rockets, then your moral compass is completely broken.
Well, njtt said there was a “vast gulf” between US attacks on ISIS and Israel’s attacks on Hamas, with its “few ineffectual rockets”. I was just agreeing that yes, there is quite a difference, since ISIS has yet to fire anything at all at the US territory.
I don’t know what Obama said specifically about Israel, but it appears to me that the drone strikes have a much more specific mission/target than the Syrian bombings, so it makes sense to have a different standard. The idea in Syria is to do mumblemumblemumbleabout ISIS; the drones are to kill one or more specific people.
If Obama is saying “we can kill civilians because ISIS but Israel can’t kill civilians because Hamas”, then that is something else. What did Obama say about Israel?
As I pointed out, US administration said it was “appalled” at Israel’s “disgraceful” actions when civilians were killed in Israeli air strikes. I wonder if it is “appalled” at its own “disgraceful” actions now that civilians are killed in US air strikes?
Pretty sure the “appalled” and “disgraceful” stuff wasn’t simply because civilians were killed, since civilians are always killed. Pretty sure that the criticism was about the specific circumstances of a particular incident.
So what happens when you finally reach that one golden “gotcha” that you’ve so tirelessly sought? Do you retire happy? Work on your memoir? Teach the next generation of gotcha-hunters? In a way, it’ll probably be something of a letdown. It’s like, what do I do with the rest of my life now?
Yep. A dozen women and children killed when a Tomahawk missile hits the “home for displaced civilians” is definitely not “disgraceful” enough to be “appalled”.
Wait, what the the double standard here? From the thread, it seems like the double standard is that Terr cheers the bombing of a UN school while demanding US apologies for a bombing that even Human Rights Watch seems unable to figure out what really happened.
Shame, Terr! End the double standards! You should be cheering the US bombing!
I think the US is correct bombing ISIS (even though it has a LOT less reason/justification to do it than Israel had bombing Hamas). I also think that civilian casualties are inevitable, and I hope that US is as careful in avoiding them as Israel was (although I have yet to hear of US making phone calls to residents asking them to leave before their area is bombed). Is that a double standard?
But I am still waiting for Obama administration to be as publicly “appalled” by civilian casualties it is inflicting as it was by the ones inflicted by Israel.
I still don’t get it. How the heck would ISIS fire anything at US territory? Aren’t they half a world too far away? I can’t figure this out even allowing for if you are being sarcastic.
No. I think what the OP is looking for is for Obama and the US media to say, “My bad, Bibi! This surgical bombing thing is harder than we thought. Carry on with what you were doing.”
If you mean what Obama’s press secretary said a little after the Israeli artillery hit the UN school, then I would agree with you that this is an instance of hypocrisy by the Obama administration. The Israeli shelling seems just as inadvertent and unavoidable as the Syrian deaths. Either both are wrong or neither is. (IMO neither is.)
I’d say both are wrong, but that doesn’t mean that Israel and America are evil, it just means that they and we should both strive to do better to minimize collateral damage.
It is shameful that for many Americans debate doesn’t focus on What should we, the U.S., be doing? It’s all about the misbegotten Obama. This ilk can jump from “Obama isn’t tough enough” to “Obama is too tough” without batting an eyelash. The U.S. is engaged in fighting a strong and evil enemy, but some Americans want to make it all about Obama, Obama, Obama. And don’t forget Benghazi.
For some of this ilk, Benghazi-gate was “the biggest disaster since 9/11.” Don’t expect the stink about ISIS-gate to go away until U.S.A. submits to one-party rule.