[lbo-talk] Obama killing Pakistani civilians at 8 times Bush's rate

[Percival Myers]

On Mon, Jan 4, 2010 at 3:22 PM, Doug Henwood wrote:
>
> On Jan 4, 2010, at 2:53 PM, Percival Myers wrote:
>
>> If we are looking at the number of killed Pakistani innocents, what
>> does it matter who owns the drones? Aren't the rest of the numbers
>> from 2001 through the intervening years more important when the
>> received answer is the rate at which Obama kills them in 2009 versus
>> the 2006-2007 Bush rate - when we know Bush had already abandoned that
>> battlefield in favor of a different one?
>
> Spare St Barry from any embarrassing comparisons?

Such as?


> <http://www.jamestown.org/programs/gta/single/?tx_ttnews%5Btt_news%5D=35542&cHash=4ab726a2c5>

It's an article about drones. Are you really fixated on drones? What
about the rest of the innocents killed by US actions in foreign lands
- and the US troops killed in those misadventures too.


> In 2002, the drones were mostly used to monitor ground activity. Attacks
> began apparently in June 2004. Through January 2006, the drone attacks "were
> relatively 'clean' in regards to unintentional civilian deaths...."
>
> <http://www.opendemocracy.net/article/drone-wars>
>
> "US forces struck just twice in 2006, three times in 2007 and seven times in
> the first eight months of 2008...."

So the metric is innocents killed by drones, not innocents killed by
US Forces. Or US Forces killed because they were in the wrong place on
either 43's or 44's say-so.

Gee Doug, I thought you were better than that.

Percy