To put it into perspective, London-based Airwars, which has been methodically cataloging strikes across the Middle East, released a report earlier this month claiming that the United States has killed at least 22,679 civilians — and potentially as many as 48,308 — in 91,340 strikes across seven major conflict zones since 2001.
Of course, there is a wide discrepancy between the civilian deaths that the Pentagon has acknowledged and those reported by Airwars and other groups that painstakingly sift through public source information, interview people on the ground, and gather evidence from non-governmental organizations working in the places where these attacks occur. Airwars claims that the reality is many times higher than the Pentagon’s recent attempts to do their own reckoning of civilian casualties.
As the Nobel Peace Laureate President Barack Hussein Obama proudly boasted of himself, after turning two wars into seven, “Turns out I’m really good at killing people. Didn’t know that was gonna be a strong suit of mine.”