September 11, 2021

"It was the last known missile fired by the United States in its 20-year war in Afghanistan, and the military called it a 'righteous strike'..."

"... a drone attack after hours of surveillance on Aug. 29 against a vehicle that American officials thought contained an ISIS bomb and posed an imminent threat to troops at Kabul’s airport. But a New York Times investigation of video evidence, along with interviews with more than a dozen of the driver’s co-workers and family members in Kabul, raises doubts about the U.S. version of events.... While the U.S. military said the drone strike might have killed three civilians, Times reporting shows that it killed 10, including seven children, in a dense residential block.... 'Because there were secondary explosions, there is a reasonable conclusion to be made that there was explosives in that vehicle,' the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Mark A. Milley, said last week. But an examination of the scene of the strike, conducted by the Times visual investigations team and a Times reporter the morning afterward, and followed up with a second visit four days later, found no evidence of a second, more powerful explosion. Experts who examined photos and videos pointed out that, although there was clear evidence of a missile strike and subsequent vehicle fire, there were no collapsed or blown-out walls, no destroyed vegetation, and only one dent in the entrance gate, indicating a single shock wave. 'It seriously questions the credibility of the intelligence or technology utilized to determine this was a legitimate target,' said Chris Cobb-Smith, a British Army veteran and security consultant.... Neighbors and an Afghan health official confirmed that bodies of children were removed from the site. They said the blast had shredded most of the victims; fragments of human remains were seen inside and around the compound the next day by a reporter, including blood and flesh splattered on interior walls and ceilings." 


The article looks at evidence about the driver, Zemari Ahmadi. We're told he "had worked since 2006 as an electrical engineer for Nutrition and Education International, a California-based aid group." He was observed picking up 3 passengers on his way to work. He made a stop at a Taliban-controlled police station to get permission, the passengers said, to distribute food. Our military claims they saw him put heavy objects in the trunk, but there's camera footage, and he is, the Times says, filling containers with water from a hose.

40 comments:

R C Belaire said...

Obvious that some in the political/military hierarchy were overly anxious to avenge the Kabul airport bombing. What's next from these clowns?

Jaq said...

My comment here made on the day that Biden vowed revenge that they were going to kill somebody and tell us it was the terrorist aged pretty well.

"We came! We saw! He died (guffaw, chortle)" - HRC

Mark said...

As we say 'never forget' today, so do families who lost innocents in drone strikes.

Kevin said...

Shorter article: Privileged white-owned newspaper questions black SECDEF’s truth.

Kevin said...

Maybe Biden should meet with the families.

He can tell them about his son Beau.

Owen said...

Oopsie!

I thought NYT was in Biden’s corner. This kind of reporting is unhelpful.

/s

wendybar said...

Bastards. They lie to us. They have no clue what the f they are doing. We need leadership, not idiots who like to pretend they know what they are doing, but are more concerned that there are no women in the Taliban.

gilbar said...

"It seriously questions the credibility of the intelligence"

You could just stop right there.
Serious Question: What WAS the last thing our 'intelligence' people got right?

Robert Marshall said...

CINC: "C'mon, man! I'm getting clobbered here. That's no joke! Kill someone for me. Make it look good!"

SteveM said...

And yet, the MSM and the Left want the general population to place unquestioning trust in the Biden Administration’s handling of the delta variant surge, the FDA’s final approval of the vaccine, and OSHA’s upcoming vaccination mandate!

Iman said...

But how were the optics? That’s all that seems to matter to these clowns.

rehajm said...

NYT isn't covering this story with a towel so that means NYT thinks the story helps Democrats.

...it's a disturbing story about a major Democrat fuck up...and NYT believes it HELPS Democrats.

Drago said...

Disgraced Thoroughly Modern Milley, Austin, crap dementia addled Installed *"president" and our now fully exposed "national security" apparatus created a shameful generationsl failure in Afghanistan where they created hundreds of US citizen hostages, rewarded our enemies and sentenced allies to death...so they needed to guve the demicratucals/LLR-democraticals a new talking point to change the subject...

