Quick To Listen

Drones Have Changed the Moral Calculus for War

Informações:

Synopsis

On August 29, as American troops were accelerating their pullout from Afghanistan, the U.S. military ordered its last drone strike in the 20 year war. The missile destroyed a parked car that military officials said was operated by an Islamic State sympathizer, and contained explosives for a suicide attack on the Kabul airport, where American forces and civilians had gathered for evacuation. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley told a news conference, “We think that the procedures were correctly followed and it was a righteous strike.” Last week, separate investigations from The New York Times and The Washington Post questioned those assertions, reporting that the driver was Zemari Ahmadi, a longtime engineer for the California-based aid group Nutrition and Education International. The supposed explosives, said the Times, were canisters of water Ahmadi was bringing home to his family because Taliban’s takeover of the city had cut off his neighborhood’s water. The Times also reported that 10 m