"U.S. assault: Children found dead" That's the headline.
It was an airstrike on a location known to be a huge weapons cache'. After the initial strike there were other explosions and at some point a wall fell and crushed six children.
Makes me sad that this is the only situation that they found newsworthy in a while. I feel very badly that children were killed and I feel for the leader that made the call to make the assault and the men that actually carried out the orders. The actions being taken are neccesary, but as moral as our soldiers are, tears will definitely be shed for all the children and other nocombatants that are inadvertantly killed or injured in combat operations.
Posts: 2532 | Registered: Jul 2001
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Odouls, the story I heard on this laid the blame squarely on failed intelligence.
One of the things that bothered me about it was that it WAS an airstrike. We fire from far away without on-the-ground reconnaisance. What do we expect?
I think this is horrible and immoral in the extreme. The fact that children were killed just makes it more tragic.
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There is no possible way to determine the absolute certainty of a target actually being what we think it is. We go by percentages, like if were to go in and bomb a house that we suspect there to be Taliban member's in there might only be a 90% probability that there is the right people in there. Any kind of intelegence we have, no matter how up-to-date or good it is, will never be absolute.
You also complain that it is immoral to hit targets from a distance! To that I say: WHAT THE HELL! The very essence of warfare is to hit your enemy without putting yourself into harms way. You can see this as far back as the stone-age. In fact, that is the very reason we have weapons!
If you're saying that it is immoral to actually go to war, than I agree with you Bob, but it's human to fight. We can't get rid of that part of ourselves.
Bob, please don't take any of this wrong. We just differ in opinion on this one.
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Considering we still don't have concrete proof that Osama bin Laden was behind September 11, No.
Posts: 91 | Registered: Nov 2003
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There's actually been a fair amount of quiet coverage in Time, largely reporting the resurgence of the Taliban, the Balkanizing of the nation among warlords, and just general lawlessness.
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I don't think the US, or any other country, can stop terrorism permanently. There are schools in the Middle East that are teaching about the evils of the West and there are elementary age kids that are just waiting for the opportunity to participate in an attack. Continuing to attack Afghanistan and Iraq, killing more people, will only incite more hatred and the desire for retribution toward the US, or its allies.
Perhaps by invading and killing children we are teaching them to fear attacking the US again because of retribution, but the war cannot continue forever. Once we withdraw from Iraq, what's to say that terrorism won't continue any longer.
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I think Osama bin Ladin was behind September 11. I just don't think the United States has the right to unnilaterally challange anybody's soveirgnity, especially by attacking them in an all out invasion, hate and war breeds nothing more than more hate and war. Satyagraha
Posts: 1986 | Registered: Apr 2001
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the US did not attack Afghanistan unilaterally. The US attacked the Taliban and Al qaeda. The Afghan people were ecstatic to have our special ops forces in country to help them in the fight they have been fighting for years. Having US weapons and training by united states Army Green Berets (a misnomer, but easily recognizable through common usage), and cell takedown by our Navy SEALs, and airstrike coordination by US Air Force Combat controllors gave them renewed hope for their own freedom.
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Now don't get me wrong, now that were there, I think we do have to finish what we started and put Afgahnistan onto its feet towards modernization....but bombing without proper intellegence, I'll tell you right now, the higher ups are cursing about not being able to put enough on-site intellegence, they've been cursing it since the end of the Cold War. Scott, there was a time when we were able to get good on-site intellegence, the only reason we don't now, is because the policy makers upstairs decide that for some reason a video camera in the air is better than an eye on the ground. Satyagraha
Posts: 1986 | Registered: Apr 2001
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My point remains valid still, you can never have the "right" amount of intel. Even your point about it being once 'upon a time' that we had on-site intel is bogus. A good portion of special ops missions is recon. And in that 'once upon a time' world the intel was tainted by the time it took to communicate it to the Big Heads. Intelegence will never, ever be perfect.
It sounds like odouls has his facts straight.
Posts: 1660 | Registered: Jan 2000
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In field information is never meant to go back to the 'big heads' in Washington, that's micromanaging, its supposed to go to where it matters, the in-theatre commander, in which information takes no more than a few hours, or in the past with more remote locations, a day. And yes, the United States attacked the Taliban and Al qaeda, poor choice of words on my part. The fact of Afghan people being estatic about our troops being there is questionable, it's only by what our reporters report. If the Afgans love us so much, where is there still so much resistance? Why are warlords still controlling the vast majority of the country? Why, in fact, did we have to bomb this weapons cache instead of...oh I don't know...taking it? There are a lot of questions to be asked, you can't just blindingly say "It's a part of war." But now we're going onto a tangent, the fact that we're there can't be changed. The point was the lack of intellegence (I apologize for divulging from the original topic), the fact of it is there could have been better intellegence on the ground. Satyagraha (I apologize for being brief and rather stucky on this post, i just noticed that i have 15 minutes before I have an essay due, I shouldn't even be hatracking)
Posts: 1986 | Registered: Apr 2001
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If you say the term Big Head to an enlisted guy, he'll tell you it's anyone over him. That is trivial and my point still remains. Mistakes will always be made.
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Outstanding. Senior Airman, right? (im a little iffy on air force chain of command)
A buddy of mine from high school went air force and was in training to be a Pararescue Jumper. Unfortunately he was badly injured in a car accident and was medically discharged.
Posts: 2532 | Registered: Jul 2001
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