...so the George "The Walrus" Conway-approved administration ordered a drone strike on 1O innocents, including an aide worker and 7 children.

Because of course they did.

And it was "righteous" to them because it served a political purpose here in the US.

Lyle Smith said...

Our intelligence folks also told us Russia would not invade Ukraine. They must of helped convince Obama that ISIS was in Obama's beautiful turn of phrase "the JV Team". They convinced Clinton and Obama an Egyptian-American's anti-Islamist video was what stoked Benghazi. They whispered sweet things to Obama about Syria to the point that Obama drew a red line for still in power al-Assad not to cross. And of course someone told Biden that 300,000 American armed Afghanis could easily hold off 75,000 Taliban (armed by do they even know?).

Wa St Blogger said...

Heads should roll, but they will not. They are protected by the force shield. You can tell if they have one by noting the (D) after the name.

Temujin said...

If not for bad judgement, our current leadership would have no judgement. And our media? Well...its so bad their desks are overflowing with the disgraceful decisions, words, and acts by this entire administration (and our careerists in State and DoJ) that they are being forced to actually report on some of this. Albeit days or weeks after the fact, and only going during the 9/11 commemorative weekend when it will be buried news.

I've never seen a worse administration than this one.
I've never seen such a rotten State, DoJ, and Public Health Dept. as we currently have (and have had the past 15 years).

To say we need a house cleaning is like saying 9/11 was a small criminal action. Understatement of the largest magnitude.

Narayanan said...

I also read that Taliban directed / provided lead information to US surveillance to this vehicle/individual etc.

Can USA security / REMF be anymore gullible?

Whiskeybum said...

Oh look - the NYT attempting to do some investigative reporting and hold a Democratic-lead government accountable for its actions. Is there some nostalgic movement afoot at the NYT for the good ol' days when this was the basis of journalism, instead of being a propaganda arm for their party?

Narayanan said...

rehajm said...
NYT isn't covering this story with a towel so that means NYT thinks the story helps Democrats.

...it's a disturbing story about a major Democrat fuck up...and NYT believes it HELPS Democrats
----------------

shirley it helps D's >>> they only need the party "dronestrike' on Biden to be timely for the election cycle 2022

Drago said...

"I've never seen a worse administration than this one."

Nonsense!

According to the LLR's, Biden's actions to date have been nothing short of brilliant and conservatives should stop complaining and be thankful all our National "Muh Normz" like surrender and abandonment of citizens and full on fascism have been "restored".

See: LLR Chuck's posts and anything written at Media Matters.

Bender said...

It seriously questions the credibility of the intelligence or technology utilized to determine this was a legitimate target

What credibility? This always reeked of Joe Biden, that tough vanquisher of Corn Pop and Fat, demanding that they lob a bomb on someone, anyone. After all, because they caved so quickly, there are no innocent Afghans in Biden's thuggish addled brain. They are all to blame for him being a loser from birth.

Dave Begley said...

Biden and his generals have fucked up every single aspect of the withdrawal. And we'll be paying the price while Hunter is living in a mansion and his bimbo daughter Naomi is partying with Eurotrash.

Bender said...

I thought that under the Dem rules of engagement, it took ten JAGs to approve any operation. Someone here (the CiC) needs to be held legally accountable for manslaughter or unlawful war crimes.

Suppose some other country had dropped a cruise missile in the U.S. and killed an innocent American family, arguing that they were going after some terrorist. You think anyone would just shrug that off?

Chuck said...

I am enjoying the view, watching the Althouse commentariat struggle with the fact of the New York Times doing solid investigative reporting which severely contradicts the Biden Administration.

Joe Smith said...

If you've lost the NYT...

But who knows really...fog of war and all that.

Maybe he was an enterprising go-getter. Aid worker by day, bomb transporter by day.

The tip-off is the fact that the Pentagon won't release his name. Must not be very proud of themselves.

Mary Beth said...

I have the same questions about this as I did when the news first hit. How did they know this person was a legitimate target? Did they have phone conversations or video of him doing something (before the drone surveillance) or was he accused of wrong-doing by someone? If it was an accusation, why do we trust that person?

