DESPITE PENTAGON EVASIONS, evidence is mounting that a U.S. airstrike against an ISIS training camp in Libya last month killed two Serbian diplomats who were being held at the site. The Pentagon erroneously believed that no civilians were at the camp at the time of the attack, according to Serbian and Libyan officials interviewed by The Intercept.
The diplomats, who were staffers at the Serbian Embassy in Tripoli, were kidnapped during an attack in early November on a diplomatic convoy near Sabratha, a coastal city 50 miles west of the Libyan capital. Serbia’s ambassador, Oliver Potezica, who was traveling with his wife and two sons in the three-vehicle convoy, escaped unharmed, but Sladjana Stankovic, a 41-year-old communications officer, and Jovica Stepic, a 60-year-old driver, were taken by the attackers.
On February 19, the Pentagon announced it had conducted an airstrike on an ISIS training camp in a farmhouse near Sabratha. The principal target of the attack was Noureddine Chouchane, a Tunisian national described as a “senior facilitator” for ISIS in Libya and a prime suspect in two deadly attacks in Tunisia last year. The strike, which involved fighter jets and drones, was authorized by President Obama. At the time, Pentagon press secretary Peter Cook characterized the attack as “very successful” and made no mention of any civilian casualties.
The day after the attack, Belgrade announced that Stankovic and Stepic had died in the bombing. “Apparently, the Americans were not aware that foreign citizens were being kept there,” Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic told reporters.
The Pentagon immediately expressed doubt about his account.
“We have seen reports that two Serbian hostages have been killed in Libya,” Cook said on February 20. “At this time, we have no information indicating that their deaths were a result of the strike that U.S. forces conducted. … Our forces watched this training camp for weeks leading up to the operation, and at the time of the strike, there were no indications of any civilians present.”
Belgrade backed up its account a few days later with the results of autopsies conducted in Serbia that concluded the types of injuries sustained by the two diplomats were consistent with a bombing.
But the Pentagon continued to dispute the Serbian accounts. Capt. Jeff Davis, a military spokesperson, said on February 24 that an analysis of photos posted online of the two bodies offered no proof they were killed in the airstrike. “It was not consistent with what we would expect human remains to look like following a strike of that magnitude,” he said, according to AFP.
That prompted several new statements from Serbian officials, including Prime Minister Vucic.
“When there are 12 wounds on a body sustained simultaneously, unequivocally from an explosion, then [the Pentagon] must show us any kind of evidence that would drag us into any other kind of story,” Vucic stated. “It would have been nicer if they said, ‘We’re sorry, Serbs and Stepic and Stankovic families.’”
According to a senior security official at the Serbian Security Information Agency, known by its acronym, BIA, intelligence agencies from a number of countries — including the U.S., Serbia, Italy, Spain, and France — were sharing information about the hostages while they were still alive. The agencies all believed the hostages were being held in one of four or five possible sites within a 10 kilometer radius of each other, according to the security official. The most credible intelligence pointed to one house in particular, located some 5 kilometers (3.1 miles) from the camp that was bombed by the U.S.
The security official, who asked to remain anonymous because he was not authorized to discuss the case, said the discovery of Stankovic’s and Stepic’s bodies came as a big surprise to Serbian intelligence, as the ISIS camp was not among any of the suspected sites. The camp was 700 to 800 meters from the spot where the two diplomats were abducted in November, leading Serbian intelligence to conclude that they were brought to the farmhouse and held there for their entire time in captivity. The official added that Serbian intelligence now believes the hostages were never allowed outside, which would explain why U.S. surveillance did not apparently spot any indication of civilians at the site in the run-up to the strikes.
The deaths of the Serbian hostages and the apparent shortfalls in U.S. military intelligence are similar to a CIA drone strike in Pakistan last year that killed two kidnapped foreign aid workers. Both cases involve the U.S. surveilling and bombing a target without apparently realizing Western hostages were being held at the site. In April 2015, the White House announced that a counterterrorism operation in January targeting an al Qaeda compound in the border region between Afghanistan and Pakistan had mistakenly killed two hostages: American Warren Weinstein, who was kidnapped in 2011, and Italian Giovanni Lo Porto, who was abducted in 2012. President Obama apologized for the mistake.
“Based on the intelligence that we had obtained at the time, including hundreds of hours of surveillance, we believed that this was an al Qaeda compound; that no civilians were present,” Obama said. “What we did not know, tragically, is that al Qaeda was hiding the presence of Warren and Giovanni in this same compound.”
EYEWITNESS ACCOUNTS from Libya bolster the case that the Serbians were killed in the U.S. bombing. The mayor of Sabratha, Hussein Dwadi, told The Intercept that he went to the site soon after the airstrike. “The house was completely destroyed, there were bodies everywhere,” he said. The Libyan Red Crescent, which helped remove the corpses, put the death toll at 42. Dwadi then went to Sabratha’s main hospital, which was receiving dozens of dead and wounded from the bombing. Inside, he saw the body of a woman with light hair among the casualties and suspected she might be one of the Serbian hostages. He also saw the body of what appeared to be another foreigner.
“They definitely didn’t look Libyan or Tunisian,” Dwadi said. He added that the two bodies he saw were eventually taken to Tripoli. “The claim that the Serbians died anywhere other than in the airstrike is highly unlikely,” Dwadi said.
A Libyan militia posted a photo showing coffins in the back of a van, alongside photos of Serbian diplomats Sladjana Stankovic and Jovica Stepic before they were killed.
