rowan wrote:Doctor Bill Levingston was a 19th century American conman who went about selling snake oil as a cancer cure. He was constantly on the run, unsurprisingly. He abandoned his wife and lived a bigamous life in Canada, spawning a child, but then fled south of the border again after being accused of rape. But he was no doctor, and his real name was not Bill Levingston. He was William Rockefeller, and he proudly taught his sons the tricks of his trade. But John D and his brother William Jr got lucky, stumbling into the emerging oil industry, founding Standard Oil and ranking among the richest men in the world a century ago. What did this newly wealthy family do with its money? Firstly, it funded Eugenics in Germany, involving the sterilization of African and handicapped babies. It also sold oil to the Nazis. While their German business partners were prosecuted after the war, however, the Rockefellers escaped justice. Instead they went on to form the deep state of American politics with other billionares like the Rothschilds to control US foreign policy, and thereby gain control of global finance and resources. The Rockefellers were in league with the Shah of Iran when the CIA overthrew that nation's first democratic government, they supported the Suharto dictatorship during the communist genocide (mostly of Chinese immigrants) in exchange for access to Western Papua and its resources, and Senator Jay Rockefeller (great grandson of John D) supported the genocidal invasion of Iraq. Yesterday the latter's uncle, David Rockefeller (grandson of John D) kicked the bucket at 101. As the saying goes, only the good die young
The Rockefeller Foundation first arrived in Brazil during World War I and was embedded within the so-called “public health movement” amongst Brazilian elites. At that time, Brazilian eugenics was synonymous with public health and emphasized “hygienization”, expressed in the maxim “to sanitize is to eugenize”. With Rockefeller assistance, the creation of the Eugenic Society of São Paulo in 1918 represented the institutionalization of eugenics in Brazil. Amongst elites, eugenics was associated with evolution, progress and civilization, even treated by some as a ‘new religion’. In “War against the weak” Edwin Black explains that the purpose of the Rockefeller Foundation was to finance programs aimed at “the extermination of those considered degenerate”. In Brazil, this meant the poor, the ignorant, those of mixed race and African descent.
If they're good enough to play at World Cups, why not in between?
U.S.-led strike kills 230 Mosul civilians; mostly women, children
Mosul - In what could be the deadliest wholesale American slaughter of innocent civilians in decades, some 230 people, mostly women and children, have been killed in an air strike in a crowded residential neighborhood of besieged Mosul, Iraq.
On Thursday, the United Nations warned "the worst is yet to come" as some 400,000 residents remain trapped inside the Islamic State-controlled Old City of western Mosul, facing IS snipers, land mines, food shortages and mounting panic as U.S.-backed Iraqi national forces fight to retake the city that has been under Islamist control for nearly three years.
The worst soon came for hundreds of terrified civilians sheltering in adjoining homes in the city's Jadida neighborhood. According to witnesses, IS snipers took up positions in the buildings, with fighters holding the civilians there as human shields. The Telegraph reports a local resident, who documents life in the embattled city under the Twitter handle MosulEye, said one of the trapped civilians desperately phoned him Wednesday to plead for help, claiming he'd been without food or water for four days.
Instead of delivering help, the coalition delivered death from above on a staggering scale. The Kurdish news agency Rudaw reports 130 people were killed in one single home, while 100 more people perished in another. YouTube channel IR Shia — which may be associated with Islamic State — posted horrific video footage of what it claimed was the deadly attack.
The Independent reports a spokesman for U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) said Pentagon officials were aware of the loss of life and were "researching" the situation. Iraqi News reports Iraqi military media is accusing IS of fabricating civilian casualty figures and even murdering civilians and then blaming coalition forces. According to the outlet, Iraqi military officials denied killing any civilians, as U.S. forces often initially do in similar situations.
During the 2016 presidential campaign, Donald Trump vowed to "bomb the shit out of" Islamic State and seize Iraq's oil. “I’d blow up every single inch, there would be nothing left,” Trump said in November 2015. “We’ll get Exxon[Mobil] to come in there and in two months… I’ll take the oil.” Trump also promised he would order the killing innocent women and children. "You have to take out their families, when you get these terrorists, you have to take out their families,” Trump said in December 2015. “They care about their lives, don’t kid yourself. When they say they don’t care about their lives, you have to take out their families.”
