Exploring Civilian Casualties and Cultural Trends

Four years ago, Azmat Khan, an investigative reporter for The Times Magazine, told us the story of Basim Razzo, whose entire family was killed in a U.S.-led airstrike in Iraq. His story helped reveal how American air wars were resulting in a staggering number of civilian deaths.

Analyzing thousands of pages of U.S. military reports and investigating in Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria, Azmat was able to gain a better understanding of why this was happening.

Azmat Khan, an investigative reporter for The Times Magazine.

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Background reading: 

• The promise was a war waged by all-seeing drones and precision bombs. But Pentagon documents show flawed intelligence, faulty targeting, years of civilian deaths — and scant accountability.
• A trove of internal documents, combined with extensive reporting across the Middle East, reveals the tragic, disastrous failures of the U.S. military’s long-distance approach to warfare.

For more information on today’s episode, visit 

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