Photo: Facebook
Soon after the bodies arrived at Mitiga, someone photographed them as they lay in the airport’s morgue and published them on social media, according to the secretary general of the Serbian Foreign Affairs Ministry, Veljko Odalovic. He told The Intercept that officials in Belgrade were quickly made aware of these online pictures — which depict the fatally wounded heads and partial torsos of Stankovic and Stepic — and it was upon seeing the photos, a few hours after the airstrike, that the Serbian government first learned of the deaths of its diplomats.
According to Odalovic, the ministry then contacted its ambassador to Libya — Potezica, who had escaped the kidnapping attempt in November. Potezica went to the Tripoli airport, where he saw the bodies and confirmed to Belgrade that they were Stankovic and Stepic. In a press conference the day after the attacks, Foreign Affairs Minister Ivica Dacic cited the pictures as evidence of the hostages’ deaths. “We got the photographs that indicate clearly that the information is most probably true,” he told reporters in Belgrade.
Odalovic was closely involved with the hostage case from the day of the abduction in November and had traveled to Tripoli to meet Libyan security officials. “We had strong assurances that the hostage situation would be over very soon, especially in the days immediately before the bombing,” he told The Intercept, adding that the Libyans were planning a rescue operation. He said Belgrade had received photographs of the hostages in custody through intermediaries in Libya who were in contact with the kidnappers. “We had indisputable evidence that they were alive,” Odalovic said.
A few days after the Pentagon flatly denied the Serbian hostages were killed in the airstrike, the U.S. ambassador to Serbia, Kyle Scott, met with Prime Minister Vucic in Belgrade and said the Pentagon statement did not reflect the official U.S. position and that an investigation was still underway, according to a news release by the Serbian government.
Yet the Defense Department continued to deny that any civilians were killed in the attack. “We continue to assess the situation, but we have no indications that any civilians were killed during this strike,” said Lt. Col. Michelle Baldanza, a Pentagon spokesperson, in an email to The Intercept on March 1.
On March 3, U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense Michael Carpenter met with Vucic in Belgrade. The two officials reached an agreement that “the United States and Serbia want [the] full truth about this case to be determined through investigation and information exchange,” according to another release by the Serbian government.
“There have been contradictory statements and information from the U.S.,” Odalovic said. “Immediately after the attack, in the first exchange of information with American military and security officials, we asked them if they knew that civilians were among the terrorists. We still haven’t received a definitive answer on that, and that’s what we’ll insist on. We expect a full report from the U.S. and then we can comment on it.”
Yet on March 14, the Pentagon still balked at backing down. “We continue to assess and share whatever information we can with the Serbian government,” Lt. Col. Baldanza said in an emailed statement to The Intercept. She added that the Pentagon “will provide additional information as and when appropriate.” She would not say whether the Defense Department has requested the autopsy results from the Serbian government.
Bodies wrapped in plastic bags lie on the ground at a hospital in Sabratha on February 20, 2016, a day after a U.S. airstrike targeted a ISIS training camp near the Libyan coastal city.
Photo: Mahmud Turkia/AFP/Getty Images
AMID THE CONTROVERSY, the family of Stepic, the driver, firmly believes he died in the U.S. attack. Stepic’s half-brother, in an interview with The Intercept, pointed to the results of the autopsies conducted in Serbia. “The chief of pathology confirmed they were killed in the bombing,” said Velja Misic. He added that the prime minister told the family that efforts to free the hostages had been going in a positive direction.
“There would have most certainly been a positive outcome if they hadn’t been killed by American bombs,” Misic said.
One of the additional mysteries about the Libya attack relates to whether the Pentagon notified any Libyan authorities in advance of it. Lt. Col. Baldanza told The Intercept that the Sabratha strike was conducted “with the knowledge of Libyan authorities,” though she declined to specify who the authorities were. Libya is currently torn between three governments and an array of militias with a complex web of regional, tribal, and political alliances. A self-declared government is based in the west; an internationally recognized government is in the east; and a unity government is being formed in neighboring Tunisia through a process spearheaded by the United Nations.
“This strike may have been carried out without the consent of the different governments since they all protested it,” said Issandr El Amrani, the North Africa project director for the International Crisis Group. “It’s not clear that any of them were informed, so, in this sense, this is a strike that may be taking place in violation of Libya’s sovereignty.” Amrani added, however, that if any authorities were informed, they would not publicly acknowledge it, for fear of being criticized for cooperating with the Americans.
In a news conference to announce the February strike, Cook told reporters the operation was legal under the 2001 Authorization for the Use of Military Force, which was passed by Congress in the wake of September 11 and authorizes the president to target the perpetrators of those attacks. President Obama’s proposal last year for a new AUMF to target ISIS didn’t get through Congress. Since then, the Obama administration has dubiously maintained that its airstrikes against ISIS in Iraq, Syria, and Libya are authorized by the 2001 law.
The February airstrike is just the latest in a number of U.S. operations in Libya. In November, the Pentagon announced it conducted an airstrike in the eastern city of Derna, targeting Abu Nabil, also known as Wissam Najm Abd Zayd al Zubaydi, a senior leader of ISIS in Libya. In June, an American airstrike on Ajdabiya, in Libya’s oil crescent region, reportedly killed the leader of Ansar al Sharia in Tunisia, a group with ties to al-Qaeda, according to the New York Times.
The United Nations, which keeps a tally of civilian casualties in Libya, has not yet taken a position on whether the Pentagon’s denial should be believed. In a report this month on year-to-date civilian casualties, the U.N. did not include the two Serbian hostages, stating, “There is still uncertainty as to how these deaths occurred and investigations are still ongoing.” The U.N. does not have the capacity or the mandate to investigate the deaths, according to Jean Alam, a public information officer for the U.N. mission in Libya.
Nevertheless, Misic is convinced his half-brother was killed in the U.S. bombing and that incidents like this will happen again.