Earlier this month, the Trump administration said it was moving ahead with plans to make it easier for the military and Central Intelligence Agency to target enemy forces with drones, even if it means more innocent people will be killed. Changes include declaring more places “areas of active hostilities” and granting military and CIA forces greater autonomy to launch strikes without presidential approval in countries including Yemen, Somalia, Iraq, Syria, Libya and Afghanistan. “Some of the Obama administration rules were getting in the way of good strikes,” a U.S. official briefed on the changes told NBC News.
There has been an exponential increase in the killing of innocent civilians in nations targeted by America's war against terrorism since Trump became commander-in-chief. This month alone, several mass casualty events have been reported, including 49 civilians killed when a U.S. air strike hit a mosque in Aleppo province, Syria and 33 civilians killed in an air strike on a school sheltering families near Raqqa, Syria.
In the Trump administration's first major ground raid, dozens of civilians — including an 8-year-old American girl — and a U.S. Navy SEAL were killed in a botched assault on an al-Qaeda compound in Yemen. In February, at least 18 Afghans, mostly women and children, died in a U.S. strike in Helmand province.
But it is in Mosul where U.S. bombs have killed the most innocent people. Earlier this month, the U.K.-based monitor group Airwars said as many as 370 civilians have been killed in at least 11 coalition attacks in and around Mosul. Thousands of Mosul residents have died in the fighting, with hundreds of thousands of more displaced.
While it is extremely difficult to confirm how many people have died in coalition attacks, details from specific events have been corroborated. One of the deadliest incidents occurred when the IS-run Omar al-Aswad mosque, in the al-Faruq district of the old city center, was repeatedly bombed, destroying it as well as nearby homes. The mosque was being used as a shelter for families displaced by the fierce fighting. Ninevah Media Center reported more than 80 civilians were killed or wounded, while Mosul Eye put the number killed at “more than 50.”
According to Airwars, on March 2, several outlets — including IS media — reported 20 civilians were killed in a coalition bombardment in the Shifa neighborhood of western Mosul, while another west Mosul strike, this one in the Nabi Sheet neighborhood, reportedly killed 14 civilians from three families. Two days later, coalition attacks in western Mosul’s Al Mahatta neighborhood reportedly left another 36 civilians dead, including numerous children. The deadliest reported incident in Mosul involving coalition forces prior to the Jadida massacre occurred on March 5 during an attack on a government compound in the Dawassa neighborhood in which as many as 130 civilians were reportedly killed. The following day, dozens of Iraqi police and security officers imprisoned by IS were reportedly killed in coalition air strikes near Mosul’s main train station.
The Pentagon has admitted its forces have killed hundreds of civilians since the U.S. began bombing IS targets in 2014, but human rights and monitor groups accuse Washington of dramatically underreporting the number of Iraqi and Syrian civilians killed during the war. More than 15 years of endless U.S. war in South Asia, the Middle East and North Africa have taken an extremely heavy toll on innocent life. Estimates of the number of people killed during the ongoing war against Islamist terrorism range from the low hundreds of thousands to over 1.3 million.
Since the end of World War II, U.S. military forces have killed more foreign civilians than any other armed force in the world, by far.
Air strikes on Isis-held Mosul 'leave 230 civilians dead', reports local media
US Central Command says it is researching reports of extensive loss of civilian life in third such alleged incident in recent weeks
rowan wrote:The Great Game, as you state, was about Afghanistan. So how on earth does Russian involvement in that affair put it on the same scale as the British Empire in terms of countries attacked and invaded? Do we see Russian involvement throughout Africa? Do we see it throughout the Americas? Do we see it in Australia and the Pacific Islands?
Countries invaded by Britain (in pink)
Soviet Union (doesn't go beyond Eurasia)
US military bases around the world
Russian military bases around the world
The rest of your post was ad hominems . . .
Someone should tell the Russians and Chinese they have US troops in their country....
Mosul - In what could be the deadliest wholesale American slaughter of innocent civilians in decades, some 230 people, mostly women and children, have been killed in an air strike in a crowded residential neighborhood of besieged Mosul, Iraq.
On Thursday, the United Nations warned "the worst is yet to come" as some 400,000 residents remain trapped inside the Islamic State-controlled Old City of western Mosul, facing IS snipers, land mines, food shortages and mounting panic as U.S.-backed Iraqi national forces fight to retake the city that has been under Islamist control for nearly three years.
