Drones

( Tomdispatch.com ) – Here’s a scenario to consider: a military force has purchased a million cheap, disposable flying drones each the size of a deck of cards, each capable of carrying three grams of explosives — enough to kill a single person or, in a “shaped charge,” pierce a steel wall. They’ve been programmed […]

Afghanistan

“Worse than a Crime”: Pentagon Inspector finds Kabul Drone Strike Killing 10 not a Violation of Law (!)

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Paul Handley of AFP reports that the US Air Force Inspector General, Lieutenant General Sami Said, found that a drone strike that mistakenly killed 10 civilian non-combatants, including 7 children, in Afghanistan on August 29 violated no laws, including the law of war. When Napoleon had the royalist Duc d’Enghein […]

Afghanistan

Droning On: Assassins-in-Chief and Their Brood

Tom Engelhardt

( Tomdispatch.com ) – What a way to end a war! Apologies all around! We’re so damn sorry — or actually, maybe not! I’m thinking, of course, about CENTCOM commander General Kenneth F. McKenzie, Jr.’s belated apology for the drone assassination of seven children as the last act, or perhaps final war crime, in this […]

Drones

The Names You’ll Never Know: A Blue Kia and a Wall of Carnage on the Washington Mall

Nick Turse

( Tomdispatch.com) – As a parting shot, on its way out of Afghanistan, the United States military launched a drone attack that the Pentagon called a “righteous strike.” The final missile fired during 20 years of occupation, that August 29th airstrike averted an Islamic State car-bomb attack on the last American troops at Kabul’s airport. […]

Afghanistan

US admits that Hellfire Strike on Kabul, killing 10, was a “Mistake” – But US often does not know Whom it is Droning

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The Associated Press reports that the survivors of family members killed in a U.S. hellfire missile strike on a civilian vehicle after US troops and Afghan evacuees were killed at Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul are not satisfied with the apology issued by the U.S. military. They want compensation. […]

Drones

Not Targeted or Bloodless: Why We Need an International Convention on Drones

Conn M. Hallinan

( Foreign Policy in Focus) – In the aftermath of the recent war between Armenia and Azerbaijan over the Nagorno-Karabakh region, drone warfare is being touted as the latest breakthrough in military technology, a “magic bullet” that makes armored vehicles obsolete, defeats sophisticated anti-aircraft systems, and routs entrenched infantry. While there is some truth in […]

Drones

Will the Biden Administration End America’s Global War on Children?

Medea Benjamin and Nicholas J.S. Davies

Most people regard Trump’s treatment of immigrant children as among his most shocking crimes as president. Images of hundreds of children stolen from their families and imprisoned in chain-link cages are an unforgettable disgrace that President Biden must move quickly to remedy with humane immigration policies and a program to quickly find the children’s families […]

Drones

Drones, Robots and Automaton Skiffs: In a World of Serial Pandemics, the US Military Dreams of War without Humans

Michael T. Klare

( Tomsdispatch.com ) – On March 26th, the coronavirus accomplished what no foreign adversary has been able to do since the end of World War II: it forced an American aircraft carrier, the USS Theodore Roosevelt, to suspend patrol operations and shelter in port. By the time that ship reached dock in Guam, hundreds of […]

Donald Trump

How the President Became a Drone Bomber: From Obama to Trump, from Afghanistani to Soleimani

Tomdispatch

By Allegra Harpootlian | – (Tomdispatch.com) – We’re only a few days into the new decade and it’s somehow already a bigger dumpster fire than the last. On January 2nd, President Trump decided to order what one expert called “the most important decapitation strike America has ever launched.” This one took out not some nameless […]