If Ahmadi was working for the terrorists (big "if"), does that mean that there could be many more like that who got out of the country, basically unscreened? People who were working with Western aid organizations or with contractors or the military who we would be willing to blow up if they had stayed there but we are fine with them coming here?

The drone was following him for hours. Couldn't they have picked someplace better to strike than the home's courtyard? As a gun owner, I've learned how I can shoot to defend myself or my home, but I can't shoot once someone is no longer a threat. Going into his own home would be the definition of "not currently a threat" to me. Was time running out and someone being forced to do something, even if it's wrong?

I too was curious about the tree in the courtyard that still had all of its leaves. There was stuff around it, so I couldn't tell if it had limbs broken, but the presence of leaves made me both question whether shock waves were strong enough to knock over people inside the house and whether there had been a secondary blast from explosives. (I don't know enough to know what's possible here. Weirder things happen.)

Big Mike said...

Joe Biden ordered a retaliatory missile strike. There’s.not a lot of punishment you can inflict on a suicide bomber so they found the best target they could come up with. We did that in Vietnam, and no doubt before, and the US military has never stopped.

The scenario is simple. Joe Biden or the Secretary of Defense tells a senior general he wants to see a reaction strike. The general sends a flunky down to whatever office is responsible for targeting and a junior officer, or perhaps even an enlisted man, is told that the general wants a target. So he gets a target. Someone dies who shouldn’t have. [Shrugs]. It’s called war.

Yancey Ward said...

How many of the drone strikes over the last 20 years have been exactly like this one?

Static Ping said...

I am not sure what to make of this. The three parties involved are the New York Times, the American military brass, and whatever the source is in Afghanistan. It's a triple threat of no credibility. Pick your preferred liar, I guess.

Readering said...

Think of how many similar incidents there were over 2 decades. There was a pretty good movie maybe 10 years ago thay dealt with the problems with conducting missile strikes from Stateside consoles. Armchair air force.

Richard Aubrey said...

Depends. Did the missile land south of the Ohio River? If yes, then okay. Between the Hudson and the Rockies....the bastards probably deserved it.
Or the Aunt Polly defense. "Didn't get a lick amiss, I reckon."

ga6 said...

To quote a good progressive: "What difference does it make?"

Yancey Ward said...

One suspects that the information on the ground that led to this attack came from the Taliban themselves. I wrote a comment here a couple of weeks or more back that I would do this were I the Taliban in Kabul- I wrote that in response to reports the Biden Administration was working with the Taliban to "secure" the airport. It would not be a surprise at all to find out that Biden and his people got gaslighted into launching this attack against a complete innocent guy.

Roger Sweeny said...

This is a righteous investigation. Now if the Times would only investigate claims by its friends as well as by its enemies.

Bender said...

Think of how many similar incidents there were over 2 decades.

Try going back to 1993 (the Clinton presidency). But Obama really kicked it into high gear.

Michael said...

One of the most dishonorable things our military did was to bullsh!t us about the death of Pat Tillman. And nobody - NOBODY - paid a price.

Lem Vibe Bandit said...

I remember thinking, how is it that we had intelligence of terrorist and only chose to hit them after we got hit? Didn't the new rules of the war on terror proclaim it was ok to hit preemptively?

It looks to me now that maybe the intelligence was sketchy at best, but because they needed a response, a show of force for the big guy, they went with it. Making an already fucked up situation worse.

Chris Lopes said...

"The tip-off is the fact that the Pentagon won't release his name."

That was my thought too. They probably knew almost immediately that they'd been had.

Bunkypotatohead said...

I used to wish our armed forces would stay here in the USA and protect its citizens. But with this sort of incompetence, maybe it's better they're killing afghanis by mistake instead of us.

How long before Biden decides to send the drones after our greatest threat...white nationalists.

MikeR said...

:O Can this really be true? I mean, my first reaction on hearing about it was, No way could they really have tracked down the culprits one day later. But still, amazing. Outrage.