Our Bombs

Our Bombs Homepage

Neil Halloran — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 15:30:00 CDT

Our Bombs is a website and documentary film that looks at the human cost and strategic implications of U.S. air strikes. The film takes a unconventional look at the psychology behind military decision making, questioning how the technology and distance of aerial warfare affect our ethical and strategic judgements. The aim of the project is not to broadly condemn bombing, but to facilitate a better understanding of America's preferred form of military action.

Our Bombs is created by Neil Halloran and his independent film and web company, Climbing Tree Productions. Please submit your email below for updates, such as when the documentary is released.

Air Strike Tracker

Neil Halloran — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 15:30:00 CDT

The Air Strike Tracker chronicles every reported U.S. air strike that has affected civilians since September 11, 2001. The visual interface makes information about each incident from numerous sources highly accessible, often providing the ability to view online videos and other relevant media. You can browse incidents by location, date, or tags (e.g. unmanned drones, official investigations, local protest). The Air Strike Tracker is an ongoing project, and we will continue to update the underlying data as new information is obtained.

Our Bombs Trailer

Neil Halloran — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 15:30:00 CDT

From smart bombs to unmanned drones, bombing technology continues to further remove our pilots from the physical dangers of the battlefield. This detachment can save American lives, but also has a profound effect on the way soldiers, war planners, and the American public perceive warfare.

Our Bombs is a feature length documentary film about ethical and strategic complexities of US aerial bombing. The film examines whether Americans feel less accountable when innocent civilians are killed from aerial attacks. It also looks at whether war war planners, when removed from what is occurring on the ground, tend to overestimate the benefit of airpower while underestimating the negative implications that civilian suffering has on the greater war.

OurBombs.com: SXSW Web Awards Finalist!

Neil Halloran — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 00:00:00 EST

We are thrilled to announce that OurBombs.com has been selected as a finalist at the SXSW Web Awards in the activism category. Winners will be announced during the awards ceremony on March 14th.

We can vote vote for us on the People's Choice Awards website.

Join the Debate: Scope of the Tracker

Neil Halloran — Sun, 14 Feb 2010 00:00:00 EST

We are planning to make a few changes to the presentation of the Air Strike Tracker, and we wanted to allow friends of the project to weigh in on the discussion.

Our initial approach was to only include air strikes that affected civilians. "Affected" typically means that civilians were killed or injured by a strike, but a small number of incidents were added that had no reported casualties - e.g. a hostpital or a Red-cross food supply building was bombed.

Aerial Firefighting and Media Coverage

Neil Halloran — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 00:00:00 EDT

NPR's On The Media did an interesting piece on the use of aerial firefighting and the California wildfires. It turns out that the TV-friendly fire planes are sometimes deployed for the sake of public perceptions and political forces, not because they are the best use of resources.

Click above to hear story.

Blogging, Tweeting, and 2 New Team Members!

Neil Halloran — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 00:00:00 EDT

The Our Bombs website is about to kick into a new gear.

We are pleased to announce two new team members. On the website front, Daniel Liebowitz is the new strike tracker researcher. He is already working to bring the database up to date, and he will be contributing regularly to the blog. Sarah Weiner, who did an amazing job populating the strike tracker with 8 years of strike information, has left to join the Peace Corps. We thank her and wish her well.

Piecing Together the May 4th Bombing in Afghanistan

Neil Halloran — Mon, 11 May 2009 00:00:00 EDT

Although air support missions are flown virtually every day in Afghanistan, it is unusual for a single airstrike to generate so much media coverage and public discourse. The May 4th incident in Farah province does deserve special attention due to the sheer number of civilian deaths reported (up to 143 civilians) and the significant political fallout that came as a result. The incident also reveals an incredible diversity in the reporting by different media and government organizations. This blog entry is the result of an effort sort through the numerous accounts from Afghan witnesses, Afghan officials, media reports, and U.S. military statements.

The Lead Up

With Bombing, Hawks and Doves Unite

Neil Halloran — Sun, 12 Apr 2009 00:28:58 EDT

War is dirty business, and the battlefield does not necessarily favor the most virtuous or well behaved party. Humanitarian activists argue that protecting civilians caught in today's conflicts is not only the right thing to do, but ultimately a winning strategy. But doesn't that sound a bit too convenient? Manufacturing a win-win situation - in this case by downplaying the strategic disadvantage or the added risks to US soldiers when they are held to the highest standards - can falsely simplify a real ethical dilemma, and worse, trivialize what it means to take moral action. Doing the right thing is rarely without cost, and we shouldn't have to sell it that way to the American people.

Skeptical as I am, I have been genuinely surprised to see through this project that reducing civilians casualties from airstrikes has proven to be actually, truly, beneficial for winning the greater war. Repeatedly, U.S. war planners have argued that compromising our principles was necessary for victory, only to find out the bombing mission didn't work, and in many cases completely back-fired.

A Few Good Robots

Adam Rosenblatt — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 02:32:03 EDT

“Son, we live in a world that has walls, and those walls have to be guarded by men with guns,” Jack Nicholson, playing renegade Marine Colonel Jessup, barks at Tom Cruise in the film A Few Good Men. But at least one thing has changed about the truth Cruise supposedly couldn’t handle. “Men with guns” aren’t the only ones fighting our wars. There are also robots.

Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs), also called drones, now allow U.S. pilots to live at home and work at a computer, where they conduct surveillance and missile strikes against Al Qaeda, Taliban and insurgency targets in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan (also, on occasion, killing civilians). So Colonel Jessup would no longer be right that our soldiers are “out there on that wall” in the heart of darkness, guarding a blissfully ignorant civilian world. The lines have blurred, complicated by the computer screen’s “third space,” neither the battlefield nor home, where these soldiers fight their battles.