“The Americans are famous for this,” he said. “They can enter wherever they want, do whatever they want, and leave with no consequences. … Tomorrow they will do this on some other place. … Someday the U.S. government will have to admit that they made mistakes.”
Top photo: Serbian Foreign Affairs Minister Ivica Dacic, right, stands next to the coffins of two Serbian Embassy staff abducted in Libya, at Belgrade’s Nikola Tesla airport, Serbia, Feb. 23, 2016.
Sharif hard to accept as an insightful expert considering his overwhelming enthusiasm for the Sisi regimes decimation of the first democratically elected government of Egypt
and as such the decimation of democracy
he was simply giddy over the military coup
shameful
The fact is, the whole drone strike program is little more than a PR game for domestic political purposes.
Rounding people up and torturing them in Guantanamo is no longer considered acceptable. Sending U.S. soldiers into hostile guerrilla warfare zones means lots of U.S. casualties, inevitably, so that’s not acceptable either – so all that is left is to lob missiles from the air, which is of dubious effectiveness and creates lots of civilian casualties, but it allows the Pentagon and State Department and White House to claim that they are “fighting the terrorists”.
Of course, they ignore the fact that our ‘allies’ like Saudi Arabia and Qatar are busy financing the terrorists, and also they ignore the fact that nothing creates hatred so much as aerial bombardment, so they’re also busy generating a new group of recruits for terrorist groups with every random drone strike.
Russia, on the other hand, just showed the world how to defeat ISIS – most importantly, they started off by cutting off their oil-for-weapons smuggling route to Turkey, which Erdogan was profiting from – something the U.S. had not done despite having been ‘bombing ISIS’ for what, a year? Turkey retaliated by shooting down a Russian plane, and tried to draw NATO into the conflict, but that went nowhere.
Now Russia, instead of pulling a GW Bush in Iraq move, is pulling out of the country, having destroyed the major ISIS funding route and set up a peace talks situation – compare that to spending a decade in Iraq, having over 4,000 American soldiers killed, trying to run some neocolonial program that ended up turning the whole country into a breeding ground for terrorist groups from ISIS to Al Qaeda.
Those are excellent points worth serious consideration. Unfortunately, I think many in the US intelligence community know these things, but it’s ignored by those in power who can make decisions because there are entirely other agendas in play. There are advantages to be gained when an Imperial power can manufacture a perpetual enemy.
We had to destroy them in order to save them.
The fake U$A and its war machine do not want to be distracted
from the goal of global economic domination by any form of
“government” – especially within its North American base
of operations.
This is reflected in the votes of the great majority of democrats and
republicans when they support the likes of Clinton, Trump, Cruz
Rubio, Kasich, and the great majority of corporate tools who
make up those parties.
“It would have been nicer if they said, ‘We’re sorry, Serbs and Stepic and Stankovic families.’”
This is why people laugh at liberals. Grow a collective nutsack, people. This is not a hospital that got bombed… it was a place terrorists were using to hold hostages.
Which is why it shouldn’t have been bombed.
Is there a list of who the others were, and which were civilians and which were militants, guards, etc.?
At this point, what difference does it make?
It is too bad that you were not in the building when it was bombed
because then you might have seen a difference.
I say “might have seen” because even someone as densely
fascist as you might still be capable of waking up from
your dead-ness.
How poetic…
Is that he best response you could come up with? So human lives other than the ones you love don’t matter. If all the people take this attitude one day it’ll be you and the likes of you will say the same thing you said…”At this point, what difference does it make?”
“Rare photographs show Ground Zero of the drone war” published by The Wired
http://www.wired.com/2011/12/photos-pakistan-drone-war/
The practice of counting all military-age males in a drone strike zone as combatants is outrageous, and inexcusable. This avoids counting civillian deaths and is deceptive.The reality is that civillians can and often do live next door or in close vicinity of strikes, and can be killed in attacks. They are then wrongly labelled by the media who site unnamed officials, claiming the dead were combatants,. This disguises the extent of civillian deaths/collateral damage from the drone program.
Anon
According to your source:
“……Also be aware that our sources came to us with an agenda: discrediting the drone war. “I want to show taxpayers in the Western world what their tax money is doing to people in another part of the world: killing civilians, innocent victims, children,” Behram says. Stafford Smith is threatening the U.S. embassy in Pakistan with a lawsuit over its complicity in civilian deaths from drone strikes. And anonymous U.S. officials have claimed that Akbar, whose clients are suing the CIA for wrongful deaths in the drone war, is acting at the behest of Pakistani intelligence — something he denies…..”
What Behram doesn’t tell you is how taxes paid to the Pakistan government support the Taliban insurgency in Afghanistan and provide a safe haven for the (Afghanistan) Taliban in Pakistan. This has brought the war to Pakistan. Drones are a direct response to the philosophy of the Pakistan government. Behram should sue his own government. According to Fareed Zakaria (Oct., 2015):
“…….We cannot solve the problem of Afghanistan without recognizing that the insurgency against that government is shaped, aided and armed from across the border by one of the world’s most powerful armies [Pakistan]. Periodically, someone inside or outside the U.S. government points this out. Yet no one knows quite what to do, so it is swept under the carpet and policy stays the same. But this is not an incidental fact. It is fundamental, and unless it is confronted, the Taliban will never be defeated. It is an old adage that no counterinsurgency has ever succeeded when the rebels have had a haven. In this case, the rebels have a nuclear-armed sponsor…….” my insertion in brackets
Since the Taliban account for about 70% of the civilian casualties in Afghanistan, the Pakistan government has blood on its hands in Afghanistan as well as Pakistan.
