Biden's Wars
Discover more from The Flashpoint
Biden's Wars
The administration has no credibility on civilian deaths; plus clips from my conversation with Sana Saeed on Tucker Carlson
Last week, a US raid in Syria resulted in the deaths of 13 civilians, including six children.
The Biden administration has claimed those deaths were the result of the raid’s target, an ISIS leader, detonating a suicide vest. But there’s been little to no actual evidence presented for this claim—instead, Press Secretary Jen Psaki implied that anyone questioning the official narrative is disloyal to the US.
As a number of commentators have pointed out, the administration doesn’t exactly have the credibility on civilian deaths to be taken on faith. A missile strike in Afghanistan last year that the administration claimed was aimed at known militants was revealed by an extensive New York Times investigation to have blown up an innocent family.
Times reporting has identified the driver as Zemari Ahmadi, a longtime worker for a U.S. aid group. The evidence suggests that his travels that day actually involved transporting colleagues to and from work. And an analysis of video feeds showed that what the military may have seen was Mr. Ahmadi and a colleague loading canisters of water into his trunk to bring home to his family.
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.
“Over the past year, Joe Biden has talked like Barack Obama but walked like Donald Trump on foreign policy,” Marwan Bishara wrote at Al Jazeera. “But as he lacks the eloquence and bullishness of his predecessors, the president has fallen flat through and through.”
For more on the Biden administration’s foreign policy and White House aims around the world, I’m joined this afternoon at 5pm EST by Empire Files journalist Abby Martin.
Our conversation will cover Biden’s Syria and Afghanistan strikes, his policies on Yemen, Ukraine, and China, and the administration’s foreign affairs priorities in general.
Please join us at 5pm—live on Callin.
If you don’t have the app, listen in live on desktop at the link.
On Monday, I chatted with AJ+ journalist Sana Saeed about Tucker Carlson’s “anti-war” bona fides. We were also joined by Media Matters for America Associate Research Director Nikki McCann Ramirez and author Jonathan Katz.
The full conversation is worth checking out in full. Here are a few clips:
Thanks for listening!
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Email me at eoinhiggins@gmail.com