The worst soon came for hundreds of terrified civilians sheltering in adjoining homes in the city's Jadida neighborhood. According to witnesses, IS snipers took up positions in the buildings, with fighters holding the civilians there as human shields. The Telegraph reports a local resident, who documents life in the embattled city under the Twitter handle MosulEye, said one of the trapped civilians desperately phoned him Wednesday to plead for help, claiming he'd been without food or water for four days.
Instead of delivering help, the coalition delivered death from above on a staggering scale. The Kurdish news agency Rudaw reports 130 people were killed in one single home, while 100 more people perished in another. YouTube channel IR Shia — which may be associated with Islamic State — posted horrific video footage of what it claimed was the deadly attack.
The Independent reports a spokesman for U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) said Pentagon officials were aware of the loss of life and were "researching" the situation. Iraqi News reports Iraqi military media is accusing IS of fabricating civilian casualty figures and even murdering civilians and then blaming coalition forces. According to the outlet, Iraqi military officials denied killing any civilians, as U.S. forces often initially do in similar situations.
During the 2016 presidential campaign, Donald Trump vowed to "bomb the shit out of" Islamic State and seize Iraq's oil. “I’d blow up every single inch, there would be nothing left,” Trump said in November 2015. “We’ll get Exxon[Mobil] to come in there and in two months… I’ll take the oil.” Trump also promised he would order the killing innocent women and children. "You have to take out their families, when you get these terrorists, you have to take out their families,” Trump said in December 2015. “They care about their lives, don’t kid yourself. When they say they don’t care about their lives, you have to take out their families.”
Earlier this month, the Trump administration said it was moving ahead with plans to make it easier for the military and Central Intelligence Agency to target enemy forces with drones, even if it means more innocent people will be killed. Changes include declaring more places “areas of active hostilities” and granting military and CIA forces greater autonomy to launch strikes without presidential approval in countries including Yemen, Somalia, Iraq, Syria, Libya and Afghanistan. “Some of the Obama administration rules were getting in the way of good strikes,” a U.S. official briefed on the changes told NBC News.
There has been an exponential increase in the killing of innocent civilians in nations targeted by America's war against terrorism since Trump became commander-in-chief. This month alone, several mass casualty events have been reported, including 49 civilians killed when a U.S. air strike hit a mosque in Aleppo province, Syria and 33 civilians killed in an air strike on a school sheltering families near Raqqa, Syria.
In the Trump administration's first major ground raid, dozens of civilians — including an 8-year-old American girl — and a U.S. Navy SEAL were killed in a botched assault on an al-Qaeda compound in Yemen. In February, at least 18 Afghans, mostly women and children, died in a U.S. strike in Helmand province.
But it is in Mosul where U.S. bombs have killed the most innocent people. Earlier this month, the U.K.-based monitor group Airwars said as many as 370 civilians have been killed in at least 11 coalition attacks in and around Mosul. Thousands of Mosul residents have died in the fighting, with hundreds of thousands of more displaced.
While it is extremely difficult to confirm how many people have died in coalition attacks, details from specific events have been corroborated. One of the deadliest incidents occurred when the IS-run Omar al-Aswad mosque, in the al-Faruq district of the old city center, was repeatedly bombed, destroying it as well as nearby homes. The mosque was being used as a shelter for families displaced by the fierce fighting. Ninevah Media Center reported more than 80 civilians were killed or wounded, while Mosul Eye put the number killed at “more than 50.”
According to Airwars, on March 2, several outlets — including IS media — reported 20 civilians were killed in a coalition bombardment in the Shifa neighborhood of western Mosul, while another west Mosul strike, this one in the Nabi Sheet neighborhood, reportedly killed 14 civilians from three families. Two days later, coalition attacks in western Mosul’s Al Mahatta neighborhood reportedly left another 36 civilians dead, including numerous children. The deadliest reported incident in Mosul involving coalition forces prior to the Jadida massacre occurred on March 5 during an attack on a government compound in the Dawassa neighborhood in which as many as 130 civilians were reportedly killed. The following day, dozens of Iraqi police and security officers imprisoned by IS were reportedly killed in coalition air strikes near Mosul’s main train station.
