By Dan Mahanty March feels like a decade and a thousand COVID-19 news cycles ago, so you could be forgiven for having missed the news that on March 31, U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM) publicly committed to issuing a quarterly public report on civilian casualties alleged to have resulted from U.S. military operations. According to the press release, the…
By Annie Shiel and Dan Mahanty On March 3, the House Rules Committee held a rare bipartisan hearing on the erosion of congressional checks and balances on the executive branch’s ability to involve the country in war. The hearing was a welcome step in addressing executive overreach on national security and war powers, an issue that has…
By Federico Borello Following a week of reduced violence, with as much as an 80 percent drop in major attacks, fighting quickly resumed in Afghanistan. Having recently been in Kabul, I observed the countless ways that years of fighting have impacted the lives of individuals who want peace. Resumed violence so soon after the U.S. and the Taliban signed…
By Sahr Muhammedally and Marc Garlasco While the United States and the Taliban are engaged in talks, one fact is evident: As all sides have jockeyed for leverage over the past year, civilians have paid the price with over 10,000 civilian deaths and injuries in 2019, according to a new United Nations report. Now, it appears the U.S. and the Taliban…
February 20, 2020 – For the general public, the notion of a military investigation into a civilian death may conjure thoughts of investigations into high-profile incidents, such as the attack on the Médecins Sans Frontières hospital in Kunduz, Afghanistan, in 2015, or war crimes like the notorious murder and immolation of Afghan children by Staff Sgt. Robert Bales in…
December 24, 2019 – In the past few years we’ve seen U.S.-made planes and weapons bomb children in Yemen; gross violations of human rights by recipients of U.S. arms in places such as Cameroon and Nigeria; tear gas canisters labeled “made in the USA” fired at pro-democracy protesters in Hong Kong; and a steady stream of American guns fueling homicide crises…
On May 22, 2019, CIVIC’s Executive Director, Federico Borello, spoke with Laurie Laird of Crosby-Volmer for Arise TV about the conflict in Nigeria and the country’s proposed policy on Protection of Civilians and Civilian Harm Mitigation: The conflict has already claimed more than 38,000 lives and increased activity by armed opposition groups –…
It’s easy to see why counterinsurgency campaigns tread carefully around local bystanders. It’s no less important in larger-scale war. As the U.S. military shifts its focus from counterinsurgency to large-scale combat against near-peer competitors, the value of preventing civilian harm in the battle for “hearts and minds” has been largely displaced by an emphasis on the speed and decisiveness…
By: Dan Mahanty and Rita Siemion The Pentagon’s latest annual report on civilian casualties, released this morning, lists shockingly low numbers of reported casualties that the Department of Defense has assessed as “credible,” reflecting a need for better processes for determining how many civilians the United States is killing. While the report contains some improvements in reporting standards…