Craig, there are a couple of old sayings I can recall :
“The lens very rarely lies” and
“A picture paints a thousand words”
“A picture paints a thousand words”
True enough Anon. I just like to provide a little context to the pictures – something that is necessary to understand the pictures.
Agreed, and appreciated.
Craig, I accept that the Taliban and probably that the Pakistan Government both have blood on their hands for civillian casualties.
However, all killing is wrong, and does not bring peace.Killing only breeds more killing from those seeking revenge. The War on Terror has resulted in the deaths of millions of innocent civillians, killed by USA and coalition bombing, and also from terrorist attacks. The War on Terror has not made the World a safer place, and has seemingly only resulted in increasing the number of terrorist attacks.
What is also interesting is that according to Statista, a website specialising in creating statistics,put the Worldwide death toll from extremist attacks period 2006-2013 at 200,000. Source :
http://www.telesurtv.net/english/analysis/US-Caused-Civilian-Deaths-Versus-Toll-of-Terrorist-Attacks–20151115-0010.html
The report further states that Washington D.C.-based Physicians for Social Responsibility (PSR) a group of Nobel Peace Prize recipients released a report saying that in stark comparison the U.S. interventions in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan alone killed close to 2 million civillians, and that the figure was closer to 4 million when tallying up the deaths of civilians caused by the U.S. in other countries, such as Syria and Yemen. US sanctions also resulted in the death of a further 1.7 million Iraqi civillians, half of whom were children, according to a United Nations report.
With these numbers of civillian deaths one can hardly consider the military interventions/War on Terror a humanitarian mission.
Terrorism has spread into more countries, and the killing fields are expanding. So what exactly has been the accomplishment ?
I can see that a lot of profit has been made from the wars by arms suppliers and military contractors, but has the price in human deaths and suffering been really worth that ?
I agree that killing is wrong and the result may not bring peace. However, being peaceful doesn’t necessarily lead to peace either. Some horrific mass killings have been directed at peaceful people. Who knows what would have happened to the Yazidis without help getting them away from ISIS. A potential genocide may have happened.
The source you linked to is extremely poor – and clearly anti-American (your link):
“……….“Much like al-Qaida, the Islamic State is made-in-the-USA, an instrument of terror designed to divide and conquer the oil-rich Middle East and to counter Iran’s growing influence in the region,” the Center for Research on Globalization wrote……”
This is pure BS. Additionally, the numbers are inflated well beyond reasonable estimates (from your post):
“…….The report further states that Washington D.C.-based Physicians for Social Responsibility (PSR) a group of Nobel Peace Prize recipients released a report saying that in stark comparison the U.S. interventions in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan alone killed close to 2 million civillians, and that the figure was closer to 4 million when tallying up the deaths of civilians caused by the U.S. in other countries, such as Syria and Yemen. US sanctions also resulted in the death of a further 1.7 million Iraqi civillians, half of whom were children, according to a United Nations report……”
These are all ridiculous numbers especially the additional 2 million deaths in other countries such as Yemen and Syria. What are they talking about? In 2015, (according to the UN) the Taliban were responsible for about 70% of the civilian casualties in Afghanistan while NATO accounted for about 2%. The US is not responsible for every death – especially in Afghanistan where Bin Laden resided running the terrorist training camps and planning 911. The Taliban could have turned over Bin Laden, but refused (i.e., they wanted to see the evidence, but they were just stalling).
“…..With these numbers of civillian deaths one can hardly consider the military interventions/War on Terror a humanitarian mission…..”
Considering the brutal methods of war conducted by al-Qaeda, ISIS, Boko Haram and al-Shabaab (etc.), there clearly is a humanitarian element to fighting these political movements. Humanitarian concerns may not be the main concern, but helping African nations counter the radical Islamists is an important part of the policy. Preventing another 911 and preventing al Qaeda and the rest from developing a comfortable base of operations is another US goal.
Thanks.
And since the Taliban came to power at a time when the U.S. was supporting Pakistan’s ISI and its Saudi financiers, and since the U.S. delivered over $140 million to Taliban from 1999-2001 as part of the “global anti-narcotics effort” – well, how do you spin that?
Suggested reading: Steve Coll, “The Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan, and bin Laden, from the Soviet Invasion to September 10, 2001″
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=faVyoizgXWo
“……And since the Taliban came to power at a time when the U.S. was supporting Pakistan’s ISI and its Saudi financiers, and since the U.S. delivered over $140 million to Taliban from 1999-2001 as part of the “global anti-narcotics effort” – well, how do you spin that?….”
The US was not supporting the ISI at the time the Taliban rose to power. The Taliban were trained and funded by the Pakistan government (ISI) and Saudi Arabia. The US cut off funding because the Pakistan government was developing nuclear weapons.
I don’t know anything about the US giving $140 million to the Taliban. Can you provide a link?
The Intercept has run a series of articles about drone (and manned war planes) strikes. These articles add to several previous articles published by the Intercept in their global war on drones (GWOD). The primary focus is to create doubt that the US is killing terrorists. A couple of the more obvious examples are from the article by Greenwald – “Nobody Knows the Identities of the 150 People Killed by U.S. in Somalia, but Most Are Certain They Deserved It”. Greenwald writes:
“…….Watch how many people today are defending this strike by claiming “terrorists” and “militants” were killed using those definitions even though they have literally no idea who was killed…..”
