White House exempts Syria airstrikes from tight standards on civilian deaths

[decocker 7,198]

this is going to work out so well!

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.

The village has been described by Syrian rebel commanders as a reported stronghold of the al-Qaida-linked Nusra Front where U.S officials believed members of the so-called Khorasan group were plotting attacks against international aircraft.

But at a briefing for members and staffers of the House Foreign Affairs Committee late last week, Syrian rebel commanders described women and children being hauled from the rubble after an errant cruise missile destroyed a home for displaced civilians. Images of badly injured children also appeared on YouTube, helping to fuel anti-U.S. protests in a number of Syrian villages last week.

“They were carrying bodies out the rubble. … I saw seven or eight ambulances coming out of there,” said Abu Abdo Salabman, a political member of one of the Free Syria Army factions, who attended the briefing for Foreign Affairs Committee members and staff. “We believe this was a big mistake.”

....

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."

The laws of armed conflict prohibit the deliberate targeting of civilian areas and require armed forces to take precautions to prevent inadvertent civilian deaths as much as possible.

But one former Obama administration official said the new White House statement raises questions about how the U.S. intends to proceed in the conflict in Syria and Iraq, and under what legal authorities.

“They seem to be creating this grey zone” for the conflict, said Harold Koh, who served as the State Department’s top lawyer during President Obama’s first term. “If we’re not applying the strict rules [to prevent civilian casualties] to Syria and Iraq, then they are of relatively limited value."

Questions about civilian deaths from U.S. counterterrorism operations have confronted the Obama administration from the outset, after the president sharply ramped up drone strikes in Pakistan and Yemen, resulting in sometimes heated internal policy debates.

Addressing the subject last year in a speech at the National Defense University, Obama acknowledged for the first time that U.S. strikes have resulted in civilian casualties, adding: “For me and those in my chain of command, those deaths will haunt us as long as we live.”

http://news.yahoo.com/white-house-exempts-syria-airstrikes-from-tight-standards-on-civilian-deaths-183724795.html

[GBCW 397]

Good. If we're going to be there, we should be there to win.

[decocker 7,198]

Good. If we're going to be there, we should be there to win.

yeah, cause all we have to do is show up. problems solved end of story.

[GBCW 397]

you don't like it when lostinblue throws up strawmen like that.

[decocker 7,198]

you don't like it when lostinblue throws up strawmen like that.

what are you talking about, i love it.

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

Yeah that's going to improve things....

[Mr. Big Dog 10,747]

Yeah that's going to improve things....

Yup, we'll be making tons of new friends.

[decocker 7,198]

Yup, we'll be making tons of new friends.

the more things change, yada yada yada..

[SMOKE 1,426]

this is going to work out so well!

http://news.yahoo.com/white-house-exempts-syria-airstrikes-from-tight-standards-on-civilian-deaths-183724795.html

uhm you 'forgot' to post the first paragraph of the linked article. no worries, here it is.

The 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.

[decocker 7,198]

uhm you 'forgot' to post the first paragraph of the linked article. no worries, here it is.

The 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.

actually, i cut parts out of the beginning, i cut some from the middle and some from the end. so uhm, i didn't forget anything and really i don't know what you're trying to prove by pointing out your 'find'.

[LibCampFireClub 635]

this is going to work out so well!

http://news.yahoo.com/white-house-exempts-syria-airstrikes-from-tight-standards-on-civilian-deaths-183724795.html

Clinical war is a recent phenomena. The US firebombed the Japanese and German civilians in WWII, and voila! A brand new USA still speaking English, or is it Spanish now? Yet?

Edited September 30, 2014 by ExExpat

[decocker 7,198]

Clinical war is a recent phenomena. The US firebombed the Japanese and German civilians in WWII, and voila! A brand new USA still speaking English.

war? whotf said anything about war?

[LibCampFireClub 635]

war? whotf said anything about war?

Oh right. I meant to say an overseas contingency anti-meany stop all that haten thingy doodle. My mistake.

Edited September 30, 2014 by ExExpat

[decocker 7,198]

Oh right. I meant to say an overseas contingency anti-meany stop all that haten thingy doodle. My mistake.

thank you. we must stay within the lines when we color.

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

None of this will resolve anything except convince the civilian population that noone gives a dusty fuk about them.