The Pentagon has admitted its forces have killed hundreds of civilians since the U.S. began bombing IS targets in 2014, but human rights and monitor groups accuse Washington of dramatically underreporting the number of Iraqi and Syrian civilians killed during the war. More than 15 years of endless U.S. war in South Asia, the Middle East and North Africa have taken an extremely heavy toll on innocent life. Estimates of the number of people killed during the ongoing war against Islamist terrorism range from the low hundreds of thousands to over 1.3 million.
Since the end of World War II, U.S. military forces have killed more foreign civilians than any other armed force in the world, by far.
It's times like this that it becomes glaringly obvious just how racist and hypocritical the West really is. 3 major attacks on civilian targets in the past two weeks, totalling several hundred casualties - mostly women and kids - and the silence is defeaning. It doesn't feature among the headlines on US Yahoo's news page of course, which is far more interested in London, and while the British press has at least given it more prominent coverage, barely a word has been printed in anger. We all know very very well that if it had been the Russians, screams of 'genocide' & 'Putin is Hitler reincarnate' would be dominating the headlines...
If they're good enough to play at World Cups, why not in between?
We have to go to the Iranian press to get any proper coverage of this:
Hundreds of civilians, mostly women and children, have been killed under collapsed buildings in the Iraqi city of Mosul after a reported US-led airstrike triggered a massive explosion in a residential neighborhood last week.
Iraqi civil defense agency officials and locals said Thursday that rescuers are still recovering bodies from under the debris near Rahma hospital in Mosul’s Jadida district following the explosion that took place on March 16.
Iraqi sources have put the number of those killed at over 230. So far 130 dead bodies have reportedly been retrieved from the debris.
The exact cause of the blast remains unclear, but local residents said an explosive-laden truck detonated following a US-led airstrike, destroying buildings in the heavily-populated neighborhood.
Local lawmaker Faris al-Sanjari said the US-led coalition targeted the truck bomb and noted, “You cannot kill dozens just to destroy a booby-trapped truck parked near houses.”
A police civil defense official also said “a coalition air strike hit a residential street last Friday and destroyed at least 30 houses.”
The US-led coalition has not given details on any specific airstrikes on Jadida District.
By the time rescuers finally arrived no one was left alive. For almost a week desperate neighbours had scraped through the rubble, searching for as many as 130 people who lay buried after three homes in a west Mosul suburb were destroyed by coalition airstrikes.
The full picture of the carnage continued to emerge on Friday, when at least 20 bodies were recovered. Dozens more are thought to remain buried in what could turn out to be the single most deadly incident for civilians in the war against Islamic State (Isis).
Rescuers at the scene in the suburb of Mosul Jadida said they had driven the 250 miles from Baghdad but had not been able to enter the area until Wednesday, five days after airstrikes hit the houses where local residents had been sheltering from fierce fighting between Iraqi forces and Isis.
Neighbours at the scene said at least 80 bodies had been recovered from one house alone, where people had been encouraged by local elders to take shelter. Rescuers were continuing to dig through the ruins, and the remains of two other houses nearby, which had also been pulverised in attacks that were described as “relentless and horrifying”.
The destruction took place in a district that was last week a frontline in the battle for Mosul. Locals said militants had positioned a sniper on the roof of the home that had sheltered the largest number of people. It has raised fresh questions about rules of engagement in the war against the terror group, after two recent US airstrikes in Syria resulted in at least 90 casualties, nearly all of them thought to be civilian.
Residents in Mosul Jadida say no Isis members were hiding among the civilians, although dozens of militants had been attempting to defend the area from an attack by Iraqi special forces.
Most of the time, when reports come out about the fighting in Mosul taking place in densely populated residential zones, it is in the context of that inconveniencing invading Iraqi troops, as they slowly try to advance through the sort of urban fighting they weren’t really trained or armed for. The problem is a little more straightforward for the population.
Today, Reuters offered a look at just one of the emergency field hospitals set up under WHO auspices, and run by foreign aid groups, outside of Mosul. The hospital deals with children wounded in the fighting, and has been facing an ever-growing number of such victims.
The report details children maimed in artillery fire around the city, and those that caught stray bullets during what is, in and around Mosul’s Old City, a virtually constant gunbattle. Civilian casualties in Mosul include huge numbers of women and children, and many of the injuries are the sort that are going to stay with the victims for the rest of their lives.
