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We kill 1 terrorist and 9 innocents die. That was the figure used during the obama drone strikes. One in 10 the intended target. So one terrorist dies and we ignore the fact that family and friends of the innocents will become terrorists. Makes sense, get 1 create 2. Only our government would think that's a plus.
What do you mean how could they know? They couldn't and that was my point. Civilian casualties will always happen in war. It's part of the game. If that bothers people, don't enlist.
It does bother people in the military...and it always should.
My father told me of a particular day in Vietnam. There had been a little girl, no more than eight, who came to his unit area every morning with a platter of local snacks for sale. Every morning. They got used to expecting her.
One day, as she approached he saw that in one of her hands holding the platter there was a grenade. He immediately shot her dead. He never knew what the details might have been of that incident. Did she have an intent to kill them? Had someone just handed the grenade to her? Had her parents been threatened? He didn't know, he had no way to know. He had never told any of us (all the men in my family are military) that until shortly before his death, one day when he asked me to have a beer with him at the VFW...and he spent time getting some burdens off his chest with me.
I was in the target business during the last years of Vietnam. I scored B-52 conventional bombing of North Vietnam. Although the B-52 conventional bomb laid down a swath of destruction the size of a football field (including end zones and sidelines), it was amazing how often they totally missed the intended targets. Some areas of North Vietnam looked like the dark side of the moon.
Yes, that bothered me. Back in the mid-90s, one of my young subordinates was part of the party that returned to Vietnam to search for remains of US airmen who had been downed in the north during the war. When he returned and talked about his trip, he spoke with marvel about one thing in particular: "They have all these little round fishponds. It's awesome! They're everywhere! Sometimes they're in groups of three or four or even more."
I searched my memory of the countryside. I didn't recall seeing lots of "little round fishponds."
Then I asked..."How large were those ponds? " He said they were about fifty feet in diameter. I asked, "Airman, when were you born?" He had been born in 1972. I told him, "They didn't dig those 'fishponds.' We dug them."
During the Persian Gulf war, I was still in the targeting business. But by then, we had smart munitions. We weren't looking at swaths of craters, we were looking for "pinholes" in the roofs of buildings where a Tomahawk missile had precisely punctured the building, travelled down to a specific floor, and exploded within.
The primary aim of the air campaign against Baghdad was to cripple Saddam Hussein's ability to command and control his invasion forces in Kuwait. We struck specific bridges that were known to contain communications cables. We struck specific generators in electric power plants. Specific buildings, even specific parts of buildings.
Having first seen the obliteration of North Vietnam, I was frankly astounded at the accuracy of strikes in Iraq. And very gratified that it could be so precise.
We kill 1 terrorist and 9 innocents die. That was the figure used during the obama drone strikes. One in 10 the intended target. So one terrorist dies and we ignore the fact that family and friends of the innocents will become terrorists. Makes sense, get 1 create 2. Only our government would think that's a plus.
So you need to write your Texas congresscritters and demand that the US end all military activity in those countries.
If "we" knew, why didn't you get the aircrew on the radio and wave them off?
Nobody in the American chain of command knew that the building that aircrew was rolling in on that night was that hospital. They believed they were rolling in on a
Did someone somewhere have the hospital on a list of no-shoot installations? Yes. Was that guy in the operational loop at the moment? No.
Did that aircrew at that moment know that was a hospital in their sights? No. They actually believed they were looking at a multi-story, multi-wing administration building that wasn't far away. And they had been trained that a hospital would be marked in accordance with the Geneva Conventions.
Cockpit Crew Questioned Legality of Orders to Bomb Afghan Doctors Without Borders Hospital
Nobody likes it. But if there is a war, civilians are going to die.
The only solution is to stop the war.
Plus, take that "hospital" you like to bring up as an example, we know that we made mistakes, and we are trying our best to avoid Civilian casualties.
My friend lost an arm due to friendly fire, it is not like he is going to blame the troops. My brother lost his best friend in a military training. Things like this happen!
Nobody is arguing with you about your anti-war stance. I don't like all these stupid wars, either. But gee, you made it sound like avoiding civilian casualties is so easy.
It is. We aren't killing civilians in Australia or Peru or Canada or........
The specific thing the aircrew questioned was whether the requirement to have had American eyes on the target had been fulfilled. They asked (paraphrasing), "Has an American validated this?"
Nobody said anything like, "We think this is a hospital."
That's not a Geneva Convention requirement, btw, it is an additional requirement levied by the US command in Afghanistan because they discovered the Afghan forces were not reliable reporters. Failing to have an American observer validate the target is a violation of the local military orders, not an international war crime.
We kill 1 terrorist and 9 innocents die. That was the figure used during the obama drone strikes. One in 10 the intended target. So one terrorist dies and we ignore the fact that family and friends of the innocents will become terrorists. Makes sense, get 1 create 2. Only our government would think that's a plus.
That doesn't include those of ours that die because of these actions.
Check out pics like in number 142, 137, 136, 134, not to mention pics like in 223 or 222 or 195. Then we can note how we treated those in pics like 78 or 169.
The specific thing the aircrew questioned was whether the requirement to have had American eyes on the target had been fulfilled. They asked (paraphrasing), "Has an American validated this?"
Nobody said anything like, "We think this is a hospital."
That's not a Geneva Convention requirement, btw, it is an additional requirement levied by the US command in Afghanistan because they discovered the Afghan forces were not reliable reporters. Failing to have an American observer validate the target is a violation of the local military orders, not an international war crime.
From the link you supposedly read.
The story had yet another development on Thursday: Some U.S. intelligence analysts knew the site was a hospital before it was bombed,
How much more depraved can you be to bomb a hospital? They are the evil ones? We are lied, to. We don't bother to double check anything. We knowingly bomb a hospital knowing we are going to kill doctors and women and children.
The story had yet another development on Thursday: Some U.S. intelligence analysts knew the site was a hospital before it was bombed,
How much more depraved can you be to bomb a hospital? They are the evil ones? We are lied, to. We don't bother to double check anything. We knowingly bomb a hospital knowing we are going to kill doctors and women and children.
And they are the evil ones?
You are not part of the 'we' if you think we don't bother to double check anything.
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