Thursday Night Open Thread: Not Particularly Funny

Even the New York Times is reporting this:

US drone strike that Pentagon said killed Kabul suicide bomber actually ‘killed aid worker and seven children who ran to greet him when he arrived home’: Video allegedly shows he filled car with water not explosives
Daily Mail | 10 September 2021 | Keith Griffith

The drone strike that the Pentagon claimed killed an ISIS-K suicide bomber in Kabul actually targeted an aid worker who had filled his car with water jugs, rather than explosives, according to a shocking new report.

Zemari Ahmadi, 43, was driving the 1996 Toyota Corolla that was destroyed in the August 29 drone strike, killing him and nine family members, including seven children, according to a New York Times investigation.

The Pentagon still maintains that only three civilians died, despite the family now detailing in the new report how their 10 relatives were killed in the blast.

Days after the attack, President Joe Biden gave a speech in which he marked the withdrawal of American troops in Afghanistan by the August 31 deadline. He touted America’s ability to strike terrorists and targets without boots on the ground. But he failed to mention the high civilian casualty rate from the August 29 drone strike, and he failed to mention that children had been killed.

Ahmadi worked for US-based aid group Nutrition and Education International, and spent the day running routine errands for the group, loading nothing into the car other than jugs full of water to bring home to his family, the Times reported, citing witnesses and surveillance video footage. 

‘All of them were innocent,’ Ahmadi’s brother Emal told the newspaper, noting that Ahmadi had sought refugee status with the US based on his international aid work. ‘You say he was ISIS, but he worked for the Americans.’  

Witnesses say he and his co-workers went to a Taliban-controlled police station that morning to request permission to distribute food to displaced refugees living in a nearby park. 

They returned to the offices at around 2pm, and surveillance footage shows that Ahmadi began filling up water jugs with a hose, which his family say he brought home from the office after water service was cut off in their neighborhood.

‘I filled the containers myself, and helped him load them into the trunk,’ a guard at the office told the Times.

US officials say that operator of the Reaper drone quickly scanned and saw only a single adult male greeting the vehicle, and therefore assessed with ‘reasonable certainty’ that no women, children or noncombatants would be killed.

A Hellfire missile struck the Corolla before its engine shut off. 

Ahmadi’s brother Romal was sitting on the ground floor with his wife when a sudden blast blew out the windows. They ran outside to discover a scene of devastation and death.

Six of those who died were inside the car, the others were in the garden of the home in the tightly-packed Khajeh Baghra neighbourhood. 

‘This was a righteous strike,’ said Joint Chiefs Chairman Mark A. Milley last week, claiming that Ahmadi was an ‘ISIS facilitator’.

‘It seriously questions the credibility of the intelligence or technology utilized to determine this was a legitimate target,’ Chris Cobb-Smith, a British Army veteran and security consultant, told the Times

Makes one want to throw up.

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Do you have something you’d like to share? A link? A joke? Some words of wisdom? A topic to discuss? It’s our nightly Open Thread, and you have the floor.

Spam! We Have a Possible Winner

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On a side note, someone ought to tell these Chinese (or Japanese?) spammers that when they hear English-speakers talk like that, it’s a parody at best; it’s not how we really expect them to sound.

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‘Fully-Vaccinated’ Daily Wire Reporter Gets Covid for the Third Time (Pfizer’s Vaccine)
NOQ Report | 09/10/2021 | JD Rucker

Reporting on Covid-19 and the so-called “vaccines” is getting easier every day. As more people get vaccinated, there is no shortage of noteworthy breakthrough cases, adverse reactions, and generally bad news for those who have been jabbed. I don’t write that with any joy as an unvaccinated American. I’m just noting that from a journalistic perspective, the stories lately tend to write themselves.

The latest example comes from Tennessee where a reporter for the Daily Wire has become ill with Covid-19 for the third time despite being fully-vaccinated. Education reporter Chrissy Clark posted a little about her current situation on Twitter yesterday.

Well… after getting the Pfizer vaccine and having COVID twice, I have been diagnosed with COVID for a THIRD time.

Symptoms are bad this time around. Prayers are always appreciated.
— Chrissy Clark (@chrissyclark_) September 9, 2021

Staying positive in the ER, thanks for all your well wishes everyone 🤍
— Chrissy Clark (@chrissyclark_) September 9, 2021