Large numbers of the casualties are also from US and coalition airstrikes, with locals claiming some 3,500 killed in airstrikes throughout the invasion of Mosul, and an incident just last night killing around 230 civilians in just three buildings. As these strikes continue to escalate, so too are the number of victims flocking to the field hospitals.
It's hard to know when most of the page just says display this post, over and over and over, but is the point being made in an age of air travel that Russia's actions are more permissible as they occurred within a contiguous land mass?
Digby wrote:It's hard to know when most of the page just says display this post, over and over and over, but is the point being made in an age of air travel that Russia's actions are more permissible as they occurred within a contiguous land mass?
In light of this incident, the coalition in Iraq are pausing air strikes to review how to limit civilian casualties. Russian and Syrian militaries take note.
Digby wrote:It's hard to know when most of the page just says display this post, over and over and over, but is the point being made in an age of air travel that Russia's actions are more permissible as they occurred within a contiguous land mass?
In light of this incident, the coalition in Iraq are pausing air strikes to review how to limit civilian casualties. Russian and Syrian militaries take note.
How very humane of them, after bombing a mosque (during prayer) and school in Syria (where they have not been invited) and an entire village in Iraq, wiping out 230 civilians - mostly women & children. But the main point here has been the astonishing lack of coverage by the media. The British media actually paid a lot more attention to it than the US (and NATO stooge Turkey, where it was ignored outright), but still the point is made. As for the point-the-finger-elsewhere reference to the Syrians and the Russians, they are trying to force out the terrorists the US and their allies sent in there (the latter at the former's invitation) - so what happened to this War on Terror we keep hearing about when the US & Britain et al are invading countries outright? The hypocrisy is truly staggering
If they're good enough to play at World Cups, why not in between?
Digby wrote:It's hard to know when most of the page just says display this post, over and over and over, but is the point being made in an age of air travel that Russia's actions are more permissible as they occurred within a contiguous land mass?
In light of this incident, the coalition in Iraq are pausing air strikes to review how to limit civilian casualties. Russian and Syrian militaries take note.
Quite right they take a step back and consider what's been done. Doubtful one could have no unintended casualties but this is a poor operation indeed
Well, news is beginning to seep out anyway. Today I saw a Turkish report on this latest wholesale human carnage for the first time, albeit several days after the fact . . .
If they're good enough to play at World Cups, why not in between?
To be honest, when you've killed 10 million Muslims already I guess it's hardly surprising practically nobody notices when you slaughter a few hundred more. That's the state of the world we live in, sadly
If they're good enough to play at World Cups, why not in between?
A coalition airstrike on an ISIS truck laden with explosives led to the deaths of dozens of civilians in Mosul, a senior Iraqi officer said Sunday.
The US-led coalition has acknowledged hitting a vehicle carrying explosives in the March 17 strike -- though US officials have not confirmed the Iraqi military's account of exactly what happened.
Confusion has surrounded events during airstrikes on the city between March 17 and 23 after allegations emerged that as many as 200 civilians had been killed there.
Bashar al Kiki, chairman of the Nineveh Provincial Council and the source of the death toll, backed off the figure Sunday, saying that 200 was the death toll from multiple locations, citing his sources. He did not provide further details.
The US-led coalition confirmed Saturday that it had carried out an airstrike on March 17 "at the location corresponding to allegations of civilian casualties."
FROM THE START of his presidency, Donald Trump’s “war on terror” has entailed the seemingly indiscriminate slaughter of innocent people in the name of killing terrorists. In other words, Trump has escalated the 16-year-old core premise of America’s foreign policy — that it has the right to bomb any country in the world where people it regards as terrorists are found — and in doing so, has fulfilled the warped campaign pledges he repeatedly expressed.
The most recent atrocity was the killing of as many as 200 Iraqi civilians from U.S. airstrikes this week in Mosul. That was preceded a few days earlier by the killing of dozens of Syrian civilians in Raqqa province when the U.S. targeted a school where people had taken refuge, which itself was preceded a week earlier by the U.S. destruction of a mosque near Aleppo that also killed dozens. And one of Trump’s first military actions was what can only be described as a massacre carried out by Navy SEALs, in which 30 Yemenis were killed; among the children killed was an 8-year-old American girl (whose 16-year-old American brother was killed by a drone under Obama).
