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‘NYT’ says ‘targeted killings’ are good U.S. tactic, with no mention of civilian deaths

This feels very 1969: Helene Cooper and Mark Landler in the Times, approve a new tactic in Afghanistan, better than counterinsurgency:

what has turned out to work well is an approach American officials have talked much less about: counterterrorism, military-speak for the targeted killings of insurgents from Al Qaeda and the Taliban.

Faced with that reality, and the pressure of a self-imposed deadline to begin withdrawing troops by July 2011, the Obama administration is starting to count more heavily on the strategy of hunting down insurgents. The shift could change the nature of the war and potentially, in the view of some officials, hasten a political settlement with the Taliban. 

Based on the American military experience in Iraq as well as Afghanistan, it is not clear that killing enemy fighters is sufficient by itself to cripple an insurgency. Still, commando raids over the last five months have taken more than 130 significant insurgents out of action…

Helene Cooper is usually very good. But, 130 taken out of action? Does that mean killed and maimed? And with no civilian casualties? Hard to believe. In Gaza, a few years back, State reported that Israel’s targeted killings resulted in more innocent bystanders being killed than actual targets in one calendar year. My canary says the numbers were 47 and 44. and is looking for the link. Sheikh Yassin’s murder (an old quadriplegic) took out 11 others. The absence of detail in the story is a huge hole, and consequently it reads more like propaganda, stripped of information that undercuts the narrative being constructed.

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