[quote]ZEB wrote:
[quote]FightinIrish26 wrote:
Not that killing civilians is a good thing, but christ, aren’t we at war here? Doesn’t this shit happen?
I don’t recall Eisenhower apologizing to the Germans after Dresden.
You are absolutely correct![/quote]
No he is not, because
a) you are not at war.
b) the narrative now is somewhere along the lines of “freeing those poor people from the terrible oppression of the Taliban”. Killing to free them simply will not do.
[quote]orion wrote:
[quote]ZEB wrote:
[quote]FightinIrish26 wrote:
Not that killing civilians is a good thing, but christ, aren’t we at war here? Doesn’t this shit happen?
I don’t recall Eisenhower apologizing to the Germans after Dresden.
You are absolutely correct![/quote]
No he is not, because
a) you are not at war.
b) the narrative now is somewhere along the lines of “freeing those poor people from the terrible oppression of the Taliban”. Killing to free them simply will not do.
[/quote]
This is my point exactly. If we are going to send troops somewhere to kill and be killed:
a) we should actually be at war, and treat it as such
and
b) the goal should be to kill/destroy/eliminate a given enemy. “Freeing people” and “winning hearts and minds” are not valid aims for the use of force IMO.
I still don’t see what the problem is. We ARE fighting a war, and we’re still killing terrorists. But that means we can’t apologize for accidentally killing civilians? How could his statement affect the coalition forces negatively in any way?
[quote]HG Thrower wrote:
[quote]orion wrote:
[quote]ZEB wrote:
[quote]FightinIrish26 wrote:
Not that killing civilians is a good thing, but christ, aren’t we at war here? Doesn’t this shit happen?
I don’t recall Eisenhower apologizing to the Germans after Dresden.
You are absolutely correct![/quote]
No he is not, because
a) you are not at war.
b) the narrative now is somewhere along the lines of “freeing those poor people from the terrible oppression of the Taliban”. Killing to free them simply will not do.
[/quote]
This is my point exactly. If we are going to send troops somewhere to kill and be killed:
a) we should actually be at war, and treat it as such
and
b) the goal should be to kill/destroy/eliminate a given enemy. “Freeing people” and “winning hearts and minds” are not valid aims for the use of force IMO.[/quote]
Well then you would have to explain to me why you are fighting the Taliban in the first place.
Right until you attacked them they were your allies.
Granted, someone had planned 9-11 in Afghanistan but that is also true for Germany and I do not remember you bombing them.
[quote]PB Andy wrote:
I still don’t see what the problem is. We ARE fighting a war, and we’re still killing terrorists. But that means we can’t apologize for accidentally killing civilians? How could his statement affect the coalition forces negatively in any way?[/quote]
I’m just saying that if the commander went on TV every time a civilian got killed, they’d have had one designated just for that duty in Iraq because there would’ve been no time to do anything else.
And my guess is a lot of the people we’re apologizing to don’t have TV’s in the first place.
But either way, you want the Taliban out, there’s going to be civilian deaths. Shit happens, it’s war. Apologize later.
[quote]orion wrote:
Well then you would have to explain to me why you are fighting the Taliban in the first place.
Right until you attacked them they were your allies.
Granted, someone had planned 9-11 in Afghanistan but that is also true for Germany and I do not remember you bombing them.
[/quote]
I agree that going to war with the country from which the 9-11 terrorists originated isn’t necessarily correct. In this case, the definition of who we should be at war with is pretty damn complicated. A certain faction or wing of the Muslim religion? Maybe. The idea of a “religious war” is pretty foreign to most Americans, but definitely not to our current enemies.
As to your distinction between the Taliban and Germany, the Taliban ruled Afghanistan at the time of the attacks, and certainly aided and sympathized with the attackers. The German government did no such thing. So, we overthrew the Taliban, they regrouped, now we are where we are.
[quote]orion wrote:
Right until you attacked them they were your allies.
[/quote]
Not true. The Taliban were formed in Pakistan. Our allies lived and fought the Russians in Afghanistan. During the civil war after the Russians left Afghanistan, the Taliban came in from Pakistan, with the protection of Pakistan, to unite the country under Pastun rule. Our allies are what were later referred to as the Northern Alliance, because they were driven to the northern part of Afghanistan. They were also actually allied and supplied by Iran who hated the fundimental Suni Taliban.
