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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsObama defined non-combatants as combatants, keeping civilian death count low
From today's NYT we learn that Obama agreed that if any male person over 18 was in a zone where U.S.A. was bombing people, said person was a combatant:
Obama embraced a disputed method for counting civilian casualties that did little to box him in. It in effect counts all military-age males in a strike zone as combatants, according to several administration officials, unless there is explicit intelligence posthumously proving them innocent.
Counterterrorism officials insist this approach is one of simple logic: people in an area of known terrorist activity, or found with a top Qaeda operative, are probably up to no good. Al Qaeda is an insular, paranoid organization innocent neighbors dont hitchhike rides in the back of trucks headed for the border with guns and bombs, said one official, who requested anonymity to speak about what is still a classified program.
This counting method may partly explain the official claims of extraordinarily low collateral deaths. In a speech last year Mr. Brennan, Mr. Obamas trusted adviser, said that not a single noncombatant had been killed in a year of strikes. And in a recent interview, a senior administration official said that the number of civilians killed in drone strikes in Pakistan under Mr. Obama was in the single digits and that independent counts of scores or hundreds of civilian deaths unwittingly draw on false propaganda claims by militants.
But in interviews, three former senior intelligence officials expressed disbelief that the number could be so low. The C.I.A. accounting has so troubled some administration officials outside the agency that they have brought their concerns to the White House. One called it guilt by association[/] that has led to deceptive estimates of civilian casualties.
In reaction to this news, Glenn Greenwald today describes Obama's count method as "nothing less than sociopathic." Link
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Obama defined non-combatants as combatants, keeping civilian death count low (Original Post)
Marzupialis
May 2012
OP
Riftaxe
(2,693 posts)1. Artificially inflating kill counts?
Ahh....takes you back to the 60's doesn't it.
scheming daemons
(25,487 posts)2. welcome back, BBI
SidDithers
(44,228 posts)3. Greenwald. LOL...nt
Sid
Marzupialis
(398 posts)5. I don't get it
What's your opinion about President Obama's method of counting casualties, and what does Greenwald have to do with your opinion?
mike_c
(36,281 posts)4. this is a travesty....
...that every American should be deeply ashamed of. We kill people at will, then define them as combatants BECAUSE we killed them, then use that libel as justification for killing them.