RNA - The fighter jets pounded the villages of al-Dowayer and al-Asharah in Eastern Deir Ezzur, leaving 22 civilians dead and 40 more injured. At least 18 civilians were also killed in the US airstrike in the town of al-Showayt.
Relevant reports say the US fighter jets targeted a medical center in the town of Albu Kamal in Southeastern Deir Ezzur, killing and wounding a number of civilians, including women and children. The warplanes, in a fresh massacre, bombed Ayesha Hospital, al-Shohad square and a sports club in Albu Kamal, killing six civilians, including women and children and wounding ten more.
Per usual, the US-led coalition is conducting air raids against what are said to be ISIL positions inside Syria since September 2014 without any authorization from the Damascus government or a UN mandate. As it turns out, the strikes have on many occasions resulted in civilian casualties and failed to fulfill their declared aim of countering terrorism.
Damascus has already written to the United Nations, calling for the dissolving of the US-led coalition in Syria and an immediate halt to the alliance’s crimes in the Arab country. In two letters addressed to UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres and the world body’s Security Council, the Syrian Ministry of Foreign Affairs has complained that the coalition continues to commit massacres against Syrian innocent civilians through conducting systematic airstrikes. It further notes that the US-led strikes are meant to support terrorist groups operating in Syria.
It goes without saying that bombing civilian objects like schools, hospitals and sport centers is a war crime under the UN Charter and International Law. More importantly, the American military has already acknowledged what nongovernmental monitoring groups have claimed for months: The US-led coalition has been killing Iraqi and Syrian civilians at astounding rates in the four months since President Trump assumed office. The result has been a staggering loss of civilian life, as the head of the United Nations Independent Commission of Inquiry into the Syrian war says.
Even Centcom agrees. It says at least 199 civilians were killed last month in the bombing campaign. Estimates by independent monitors are much higher. Airwars, a watchdog group, says coalition airstrikes have killed nearly 4,000 civilians. The civilian death toll has risen mainly because the battle has moved deeper into major cities. But even as the civilian death toll ticks upward, the American military has relaxed oversight, investigation and accountability on civilian casualties. This is while finding out the reasons for these tragic mistakes, seeing what can be learned from them and enforcing the American military’s own standards could save thousands of lives. But that’s not what the Pentagon regime is prepared to do.
This is not surprising. One reason is because President Trump has given the Pentagon regime total authorization to decide how, and how much, force will be used, authority that was more closely held by the Obama White House. It means what it means. The rules of engagement have changed. There is relaxation of US intention to target the innocent, and for this it has received the go-ahead from the Trump White House.
Another reason for the huge increase in noncombatant deaths is that the US military is dropping more bombs - a more than 20 percent increase from the last four months of the Obama presidency to the first four under Trump. Also, more strikes have occurred in populated areas, like Mosul in Iraq and Raqqa in Syria. The Pentagon regime claims since ISIL is using residential buildings as command posts, storage depots and fighting positions, noncombatant deaths are more likely. Yet far more troubling factors have emerged.
Even as the American military has accelerated its bombing, there is no independent assessment of the intelligence used to identify targets. Pentagon commanders and officials acknowledge that there is no red team to critique the decision-making process, a common approach in many commands. Each person is expected to do that on their own, and then, in the process, funnel up the pros and cons to decision makers. Individuals immersed in identifying enemy targets cannot simultaneously evaluate their own judgments.
There is also no longer any public accountability either. The Pentagon says it will no longer acknowledge when its own aircraft are responsible for civilian casualty incidents; rather they will be hidden under the umbrella of the coalition.
Last but not the least, the UN has shown little interest in identifying the root causes of civilian deaths, holding US government and its commanders and officers accountable. The UN could exercise its international role by mandating the US government to stop bombing Syria and its defenseless population, all while holding international hearings with senior military officials. The UN should also stop believing that the Pentagon officials are doing everything possible to protect civilians. They have never made good on that promise, just as the way their so-called fight against terrorism has gone nowhere.
847/940