It might interest you to wiki the Afghanistan war, find out who the commanders were during the 80’s and find out how many are in the Karzai government today. If they were with the Taliban, they would not be with the Karzai govt. although a few did switch sides.
This doesn’t mean we should pull out because civilians die. We simply do our best to avoid killing civilians and apologize if we make a mistake.
mike
[quote]orion wrote:
[quote]HG Thrower wrote:
[quote]orion wrote:
[quote]ZEB wrote:
[quote]FightinIrish26 wrote:
Not that killing civilians is a good thing, but christ, aren’t we at war here? Doesn’t this shit happen?
I don’t recall Eisenhower apologizing to the Germans after Dresden.
You are absolutely correct![/quote]
No he is not, because
a) you are not at war.
b) the narrative now is somewhere along the lines of “freeing those poor people from the terrible oppression of the Taliban”. Killing to free them simply will not do.
[/quote]
This is my point exactly. If we are going to send troops somewhere to kill and be killed:
a) we should actually be at war, and treat it as such
and
b) the goal should be to kill/destroy/eliminate a given enemy. “Freeing people” and “winning hearts and minds” are not valid aims for the use of force IMO.[/quote]
Well then you would have to explain to me why you are fighting the Taliban in the first place.
Right until you attacked them they were your allies.
Granted, someone had planned 9-11 in Afghanistan but that is also true for Germany and I do not remember you bombing them.
[/quote]
Orion - the term ally in world politics in highly subjective. When, in the 70’s they were fighting the Russians, we helped them arm themselves because the USSR was the ONLY threat to America at the time. The Soviet-Afghani war was simply a proxy during the great conflict known as the Cold War. That being said, the term “ally” and “enemy” mean different things in world politics. Morals do not exist, and your ally one day can perfectly be your enemy the next simply because one nation is incapable of trusting another… so lets not confuse “ally” for “friends”.
Speculation- the reason we struck the Taliban so fast and unitarily is the same reason why the French and British should’ve stopped Hitler the minute he decided to re-arm Germany; once the Taliban struck at America’s heart and were able to get away with it - terrorism would’ve spread like a fucking yeast infection simply because Muslims felt they could get away with something like that. Terrorism did spread (?) but only because we attacked Iraq, for whatever reason your guess is as good as mine…
[quote]spyoptic wrote:
[quote]orion wrote:
[quote]HG Thrower wrote:
[quote]orion wrote:
[quote]ZEB wrote:
[quote]FightinIrish26 wrote:
Not that killing civilians is a good thing, but christ, aren’t we at war here? Doesn’t this shit happen?
I don’t recall Eisenhower apologizing to the Germans after Dresden.
You are absolutely correct![/quote]
No he is not, because
a) you are not at war.
b) the narrative now is somewhere along the lines of “freeing those poor people from the terrible oppression of the Taliban”. Killing to free them simply will not do.
[/quote]
This is my point exactly. If we are going to send troops somewhere to kill and be killed:
a) we should actually be at war, and treat it as such
and
b) the goal should be to kill/destroy/eliminate a given enemy. “Freeing people” and “winning hearts and minds” are not valid aims for the use of force IMO.[/quote]
Well then you would have to explain to me why you are fighting the Taliban in the first place.
Right until you attacked them they were your allies.
Granted, someone had planned 9-11 in Afghanistan but that is also true for Germany and I do not remember you bombing them.
[/quote]
Orion - the term ally in world politics in highly subjective. When, in the 70’s they were fighting the Russians, we helped them arm themselves because the USSR was the ONLY threat to America at the time. The Soviet-Afghani war was simply a proxy during the great conflict known as the Cold War. That being said, the term “ally” and “enemy” mean different things in world politics. Morals do not exist, and your ally one day can perfectly be your enemy the next simply because one nation is incapable of trusting another… so lets not confuse “ally” for “friends”.
Speculation- the reason we struck the Taliban so fast and unitarily is the same reason why the French and British should’ve stopped Hitler the minute he decided to re-arm Germany; once the Taliban struck at America’s heart and were able to get away with it - terrorism would’ve spread like a fucking yeast infection simply because Muslims felt they could get away with something like that. Terrorism did spread (?) but only because we attacked Iraq, for whatever reason your guess is as good as mine…
[/quote]
The Taliban never struck at anyone outside of Afghanistan.
They were just minding their own business, opressing women, killing gays and such, when OBL attacked America.
They never were enemies of the US and there was no reason to make them enemies.
