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What's your point?
Are you saying that we should bomb the s#!t out of civilian targets to get one terrorist?
Are you saying this is the best way to win hearts and minds of the resident population?
Or are you praising the American military establishment for attempting to keep the level of civilian causalities to a bare minimum?
Based on your post, you seem to think that Obama sits in a conference room and personally looks over the shoulder of every pilot who goes on a sorte in Syria or Iraq.
Are you advocating all out war?
What IS your point?????
You're pretty naive to think we haven't done this already.
Drone pilots are far removed from any direct action.
No doubt, because on this occasion Bryant says a child walked from behind the building at the last second. Too late for him to do anything else but ask the other pilot, "Did we just kill a kid?"
"Yeah, I guess that was a kid," the pilot replied.
"Was that a kid?" they wrote into a chat window on the monitor.
Then, someone they didn't know answered, someone sitting in a military command center somewhere in the world who had observed their attack. "No. That was a dog," the person wrote.
It seems pretty clear. The OP's point is that the president is gutless for attempting to not bomb innocent civilians.
Wrong (as you usually are)... My point is that Leftists cannot see that this policy allows ISIS to operate with almost total impunity. As a result they have been able to casually slaughter tens of thousands of civilians.
If we changed our policy ISIS would find it much more difficult to spend their free time murdering people because they would be spending most of their time running for their lives instead. SOME civilians would die.... but far fewer than have been murdered at the hands of ISIS.
If you really care about the civilians you'll give their tormenters and murderers something new to think about.
Sadly, this could be explained 1000 times to you but you'll never understand it.
How dastardly, that the president wants to try to limit civilian deaths! Who cares about the civilians, amiright? Just wipe them all out! It's their own fault for being born there!
Sad to say, that seems to be the attitude of many right wingers here.
Another Kumbaya moment brought to you by liberals for a warm and fuzzy war. Maybe we should drop teddy bears instead of bombs, just in case it's not the bad guys.
Another Kumbaya moment brought to you by liberals for a warm and fuzzy war. Maybe we should drop teddy bears instead of bombs, just in case it's not the bad guys.
Nah, just drop bombs with impunity. Don't worry about how many innocents are in the path of our terror from the sky. If there's a chance we may get one terrorist among the many civilians, well, then, it's all worth it.
I wonder if you'd feel the same way if the bombs were being dropped on you because there was a bad guy suspected to be in your neighborhood. I'm sure you'd be fine with that, right?
The difference between us is that you want us to become the very thing we are supposedly fighting against. I don't.
"U.S. military pilots who have returned from the fight against the Islamic State in Iraq are confirming that they were blocked from dropping 75 percent of their ordnance on terror targets because they could not get clearance to launch a strike[/b],according to a leading member of Congress.
Strikes against the Islamic State (also known as ISIS or ISIL) targets are often blocked due to an Obama administration policy to prevent civilian deaths and collateral damage, according to Rep. Ed Royce (R., Calif.), chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee.
The policy is being blamed for allowing Islamic State militants to gain strength across Iraq and continue waging terrorist strikes throughout the region and beyond, according to Royce and former military leaders who spoke Wednesday about flaws in the U.S. campaign to combat the Islamic State."
I thought they were 'dummy bombs' since they were so freaking ineffective, now I learn few bombs were dropped at all! I knew something was up! Same crap our soldiers had to deal with in Vietnam, get freaking permission before they could return fire!
Anyone calling their senators and congressmen yet to demand this freakin Radical Islamist sympathizer be forced to resign? I did and I was told that I am not the only one calling for this!!!!! Yaaaaay! KEEP THOSE CALLS COMING!
Last edited by i_love_autumn; 11-20-2015 at 01:55 PM..
How dastardly, that the president wants to try to limit civilian deaths! Who cares about the civilians, amiright? Just wipe them all out! It's their own fault for being born there!
Sad to say, that seems to be the attitude of many right wingers here.
Quote:
Originally Posted by mohawkx
What's your point? Are you saying that we should bomb the s#!t out of civilian targets to get one terrorist?
Are you saying this is the best way to win hearts and minds of the resident population?
