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US confirms their air strike on ISIS killed 105 civilians, the target was 2 snipers
- Thread starter AcademicSaucer
- Start date
How About No
Member
Yep, shitty horrible situation regardless, it at least sounds like we weren't just dropping bombs in civilian areas willy nilly. Well, this time at least
Sad Affleck
Member
War crime.
And our freedom to.
Especially considering the fact that US foreign policy has played a primary role in the mess these countries are in along with the rise of extremism. But let's ignore that.
Getting a sniper close enough to the targets involves boots on the ground and we don't know how feasible that action would be. On paper, this probably looked like a good plan. And it would have been, if we weren't dealing scum of this level.
Ray Wonder
Founder of the Wounded Tagless Children
The strike was requested by Iraq Security Services, if that helps the argument at all.
John Rabbit
Banned
How dare these terrorists attack children.
BlazinSkatinAxel
Member
Exactly. People don't understand this.
Terrorists still killed these people, to be honest.
Ground troops often cause more civilian casualties than airstrikes, believe it or not. There's no way we can fight against ISIS without civilian lives being lost. The question we must then ask ourselves is whether the fight against ISIS is worth it knowing how many civilians are going to be dead because of it. Will it be a net positive?
Yup. There's no "good" answer here, just a bunch of mediocre to awful ones which all have mass negative side effects.
What do you propose?
That's no contest.
But terrorism is not about body counts. It's a tool used to achieve a political goal.
You can't beat terrorism with an army but we seem too stupid to understand that coming on 20 years into this.
Billy_Pilgrim
Member
If people want rid of ISIS, civilians are going to have to die. How quickly you want rid of them determines how many civilians will end up dying in total. It's not nice, it's not pretty and it's not right. It's just how it is.
The reason so many people died was because of terrorism (ISIS rigging the building with explosives). America didn't mean to kill these people. That's not an excuse, and it's an inexcusable action, but what the US did is not terrorism.
No. That is not what the report says. The civilians weren't held as hostages, the building wasn't rigged with explosives as a trap.
The civilians hid in the building to be protected from the fire and ISIS stored explosives in the back of that same building.
CNN
This wasn't some elaborate trap the US fell for. I'm not even sure why that would matter because either way: They bombed a building without having any idea who or what was inside.
There was indeed terrorism, but it wasn't the US that did it. Read the article.
Master Yoshi
Member
Are we the terrorists?
Sho_Nuff82
Member
Thank you. Selective quoting can steer a thread.
"Also, they brown. Who gives a fuck, bombs away!!"
adamsapple
Or is it just one of Phil's balls in my throat?
Let's see how they try to spin this in the next White House Press briefing.
Royal_Phalanx
Member
Ah fuck, RIP to the civilians.
Brawly Likes to Brawl
Member
Okay, so you got rid of ISIS, but now there's some group(s) formed from people who were scorned by witnessing innocent people get killed in the crossfire.
Netherscourge
Banned
I'm just completely embarrassed and shamed by my country right now.
The President, military leaders... congress...
I have never felt so much shame and anger than I do right now.
If it takes 105 civilian deaths to kill 2 enemy snipers, it's NOT WORTH IT.
The President, military leaders... congress...
I have never felt so much shame and anger than I do right now.
If it takes 105 civilian deaths to kill 2 enemy snipers, it's NOT WORTH IT.
Various Artists
Banned
This isn't meant to sound cheesy or B level quotable but sometimes I wonder if we are the terrorists. From their point of view I can see why they hate western civilization so much. Just imagine what would happen if they shot a mistsle at a Costco in FL to kill two enlisted Marines and everyone died in Costco. The nation would be in an uproar and you bet your ass we'd be retaliating.
Fox Mulder
Member
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That doesn't mean every decision which results in civilian deaths is justified or wise though.
Directly? The terrorists.
Indirectly? Decades of shitty policy and oil addiction. Bonus points for encouraging Apocalypse Evangelicals in the process.
Netherscourge
Banned
This is what pisses me off the most:
- so they said FUCK IT, we'll bomb it anyway without even CHECKING IT OUT.
- so they said FUCK IT, we'll bomb it anyway without even CHECKING IT OUT.
Randolph Freelander
Member
This wasn't some master plan by ISIS. The US dropped bombs on a building not knowing who or what was in it.
Yes.
Billy_Pilgrim
Member
I agree. I just wonder how much longer things can go on as they are without an escalation into an actual military operation.
The building was not rigged with explosives, there was a depot in the building that intel didn't know.
The facts are:
-American Intel knew there were civilians in there that could be at risk no matter how much they tried to "minimize risk"
-The civilians were not forced there by terrorist but seeking refugee, american intel knew this
-The strike was to target 2 people and they knew there was (although allegedly minimal) a chance that civilian casualties would happen and they would vastly outnumber the target if hit
America thought that the chance of hitting over 100 civilians was worth the shot to kill 2 terrorists, turns out there was a bomb deposit their intel didn't know, you can't go "oopsie!" from this, those civilian casualties were something they were totally okay to waste.
Random Painted HIghway
Member
Jesus
Dark Cloud
Member
I always feel for the innocents who get killed by these terrorists and these so called "heroes" who think they're killing terrorists.
US foreign policy in the region speaks for itself. It's been disastrous.
Because then you'd have to risk the lives of US soldiers. And those lives apparently matter a lot more than a bunch of Syrian civilians.
Exactly. Put yourself in their shoes for a second. It's freaking carnage.
Ray Wonder
Founder of the Wounded Tagless Children
If it helps your shame and anger, the Iraq Security Services are the ones who requested the strike on that building.
What a load of fucking bullshit.
Not using missiles to potentially destroy an entire building all to kill two snipers is a feasible measure, but you didn't try that, did you?
And if you didn't KNOW for certain that there were no civilians in the building, it's not hard to predict that there might have been, is it? 'Could not have predicted the presence of civilians'... in a fucking building. Jesus christ, piss off. Fucking murderers.
Sho_Nuff82
Member
They intentionally station themselves surrounded by civilians in order to suppress return fire and bombardment action. Because they are cowards and self-aware enough to know they cannot win a head to head battle.
Hamas and Hezbollah do the same thing, only it doesn't work because Israel actually does bomb indiscriminately.
Barack Obama won in 2008 largely on the back of the promise to remove us from such massive ground offensives. We can't have it both ways.
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