Now they are kind of pissed though.
[quote]Gkhan wrote:
[quote]orion wrote:
Right until you attacked them they were your allies.
[/quote]
Not true. The Taliban were formed in Pakistan. Our allies lived and fought the Russians in Afghanistan. During the civil war after the Russians left Afghanistan, the Taliban came in from Pakistan, with the protection of Pakistan, to unite the country under Pastun rule. Our allies are what were later referred to as the Northern Alliance, because they were driven to the northern part of Afghanistan. They were also actually allied and supplied by Iran who hated the fundimental Suni Taliban.
It might interest you to wiki the Afghanistan war, find out who the commanders were during the 80’s and find out how many are in the Karzai government today. If they were with the Taliban, they would not be with the Karzai govt. although a few did switch sides.
[/quote]
The Northern Alliance was basically a secular, or at least relatively secular group.
The Taliban are the former Mujaheddin and those were your allies.
Same religion, same reason for fighting, same MO.
The point was that you cannot claim to fight a war to free people and then kill them in great numbers because they do not want to be “freed”.
Either this is an occupation then please feel free to ethnically cleanse the country and put a lot of god fearing Americans there or leave, or you want to shoulder the white mans burden and bring the light of civilization to those savages then you cannot really kill them if they refuse to bow to your superior culture.
You guys do not even know what you want there, but you get pissed when they fight back anyway.
Ok, I did some research myself, it appears the Taliban were ONE group of fighters we backed. All the leaders of the other many tribes we helped are actually in the Karzai government.
So, you may be correct that we helped one group of people known as the Taliban, but THE MAJORITY of the fighters we backed were and are pro-American and are currently our allies.
There was no way of knowing in the 80’s that the Taliban would emerge as the dominant force in Afghanistan and harbor our enemies.
Like I said, research the Afghan war against the Russians, find out who the resistance leaders were, what they are doing now and you will see that I am correct.
[quote]orion wrote:
[quote]spyoptic wrote:
[quote]orion wrote:
[quote]HG Thrower wrote:
[quote]orion wrote:
[quote]ZEB wrote:
[quote]FightinIrish26 wrote:
Not that killing civilians is a good thing, but christ, aren’t we at war here? Doesn’t this shit happen?
I don’t recall Eisenhower apologizing to the Germans after Dresden.
You are absolutely correct![/quote]
No he is not, because
a) you are not at war.
b) the narrative now is somewhere along the lines of “freeing those poor people from the terrible oppression of the Taliban”. Killing to free them simply will not do.
[/quote]
This is my point exactly. If we are going to send troops somewhere to kill and be killed:
a) we should actually be at war, and treat it as such
and
b) the goal should be to kill/destroy/eliminate a given enemy. “Freeing people” and “winning hearts and minds” are not valid aims for the use of force IMO.[/quote]
Well then you would have to explain to me why you are fighting the Taliban in the first place.
Right until you attacked them they were your allies.
Granted, someone had planned 9-11 in Afghanistan but that is also true for Germany and I do not remember you bombing them.
[/quote]
Orion - the term ally in world politics in highly subjective. When, in the 70’s they were fighting the Russians, we helped them arm themselves because the USSR was the ONLY threat to America at the time. The Soviet-Afghani war was simply a proxy during the great conflict known as the Cold War. That being said, the term “ally” and “enemy” mean different things in world politics. Morals do not exist, and your ally one day can perfectly be your enemy the next simply because one nation is incapable of trusting another… so lets not confuse “ally” for “friends”.
Speculation- the reason we struck the Taliban so fast and unitarily is the same reason why the French and British should’ve stopped Hitler the minute he decided to re-arm Germany; once the Taliban struck at America’s heart and were able to get away with it - terrorism would’ve spread like a fucking yeast infection simply because Muslims felt they could get away with something like that. Terrorism did spread (?) but only because we attacked Iraq, for whatever reason your guess is as good as mine…
[/quote]
The Taliban never struck at anyone outside of Afghanistan.
They were just minding their own business, opressing women, killing gays and such, when OBL attacked America.
They never were enemies of the US and there was no reason to make them enemies.
Now they are kind of pissed though.[/quote]
Orion you are debating the semantics of war, which is neither here nor there when it comes to the primary issue which Irish raised…
Irish is correct.