Or are you praising the American military establishment for attempting to keep the level of civilian causalities to a bare minimum? Based on your post, you seem to think that Obama sits in a conference room and personally looks over the shoulder of every pilot who goes on a sorte in Syria or Iraq.
Are you advocating all out war?
What IS your point?????
Quote:
Originally Posted by JAMS14
Nah, just drop bombs with impunity. Don't worry about how many innocents are in the path of our terror from the sky. If there's a chance we may get one terrorist among the many civilians, well, then, it's all worth it.
I wonder if you'd feel the same way if the bombs were being dropped on you because there was a bad guy suspected to be in your neighborhood. I'm sure you'd be fine with that, right?
The difference between us is that you want us to become the very thing we are supposedly fighting against. I don't.
Quote:
Originally Posted by JAMS14
It seems pretty clear. The OP's point is that the president is gutless for attempting to not bomb innocent civilians.
Oh really? It doesn't seem Obama cares about civilians with him authorizing the use of drones nor is he winning the hearts and minds of the resident populations.
Quote:
In the wake of the Paris attacks, Obama has stuck firm to his determination to avoid sending large numbers of US troops to Syria, beyond the limited engagement of special forces. The natural, though unspoken, consequence of such a strategy is a deepening reliance on aerial attacks in which unmanned drones increasingly play a leading part.
The number of lethal airstrikes has ballooned under Obama’s watch. The Pentagon has plans further to increase the number of daily drone flights by 50% by 2019.
From its inception, the drone program has been troubled by reports of mistaken targeting. Classified government documents leaked to the Intercept revealed that up to 90% of the people killed in drone strikes may be unintended, with the disparity glossed over by the recording of unknown victims as “enemies killed in action”.
Quote:
Targeted killing by drone is the new frontier of American warfare. The first strike by a remotely piloted aircraft took place in Afghanistan on Oct. 7, 2001, and since then, drone warfare has proliferated. To date, there have been more than 400 U.S. drone strikes in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia, and they are occurring with greater regularity in Syria. By 2019, U.S. drone flights are expected to increase by 50 percent from current levels.
In May 2013, President Barack Obama defended U.S. drone strikes and claimed responsibility for overseeing the program. He further claimed that viable targets were limited to terrorists that posed a “continuing, imminent threat to U.S. persons,” that strikes were executed only when there was “near certainty that the target is present,” “near certainty that noncombatants will not be injured or killed” and “capture is not feasible at the time of the operation.”
New documents leaked to The Intercept show that his claims were at best misleading and at worst false. In fact, the U.S. drone program is imprecise and arbitrary and a grave risk to civilians everywhere. It is also a program over which the president exercises little control.
Although Obama signs off on targets, he generally doesn’t sign off on strikes. He thus cedes execution authority to the military and has little to no knowledge of the potential number of civilians affected by a strike. The documents show that although he sits atop an elaborate chain of command, he has little incentive to question the judgment of those below him. His oversight is merely a rubber stamp.
The leaked documents demonstrate that the “near certainty” standard offered by Obama is not likely maintained. The drone program, especially in Yemen and Somalia, relies almost exclusively on signals intelligence to identify and kill targets. Unlike human intelligence, which is gathered from local sources, signals intelligence relies on communication intercepts and phone and computer metadata and is far less reliable. The documents describe the technologies being used as imprecise, and one study even acknowledges a “critical shortfall of capabilities” to accurately identify and eliminate targets.
This policy allows ISIS to operate almost with impunity. As a result they have been able to carry out mass murders, public crucifictions, thousands of beheadings, etc... In other words, far fewer civilians would die as collateral damage than as victims of ISIS if we changed our policy on this. But kneejerk leftists are incapable of seeing this.
Try looking beyond the end of your nose.
Dang!
About a month or two ago, the right was bitterly complaining about a drone strike that killed a top terrorist leader along with some civilians! Obama was being 'reckless' by killing civilians, you all said.
I guess none of you could get yourselves to say anything good about the terrorist leader being killed, so had to attack Obama on the civilians killed.
Now you all want to kill civilians.
What a joke you all are!
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