Of course, the US military was well aware of whom they were targeting – and this was confirmed by al-Shabaab the day after the attack which reportedly killed 150 “militants”. Greenwald gave reasons why the US government drones might be killing “anyone”:
“……Beyond that, the U.S. government’s own documents prove that in the vast majority of cases — 9 out of 10 in fact — it is killing people other than its intended targets. Last April, the New York Times published an article under the headline “Drone Strikes Reveal Uncomfortable Truth: U.S. Is Often Unsure About Who Will Die.” It quoted the scholar Micah Zenko saying, “Most individuals killed are not on a kill list, and the government does not know their names.”…….the Obama administration has formally re-defined the term “militant” to mean: “all military-age males in a strike zone”…..”
The fact that drones miss the intended target 90% of the time does not mean that a high percentage of the ones killed are innocent civilians (which is the intended perception when stating that Obama defines militant as ”all military-age males in a strike zone”). This was followed by two articles where al-Qaeda and ISIS hostages were killed – one in a signature strike. All of this is meant to raise doubt about US claims they are killing terrorists – and not innocent people. The outright deception of Greenwald’s claim in his article is exposed by the same link in his article (“Drone Strikes Reveal Uncomfortable Truth: U.S. Is Often Unsure About Who Will Die.”) – if the reader actually reads the link. The link gives (low) civilian casualty estimates from US airstrikes, and reinforces that the use of drones probably cause fewer civilian casualties than conventional airstrikes and ground wars:
“…….Most security experts still believe that drones, which allow a scene to be watched for hours or days through video feeds, still offer at least the chance of greater accuracy than other means of killing terrorists. By most accounts, conventional airstrikes and ground invasions kill a higher proportion of noncombatants……”
A key point is that in all three instances reported by the Intercept on US airstrikes in the last week, the targets were attacked after days or weeks of intelligence gathered from monitoring the target on the ground or from the air. In all three instances, the militants targeted were members of al-Qaeda, al-Shabaab and ISIS.
But it does mean the US is wantonly killing people who aren’t known to be guilty of anything. Presumably you believe in the principle of presumption of innocence and why it’s important, or don’t you?
These are enemy combatants Jose. We are at war with al-Qaeda and related terrorist organizations. Sorry if we pass on reading their rights.
I thought it was easy to understand, but I guess it’s not. They are not enemy combatants. At best they are alleged enemy combatants, but even that is generous. With signature strikes, they are simply guys who fit a pattern of behavior. They might be militants, but no one knows what they are militant about.
Jose
“……The historic perspective will show that the wearing of military uniforms….. the requirements of international humanitarian law……ensure the clear distinction between civilians and the military……”
What you are attempting to do is handcuff the US military. Identifying enemy combatants is based entirely on intelligence, observations from the ground and air and if they are attacked. Al-Qaeda, Al-Shabaab, Boko Haram and ISIS are all required to wear uniforms to distinguish civilians from the terrorists according to humanitarian law. It is the fault of the terrorists that they do not wear uniforms. Simple as that.
“…..With signature strikes, they are simply guys who fit a pattern of behavior……”
In the last three articles where hostages have been killed (two articles) and al Shabaab was attacked, the US military correctly targeted the terrorists associated with ISIS, al-Qaeda and ISIS. Are mistakes made? Almost certainly. Are civilians killed? No doubt, but only a minor percentage of civilians are killed according to the link to the New York Times in Greenwald’s article:
“…….Mr. Zenko said that an average of separate counts of American drone strikes by three organizations, the New America Foundation, the Bureau of Investigative Journalism and The Long War Journal, finds that 522 strikes have killed 3,852 people, 476 of them civilians. But those counts, based on news accounts and some on-the-ground interviews, are considered very rough estimates…….”
This would suggest that the US has been fairly good at identifying the terrorists.
Why on this US scorched earth would anybody cast doubt on the honesty and integrity of the Pentagon ?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=07Bn_CC_mrg
I always wondered why there was never any talk of looking for the black box !
Were any of the other 40 or so killed with the Serbian civilians as well or was it just those two Serbian in a “sea” of militants at the farmhouse?
Also I wonder why Serbia was so positive it was close to freeing them when they admit they were surprised that they were even at that farmhouse – that they and other intelligence services had 5 possible sites in mind and none of them were that farmhouse.
Unless they did not know where they were but had contact with someone who did know where they were or had power of the group and that person would either lead the rescue squad or get the militants to willingly hand them over.
every time i see that honorific “honourable” on a plack in front of some
“oosa” govt shitweasel i choke on my hate bile that surges up from my gut
Pentagon, cia, fbi, dea, … yada yada yada
How much better off would we all be without these shiteweasels and their robot killing machines
Hitler didn’t ask for permission either. He just wanted to have his way. I am horrified at the way the u.s. manages to make enemies and kill friendships. As the u.s. paid off elected persons have inhaled the paranoia of israel, pretenses and fantasies of future events have them murdering others (ie the innocent) then casting doubt to mask their guilt so they can go and do it again.
Jesus may have warned people about this. Muhammed probably as well defied this sort of behavior. But the military and weapons industries insist on keeping the game and profits going at any cost. And it is that motivation and zeal that will destroy the u.s. as bankruptcy destroyed the ussr. China must be laughing.
The Serbian government didn’t really expect honourable conduct from the shitweasels at the Pentagon did they?
Overall, the article was well done. This, however:
Does not equal this:
It’s incorrect, and therefor misleading and unnecessarily hyperbolic.
It should be corrected.
What is the problem? I would take their wording as a denial of having had anything to do with those deaths.
The latter statement in the article: “flatly denied” is unequivocal and means “we didn’t kill them” – the Pentagons wording is equivocation. Standard stuff, but not outright denial.
I draw essentially the same conclusion, that the Pentagon was trying to deny it without explicitly saying so, but words matter.
To Peter Maass’s point below: yes, readers can and should judge for themselves based on the totality of the evidence – but without journalists using unequivocal statements such as this that dare not supported by what the Pentagon actually said – mealy-mouthed or not. It simply distracts from the articles credibility.