In sum: Although precise numbers are difficult to obtain, there seems little question that the number of civilians being killed by the U.S. in Iraq and Syria — already quite high under Obama — has increased precipitously during the first two months of the Trump administration. Data compiled by the site Airwars tells the story: The number of civilians killed in Syria and Iraq began increasing in October under Obama but has now skyrocketed in March under Trump.
Bush-Obama-Trump, Donald or Hillary, makes no difference. This is the nature of imperialism and these decisions are not made by presidents...
With the war that President George W. Bush started and that President Barack Obama failed to end now in the hands of President Donald Trump, global outrage and condemnation was expressed over the weekend as details emerged over a U.S. bombing in Iraq that may have killed 200 or more innocent civilians, many of them children and families seeking shelter.
The aerial attack on homes and buildings in the city of Mosul, where Iraqi and U.S. coalition forces have been battling Islamic State (ISIS) forces for months, actually took on March 17 but as evidence of the destruction and deathtoll emerged, the Guardian reported Saturday it may turn out to be "one of the deadliest bombing raids for civilians since the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003."
As the Iraqi News reported, the "Kurdish network Rudaw said 230 people died when three civilian-owned homes sustained an aerial bombardment in Mosul al-Jadida district, another area retaken by Iraqi forces. Victims were mostly women and children, according to the agency."
According to the New York Times, an Iraqi special forces officer, who requested anonymity due to the sensitivity of the subject, said there has "been a noticeable relaxing of the coalition's rules of engagement since President Trump took office."
Chris Woods, director of monitoring group Airwars, told the newspaper that the al-Jadida bombing resulted in the "worst toll of a single [airstrike] incident that I can recall in decades. The coalition's argument that it doesn't target noncombatants risks being devalued when so many civilians are being killed in west Mosul."
Foreign correspondent Martin Chulov, reported for the Guardian on the horrifying scene in which dozens of victims, including many women and children, died a slow and painful death trapped beneath rubble created by the bombing:
By the time rescuers finally arrived no one was left alive. For almost a week desperate neighbours had scraped through the rubble, searching for as many as 150 people who lay buried after three homes in a west Mosul suburb were destroyed by coalition airstrikes.
The full picture of the carnage continued to emerge on Friday, when at least 20 bodies were recovered. Dozens more are thought to remain buried in what could turn out to be the single most deadly incident for civilians in the war against Islamic State (Isis).
Rescuers at the scene in the suburb of Mosul Jadida said they had driven the 250 miles from Baghdad but had not been able to enter the area until Wednesday, five days after airstrikes hit the houses where local residents had been sheltering from fierce fighting between Iraqi forces and Isis.
Neighbours said at least 80 bodies had been recovered from one house alone, where people had been encouraged by local elders to take shelter. Rescuers were continuing to dig through the ruins, and the remains of two other houses nearby, which had also been pulverised in attacks that were described as "relentless and horrifying."
On the same day Lise Grande, the Humanitarian Coordinator for Iraq, said she was "stunned by this terrible loss of life," the U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) on Saturday confirmed that it had carried out bombing raids on March 17, citing a request by Iraqi forces, near the location in Mosul where the civilian deaths were later reported.
Grande added that "nothing in this conflict is more important than protecting civilians," and said all parties to the conflict "are obliged to do everything possible to protect civilians."
CENTCOM issued a statement saying it was now investigating the reports, but would not accept any responsibility for the loss of life. The U.S. military, the statement said, "takes all allegations of civilian casualties seriously and a formal Civilian Casualty Credibility Assessment has been opened to determine the facts surrounding this strike and the validity of the allegation of civilian casualties."
Also writing for the Guardian on Saturday, Simon Tisdall notes the number of civilian casualties, not only in Iraq but also in Syria, have seen a sharp uptick since President Trump took over the so-called "war on terror" in January. Indeed, as Samual Oakford reported recently at Airwars, "Recent evidence indicates that in both [Iraq and Syria], civilian casualties rose during the last months of the Obama administration and are now accelerating further under the presidency of Donald Trump – suggesting possible key changes in U.S. rules of engagement which are placing civilians at greater risk."
Tisdall adds:
According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, 49 people were killed on 16 March by a U.S. strike on a complex that included the Omar ibn al-Khattab mosque.
