Technology

In terms of child casualties, it’s the deadliest American military targeting error of the 21st century.

This should not be construed to say the United States has been mindful about not killing children.

I did a bit of research regarding the CIA drone-strike program in Afghanistan. It ran about five-hundred sorties a year. The approximate rate was fifty civilians killed for every person-of-interest. Drone operators called casualties bugsplats. They called children fun sized terrorists. This was the lingo in used in the operation. When reported to the press, dead people, men, women, children, all were reported as militants.

Drone-pilot burnout was epidemic in the program. It turns out soldiers get PTSD from killing people whether it's up close or thousands of miles away. And often the drone would lurk for a while, watching all these people eat, work, play, sleep, fuck (they had IR and could see into buildings), and would clearly understand these were just people living their lives when the order would come down to incinerate them.

And this wasn't under George W. Bush (who still wiped out villages, but used PMC raiders doing black ops) this was under Obama. The disposition matrix and the FISC decided whether a POI needed to be executed. They didn't consider the people that lived at the target site.

And that's just the Afghanistan program in the International War on Terror. There was also a Pakistan program.

The United States in its military operations has been really merciless, and at some point we need to collectively decide if we're okay with that, or are driven to change.