Pentagon looks to be undercounting how many civilians it kills

Not a shocker. Presumably they set the bar about as high as it goes, for what "officially" counts as a civilian death or serious injury caused by U.S. military action.

As U.S. military forces continue to kill and wound civilians in multiple countries during the ongoing 21-year War on Terror while chronically undercounting such casualties, a pair of Democratic lawmakers on Monday asked the Pentagon to explain discrepancies in noncombatant casualty reporting and detail steps being taken to address the issue.

"The report did not admit to any civilian deaths in Syria, despite credible civilian casualty monitors documenting at least 15 civilian deaths." In a letter to Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, Rep. Sara Jacobs (D-Calif.) and Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.)—who have both led calls to hold the military accountable for harming noncombatants—said they are "troubled" that the Pentagon's annual civilian casualty report, which was released in September as required by an amendment Warren attached to the 2018 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), again undercounts noncombatants killed by U.S. forces...

"Every time Congress is briefed about an instance of civilian harm, we are almost always told that the service member followed the proper protocol and processes," Jacobs told Politico earlier this month. "So I think it's clear that it's an institutional not an individual problem."

While it is notoriously difficult to track how many civilians have been killed by a military that, in the words of Gen. Tommy Franks, doesn't "do body counts," researchers at the Costs of War Project at Brown University's Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs estimate that combatants on all sides of the U.S.-led War on Terror have killed as many as 387,000 civilians as of late last year. - Common Dreams

The U.S. Africa Command is a counterproductive mess

Some people in the U.S. are getting very wealthy because of it, though. Or more accurately even more beyond-the-dreams-of-avarice wealthier.

AFRICOM has not created the “safety and stability” invoked by U.S. leaders, but it has expanded the U.S. military’s footprint. During the Obama administration, AFRICOM quickly expanded its reach and influence on the continent through military-to-military trainings, joint counterterrorism operations, foreign aid, and other surreptitious methods that created dependence on AFRICOM for the defense needs of African states. Despite the fact that the U.S. is not at war with any African country, there are 46 U.S. military bases and outposts spanning the continent, with the greatest concentration in the Horn of Africa. Camp Lemonnier, the U.S. base in Djibouti, a small East African nation with a poverty rate of 79 percent, serves as the current home to AFRICOM in the Horn. In 2014 the U.S. government secured a 20-year lease for $63,000,000 a year.

As AFRICOM’s presence across the continent grows, so does the terrorism it is meant to curb. The 2006 U.S.-backed overthrow of the Union of Islamic Courts in Somalia paved the way for a more militant group, al-Shabab, to grow in rank and reach. This is just one example of how power vacuums caused by U.S. military intervention fortify the political will and strength of terrorist groups. - Truthout