Last Tuesday at least 30 Syrian civilians died in another American airstrike, on Mansoura, in Raqqa province. The American planes hit a school. The raid was one of 19 coalition missions that day, ordered in preparation for the expected assault on the Isis headquarters in Raqqa city itself.
This dovetails with Oakford's worrying assessment, in which he explained:
In late January President Trump requested a new plan from the US military to tackle ISIL, in which he called for "recommended changes to any United States rules of engagement and other United States policy restrictions that exceed the requirements of International law regarding the use of force against ISIS."
During his campaign for the presidency, Trump went further, explicitly threatening to target the families of ISIL fighters. "They are using them as shields," he said in November 2015. "But we are fighting a very politically correct war. And the other thing is with the terrorists, you have to take out their families."
In short, Trump has been demanding that the US military consider dropping many of the restrictions which help protect civilian lives on the battlefield. His January request could open the door for US military planners to prepare attacks that may be expected to – and indeed do – kill more civilians.
As rescue crews continued to clear bodies from the rubble on Saturday and Sunday, Iraqi military forces said they were postponing operations in the area.
"The recent high death toll among civilians inside the Old City forced us to halt operations to review our plans," a spokesperson for the Iraqi Federal Police told Reuters on Saturday. "It’s a time for weighing new offensive plans and tactics. No combat operations are to go on."
Writing for The Intercept on Sunday, journalist Glenn Greenwald said Trump's execution of America's overseas military operations appear to be as "barbaric and savage" in practice as he promised they would be when he was on the campaign trail.
"From the start of his presidency, Donald Trump's 'war on terror' has entailed the seemingly indiscriminate slaughter of innocent people in the name of killing terrorists," writes Greenwald. "In other words, Trump has escalated the 16-year-old core premise of America’s foreign policy — that it has the right to bomb any country in the world where people it regards as terrorists are found — and in doing so, has fulfilled the warped campaign pledges he repeatedly expressed."
Greenwald notes that with civilians death already monstrously high under both Bush and Obama, the deathtoll has "increased precipitously during the first two months of the Trump administration."
And, he concludes, "what Trump’s actions are not is a departure from what he said he would do, nor are they inconsistent with the predictions of those who described his foreign policy approach as non-interventionist. To the contrary, the dark savagery guiding U.S. military conduct in that region is precisely what Trump expressly promised his supporters he would usher in."
At least 43 civilians, including women and children, were killed on March 27 by airstrikes carried out by the U.S.-led coalition aircraft in western Mosul, according to a senior Iraqi military officer.
“Coalition warplanes at dawn Monday struck a [Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant] Daesh position in Mosul’s central Bab Sinjar district,” the officer, who holds the rank of brigadier in the Interior Ministry’s rapid-reaction forces, told Anadolu Agency, using an Arabic acronym for ISIL.
“The airstrike led to the death of 23 civilians -- including women, children and elderly people -- while also destroying the intended target and killing the militants holed up inside,” the officer, who spoke anonymously due to restrictions on speaking to media, said.
The same source went on to note that coalition aircraft had conducted a second airstrike -- minutes after the first -- ostensibly targeting a ISIL position in western Mosul’s Al-Tawwafa area.
“That strike led to the death of 20 people from a single family,” he said.
Spokesmen from the U.S.-led coalition and the Iraqi military, for their part, have yet to comment on Monday’s reported carnage.
“Today’s massacre is similar to that which took place earlier in western Mosul’s Al-Jadeeda area,” the officer said without elaborating.
According to the Sunni bloc in Iraq’s parliament, more than 260 civilians were killed on March 17 when U.S.-led coalition jets struck targets in western Mosul’s Al-Jadeeda district.
On March 26, parliament’s human rights committee called on Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi to launch urgent investigations into reports of “massacres” being committed in western Mosul by U.S.-led coalition warplanes.
MOSUL, Iraq — A sharp rise in the number of civilians reported killed in U.S.-led airstrikes in Iraq and Syria is spreading panic, deepening mistrust and triggering accusations that the United States and its partners may be acting without sufficient regard for lives of noncombatants.
The increase comes as local ground forces backed by air support from a U.S.-led coalition close in on the Islamic State’s two main urban bastions — Raqqa in Syria and Mosul in Iraq.
