The U.S. military conducted more than five times as many airstrikes in Iraq last year as it did in 2006, targeting al-Qaeda safe houses, insurgent bombmaking facilities and weapons stockpiles in an aggressive strategy aimed at supporting the U.S. troop increase by overwhelming enemies with air power.Top commanders said that better intelligence-gathering allows them to identify and hit extremist strongholds with bombs and missiles, and they predicted that extensive airstrikes will continue this year as the United States seeks to flush insurgents out of havens in and around Baghdad and to the north in Diyala province.
Because bombing in cities is a good way to limit killing untargeted people and destroying homes and infrastructure.
The U.S.-led coalition dropped 1,447 bombs on Iraq last year, an average of nearly four a day, compared with 229 bombs, or about four each week, in 2006. [Emphasis mine]
And in case you’re wondering, twice as many airstrikes were made in Afghanistan in 2007 over the previous year (20 times that of 2005).
Dropping the bombs is one thing. Actually hitting the target is quite a feat for our armed forces.
ReplyDeleteI remember that the Pentagon (or one of departments somewhere) did an analysis of the opening of the Iraq war and found that in the first 6 months NONE of the precision munitions hit any of their targets. Some were so far off course that they hit the wrong COUNTRY (some hit Saudi Arabia and some hit Iran).
I agree with your point. If you kill everyone, you're bound to get some of the bad guys. Then you can claim victory and throw a parade for yourself.
It's sad to me that so many people think what makes America great is that we can kill people by the thousands and no one can do anything about it. We're proud to be the bully in the neighborhood.
i remembered that the "precision" bombs could find the target and go through a chosen window. my 17 yr-old son at the time exclaimed, "they're in caves! they don't even have windows!" - well we were all simply incredulous at the juvenile taunts and claims being made. and now that you mention it, i vaguely recall reading that they even went so far as to hit in the wrong country.
ReplyDeleteit's almost divinely absurd. and it is all too humanly sad.
thank you for reading, and thank you so much for your comments.
blessings,
m