Just a potty being silly – don’t let it worry you.
the most words doesn’t win. Lol. It’s a denial. Having issues with articles doesn’t make you seem smart.
It’s not about “win or lose” it’s about being accurate.
What’s happening here is that an otherwise very good article is tainted by using hyperbole when none is needed – this, despite the fact that the person who edited it stated that there was already enough information to make the case.
My point remains that by exaggerating unnecessarily, it just gives reason to attempt to discredit the article for no good reason at all.
“exaggerating unnecessarily”
And who’s doing what now …
The Pentagon offered up a big fat ‘we didn’t do it’.
A “flat denial” is not necessarily short and sweet, as you would have it.
To which I pointed out it was not a flat denial.
To which the editor provided that the compendium of evidence provided “flat deniability” even without the overt claim of being such.
To which some responded, “then why be absolutist?”
One could go on about this, but clearly there’s been ‘nuf said.
Mr. Kouddous
“…….On February 19, the Pentagon announced it had conducted an airstrike on an ISIS training camp in a farmhouse near Sabratha. The principal target of the attack was Noureddine Chouchane, a Tunisian national described as a “senior facilitator” for ISIS in Libya and a prime suspect in two deadly attacks in Tunisia last year……”
The two terrorist attacks in Tunisia last year occurred at a museum and a beach resort complex, respectively. A total of 60 mostly innocent civilians were targeted and murdered by ISIS. Numerous others were wounded. Chouchane is extremely dangerous and a logical target for the drones and other aircraft used in the attack which killed 42 altogether. He was likely killed in the attack.
If the diplomats died in the drone/F15 attacks, it’s clear that the US did not know he was there (despite apparent on the ground intelligence). Just as in the case of the American and Italian killed by a US drone, the death of the two Serbian diplomats – if from the attack on the camp – is an unfortunate result of the Global Response Against Islamic Terror (GRAIT). The responsibility for their deaths falls entirely on ISIS – just as much so as the civilians killed in Tunisia by ISIS.
No, when we order a bombing, paid and funded by US tax payers, we should recognize the responsibility as belonging to us. Just as it was the US gov’ts fault for funding a Shiite extremist in Iraq who helped create the horrible organization that is ISIS in the first place or the US’s complacency with the growing threat until they began taking oil fields and became a threat to US national interests.
I disagree with you view of events. ISIS was created after the US was kicked out of Iraq – and the Iraqi Shia dominated government chose to marginalize the Sunni minority. Of course, that was never going to work. The Sunnis went from minority rule under Saddam Hussein to the lowest rung of the Iraqi ladder with the oil fields controlled by the Kurds and Shiites.
ISIS was created from disaffected Sunnis who joined the same brutal al-Qaeda insurgency which the US had quelled before packing up and leaving Iraq. The US had fought and minimized the Al-Qaeda spawned insurgency in Iraq by bringing the Sunnis into the Shia government. Maliki reversed the gains by kicking the US out of Iraq and marginalizing the Sunnis. That is why he lost his job when the US returned to fight ISIS.
Thanks
ISIS would have gone nowhere without extensive covert funding and support from the Saudis, Qatar and the CIA, which had a $1 billion covert black fund used for supplying weapons and money and training to ‘moderate anti-Assad Syrian rebels’ – who, whoops, almost immediately took all their weapons and training over to ISIS.
http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2014/06/isis-saudi-arabia-iraq-syria-bandar/373181/
“U.S lawmakers encouraged officials in Riyadh to arm Syrian rebels. Now that strategy may have created a monster in the Middle East. . . . ”
Specifically:
“Qatar’s military and economic largesse has made its way to Jabhat al-Nusra, to the point that a senior Qatari official told me he can identify al-Nusra commanders by the blocks they control in various Syrian cities. But ISIS is another matter. As one senior Qatari official stated, “ISIS has been a Saudi project.””
It’s not just in Libya, either, did you read the UK Telegraph report on Qatar financing the Libyan ISIS groups that we just drone striked? See below:
“Step forward a fabulously wealthy Gulf state that owns an array of London landmarks and claims to be one of our best friends in the Middle East. Qatar, the owner of Harrods, has dispatched cargo planes laden with weapons to the victorious Islamist coalition, styling itself “Libya Dawn”.”
These terrorist groups were supposed act as obedient proxy forces of Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Turkey and the United States in the anti-Iran, anti-Syria fight for control of the Middle East – but, as has happened so many times before, the fanatics took over and started plotting global terrorist attacks in Europe, Britain, the US, Russia etc.
What’s remarkable is that even AFTER that happened, Turkey continued doing oil-for-weapons deals with ISIS, continued supplying them with chemical weapons precursors, and the U.S. never tried to cut off the funding by bombing the convoys of ISIS oil tankers heading from their territory to the Turkish border – no, Russia had to come in and do that. Truly astonishing, isn’t it?
And the innocent bodies just keep stacking up in America’s little GWOT. Usually it’s only the civilian “little people” that die and nobody in the US government cares about them. And given Serbia isn’t really anything remotely resembling a “world power” at best the Serbian diplomats’ families and the Serbian government might get a tepid apology, payoff to the families, and who knows, maybe a US Post Office dedicated to the incredibly “involuntary sacrifices” made by America’s “allies” in the GWOT.
It should be long past time that anyone in the world believes that America gives the slightest crap about any human life other than an American, Saudi or Israeli life. Because they quite simply don’t and that’s historically demonstrable.
