Updated: February 24, 2021
Americans love to celebrate their war heroes. They often thank them for their service to the Union. But in several countries around the world, many see American troops as a bunch of killers and murderers of their children, wives, mothers and fathers. Some argue that they often embark on bloody wars based on falsehood, like in Iraq and elsewhere.
On Friday, a report made public by the Pentagon found that U.S. military operations killed approximately 500 civilians in 2017. However, Airwars, an organization that often tracks and examines casualty allegations reported this year that the United States and its allies may have killed as many as 6,000 civilians in Iraq and Syria alone in 2017.
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“In a study mandated by Congress, the Defense Department said it considered allegations about those incidents, which took place in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria and Yemen, to be credible after an internal review. Another 169 civilians were reported injured,” The Washington Post reported.
The newspaper quoted watchdog groups and legal experts as saying that “the Pentagon may be grossly undercounting the number of noncombatants killed in airstrikes and other military activities because of a faulty system for investigating and counting possible deaths”.
“The Defense Department has deemed that the vast majority of claims of civilian casualties are not credible without ever investigating them,” Daphne Eviatar, a director at Amnesty International USA, said in a statement. “Its numbers therefore likely severely undercount the actual civilian death toll.”
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