[quote]FightinIrish26 wrote:
[quote]PB Andy wrote:
I still don’t see what the problem is. We ARE fighting a war, and we’re still killing terrorists. But that means we can’t apologize for accidentally killing civilians? How could his statement affect the coalition forces negatively in any way?[/quote]
I’m just saying that if the commander went on TV every time a civilian got killed, they’d have had one designated just for that duty in Iraq because there would’ve been no time to do anything else.
And my guess is a lot of the people we’re apologizing to don’t have TV’s in the first place.
But either way, you want the Taliban out, there’s going to be civilian deaths. Shit happens, it’s war. Apologize later.[/quote]
Have you been taking your “Right Wing Crazy” pills lately?
[quote]HG Thrower wrote:
My point is this: If we are going to go to war, fucking go to war. War isn’t a pleasant experience, nor should it be. I’m not suggesting arbitrarily targeting civilians, but when the enemy hides among civlians, and uses civilians as a de-facto supply chain, civilian casualties MUST be inevitable. Otherwise, there is no way to kill the enemy, which is the goal of warfare. The U.S. hasn’t had a real victory since WWII. Political hand-tying in Vietnam led to our withdrawl, even though we didn’t lose ONE SINGLE ENGAGEMENT on the field of battle. But the political restrictions caused the overall effort to fail. In my opinion we are looking at the same outcome now. Restrict targets, and the enemy hides in the restricted areas. Pretty simple really.
Regarding your point that you didn’t hate the USA, great. There were many Germans in WWII who didn’t hate the USA, or UK, or France. But they also didn’t do anything to oppose the Nazis. And they died, or fled. This is a reality of war, which you should know personally. If the civilians can’t or won’t drive out the extremist elements in their own areas, they always have the option to flee. I agree that this sucks for them, but war isn’t a series of honorable duels between pre-agreed combatants. Most especially when the enemy makes every effort to be virtually indistiguishable from the general populace. Where is your outrage about terrorists essentially using civilians as human shields?[/quote]
I understand what’s you are saying, but I don’t think you thought it through.
Two points - wearing a uniform doesn’t give you the right to murder. Innocent people should be off-limits. Granted, it’s SOMETIMES inevitable, but it’s never OK. The reason you can’t see it is because you never met the people there, so to you they are not people, just numbers. If you fuck up, killing dozens (this is not the first time this happens, news networks almost never report on it) the LEAST you can do is to say: My bad, we didn’t mean to.
Second point: Indiscriminate force will antagonize the locals. And, with no disrespect to the most powerful army in the world - if most Afghans start seeing you as their enemies, Iraq will look like a warm-up.
As for ‘not opposing’, it’s pointless and kinda dumb for me to use my experience as an argument, when there is no way to verify it. But if you want, you can take my word that my dad, for example, was not one of the people who did nothing.
And your last sentence - of course I’m outraged. But they are terrorists. They are bound to a**holes.
[quote]Gkhan wrote:
Ok, I did some research myself, it appears the Taliban were ONE group of fighters we backed. All the leaders of the other many tribes we helped are actually in the Karzai government.
So, you may be correct that we helped one group of people known as the Taliban, but THE MAJORITY of the fighters we backed were and are pro-American and are currently our allies.
There was no way of knowing in the 80’s that the Taliban would emerge as the dominant force in Afghanistan and harbor our enemies.
Like I said, research the Afghan war against the Russians, find out who the resistance leaders were, what they are doing now and you will see that I am correct.[/quote]
It doesn’t matter who we financed!!! this is world politics not high school drama. There is no right or wrong. There are no permanent enemies or permanent friends. The ONLY thing that matters is NATIONAL INTEREST.
I wish we would use all the weapons we have and quit risking our fine young people over there.
Use HAARP and send 'em a fucking hurricane or something. Hugo Chavez said we caused Haiti using HAARP. Is he right?
[quote]spyoptic wrote:
[ The ONLY thing that matters is NATIONAL INTEREST. [/quote]
and our national interest at the time was to give the Russians their “Vietnam”.
and we achieved that goal.
We had no way of knowing the implications of this 20 years down the road.
Given the nature of the global nuclear cold war, it was the best choice we could have made.
On the same day as the OP’s story about Nato’s forces killing civilians, 15 civilains were killed by a suicide bombing.
Wouldn’t that turn the people against the Taliban?
I don’t hear an outcry about killing civilians in that case and I sure as hell don’t hear a Taliban or Al-Qaeda commander apologizing.