If you can bomb MFS hospitals without repercussions you think Serbie has the moxie or international pull to raise a stink about a couple of low level diplomatic aides (who like most of ours are really CIA or other intelligence agency plants/agents)? Seriously? Laughable. America kills with impunity all over the globe because they can and nobody is willing to do a thing about it–might interfere with “business”.
“Usually it’s only the civilian ‘little people’ that die and nobody in the US government cares about them.”
Very few in the US outside our government care about them, either. We need to face the truth about ourselves.
100% right in everything that you have said.
Although I completely agree that the US has handled this poorly, and that the evidence points very strongly that the Serbians who were held hostage being killed in the airstrike, this article seems like sloppy reporting, uncharacteristic for The Intercept.
I refer specifically to the statement, “A few days after the Pentagon flatly denied the Serbian hostages were killed in the airstrike”…
“Flatly denied”??? Where, in this article, is there a flat denial by the US that they killed these hostages? I see several statements of US personnel doubting the Serbian accounts, but no “flat denials”. A “flat denial” would be an unequivocal statement such as, “We did not kill them”, or “They were killed by someone else, not the US” – NOT, “we have no information indicating that their deaths were a result of the strike” or “We continue to assess and share whatever information we can with the Serbian government”.
There is a big difference between a “flat denial” that the hostages were inadvertent US airstrike victims and expressing doubt – no matter how extreme – that they were. All the US statements in this article are the latter, not the former. To characterize them otherwise is sloppy and inaccurate reporting, not worthy of The Intercept.
I understand your point but I believe the Pentagon’s statements amount to significantly more than “expressing doubt” about the Serbian account. In any event, one of the attributes of this story (and yes, I edited it!) is that the reporter provides plenty of information–official statements, emails, links, interviews–for readers to judge for themselves.
Sure, the US statements amount to more than simply expressing doubt. They were issued by the usual government spokesweasels trying to deny they did something without issuing an outright “flat denial”, just in case someone comes up with some concrete evidence they can’t possibly deny. And they’ve successfully danced around a flat denial so far, even though any thinking person can see they are almost certainly full of crap (note the word “almost”) full of crap.
But once again, a “flat denial” is exactly that – a FLAT DENIAL. It is unequivocal. And the US has NOT done that yet, in spite of the claim to the contrary in this article. Saying they have is NOT asking readers to “judge for themselves”, it is the reporter telling readers something is a fact when it isn’t.
Although the “attribute” of providing plenty of other background information is commendable, it is irrelevant when there is one obvious, glaring flaw in the “facts” stated. And the background information provided (which I read before making my initial post) does NOT back up the claim of a flat denial by the US government.
As “Sillyputty” states above, “words matter”. And the words “flatly denied” in this article are neither accurate, factual, nor warranted.
I thought The Intercept had higher journalism standards than this. I am very sorry to see I was wrong.
“(and yes, I edited it!)”
So which editor is continually sending back Glenn’s work for correction …?
I can picture the smile across Glenn’s face as someone tells him he needs an editor to help create a brand. Betsy will never win this one.
It’d be like trying to get him to celebrate his birthday …
To follow up my previous comments, all that needs to be done to fix this article is replace the words “flatly denied” with the word “disputed”, because those two words poison an otherwise good article.
For example:
“A few days after the Pentagon disputed the Serbian hostages were killed in the airstrike…”
instead of:
“A few days after the Pentagon flatly denied the Serbian hostages were killed in the airstrike…”
The US obviously DID dispute that the hostages were killed in the airstrike. They just as obviously did NOT flatly deny it. With that substitution the sentence then becomes factual, instead of bullshit. One would expect a good editor to see the difference.
What the US obviously needs are micro-drones, so small as to be practically invisible, that can deliver a small payload of deadly poison to precisely target individuals.
Some have argued that the US can’t be trusted to use this power wisely, but they have mysteriously died from heart attacks.
Absolutely. I myself have witnessed the use of animal-cams that can creep into the dens of lions. I have seen rock-cams that can follow along with the herds of wilderbeasts. Any of these means is already feasible to target a single individual – in any imaginable way – a sand mound fitching about in the middle of the night into the tent and kaboomski….
Extravagant as it may seem, maybe even naked robot belly dancer with kaboomski caboose.
The real complaint by the pentagon and the munitions mukrakers is simple.. “Where’s the money?”.
US military has failed to prevail in all four major conflicts since WW 2. They continue to demonstrate supreme incompetence on ALL their (or should I say, OUR) battlefields.
This ineptitude will continue until the debt kiting scheme called US Treasury bonds ends.
When things break down into violence and terrorist groups are allowed to consolidate power, it’s not surprising that hostages get killed. Recall when Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb took over the Algerian gas plant in In Amenas, (North Africa) and threatened to blow the place up? The Algerian military came in and in the resulting chaos, 39 foreign hostages were killed (though 685 Algerian workers and another 103 foreigners did survive, and the massive gas facility wasn’t blown up).
But the question is, how did the situation in Libya turn from Arab Spring pro-democracy protests against Gaddafi (the one-time ‘ally’ of Bush and Blair, c. 2003) – the same Gaddafi who responded to populist protests by turning anti-aircraft guns on crowds of demonstrators and bringing in foreign mercenaries to kill Libyans – how did that turn into out-of-control civil war? Why did it go that way? What could have been done differently?
The answer seems to be that after Gaddafi was initially bottled up in his tribal stronghold by military intervention, the U.S., France and Britain immediately tried to install a new ‘friendly regime’ run out of Benghazi without making any effort to understand or deal with the country’s long-standing tribal divisions. In their rush to set up a new puppet government (with guaranteed oil access deals), they (Clinton & Obama, as well as Britain’s Cameron and France’s Sarkozy) made epic blunders – they didn’t try for peace talks, they could have left Gaddafi in the hands of the tribal group that he came from, they instead went whole hog with their ‘regime change’ plans, and, as so many times before, it all blew up in their face.
Once the civil war broke out between the various tribal factions, the chaos and confusion opened the door to Islamic State terrorist organizations. And, as ever, Gulf Arab dictatorships rushed in to back their preferred Islamic radical proxy groups:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/qatar/11110931/How-Qatar-is-funding-the-rise-of-Islamist-extremists.html
“Step forward a fabulously wealthy Gulf state that owns an array of London landmarks and claims to be one of our best friends in the Middle East. Qatar, the owner of Harrods, has dispatched cargo planes laden with weapons to the victorious Islamist coalition, styling itself “Libya Dawn”.
This FUBAR disaster can’t be blamed just on Qatar, though, as Qatar is a ‘loyal ally’ of the U.S. and the U.K., as the UK Independent reported on 1 July 2015, reporting based on Clinton’s email server:
“The ‘Special Relationship’ at the top of US-UK politics may have a new meaning after emails released in Washington DC revealed that Cherie Blair acted as a go-between for a leading Qatari to help secure a meeting with Hillary Clinton.”
The whole neoliberal-neoconservative foreign policy plan in the North Africa, Middle East, and Central Asia has been one epic idiotic disaster after another, and they just don’t learn from their mistakes, they just march on like zombies, doing it over and over again.
So there’s your result – terrorist groups kidnapping hostages, air strikes killing hostages and civilians, hundreds of thousands of refugees trying to save their lives by escaping into Europe. Unbelievable.
Qaddafi did not use anti-aircraft guns on protesters, nor did he order soldiers to rape civilians or any of the other crap he was accused of that several entities like the UN later refuted.
Ah not true, just like other dictators across the Middle East, he reacted to pro-democracy protests with violent oppression – it just got out of control in Libya before the U.S. could help him crush the protests, as happened in Bahrain, with Saudi and American assistance.
This doesn’t seem wrong to me. I mean, if I (or anybody) were somehow kidnapped and held by ISIS, I’d know I was already dead. The only question would be how much torture would happen first, and how unprecedentedly awful the killing would be. I can pretty easily imagine holding down the button on a transmitter that calls in the American drone and yelling “Allah u akbar (snicker)” at all the ISIS bastards keeping me captive. So if the U.S. makes an attack meant to save hostages, or meant to save people from becoming hostages, and they honestly put in some effort to try not to kill the wrong people, and it fails, then I say friendly fire happens in war, and it is always awful, sure as war is awful. If you think the Quakers are right I can’t prove you wrong, because they do have God on their side. But I think this attack appears to meet the standards laid down in the Bhagavad-Gita or by Saint Thomas Aquinas, or in more modern rules of war. Can you really claim otherwise?
What the hell kind of doublespeak nonsense are you talking about? Hey let’s just nuke EVERYBODY outside America. Let’s save them by sending them to heaven.
Chris
“……Hey let’s just nuke EVERYBODY outside America. Let’s save them by sending them to heaven…..”
I think you missed his point which is just the opposite of yours.
“…..So if the U.S. makes an attack meant to save hostages, or meant to save people from becoming hostages, and they honestly put in some effort to try not to kill the wrong people, and it fails, then I say friendly fire happens in war, and it is always awful, sure as war is awful. If you think the Quakers are right I can’t prove you wrong, because they do have God on their side. But I think this attack appears to meet the standards laid down in the Bhagavad-Gita or by Saint Thomas Aquinas, or in more modern rules of war. Can you really claim otherwise?….”
I agree with him 100%. The Geneva Conventions recognizes there will be civilian casualties. His point was that as long as the US “tried not to kill the wrong people” i.e., made every reasonable effort to not kill innocent civilians, then the US did not violate the rules of war.
The article doesn’t claim that the US violated the rules of war, but suggests that Pentagon handled the situation poorly after the attack.
“So if the U.S. makes an attack meant to save hostages, or meant to save people from becoming hostages, and they honestly put in some effort to try not to kill the wrong people, and it fails, then I say friendly fire happens in war”.
But what do you say in the aftermath, I did my best but shit happens (which they deny)? Or you deal with the consequences in a mature and responsible way to prevent it from happening in the future? The means don’t justify the end. If you don’t question the result because of good intentions – Guantanamo bay happens.
So, let’s take the US intelligence community at its word: They had been monitoring the site for weeks and were unaware of the presence of any civilians or hostages. That should be adequate to demonstrate the gross incompetence of US surveillance, and at the same time give lie to any and all claims on the part of the community as to either the effectiveness of its attacks or the numbers of civilian casualties.
How many times does the US military have to attack friendly forces, Doctors Without Borders hospitals, and innocent gatherings such as wedding parties and funerals before the adults in the room exclaim, “Enough!”?
What would they be looking for exactly? Does ISIS take the hostages out for a walk every day? Do they have an exercise room open to the air where they can get recreation every week, or failing that, move them within the building to a public lunch room for an hour a day to satisfy some court decision? I mean, American prison practices suck but you’re talking about one group here that can be worse. And they scarcely have any wood, so they make their buildings out of heavy materials – I doubt the spies can see through a couple of floors of that stuff with terahertz, though they may yet have a way to surprise me (you should see that paper about imaging through raw chicken – http://wetenschap.hlnn.nl/engelstalig/sciencenews-org/raw-chicken-ingenuity-make-a-time-reversal-mirror/ ).
I am nonetheless 100% with you about Doctors Without Borders and haphazard drone strikes. But when you hit a hostage, that’s pretty solid proof the strike wasn’t haphazard.
Then they shouldn’t be bombing buildings at all.