• Pentagon admits airstrike in Mosul may have killed 100+ civilians this past March
    56 replies, posted
This is perhaps a worse case scenario as far as collateral damage goes. But the building was rigged with explosives and that is what caused the building to collapse. The US didn't kill those people intentionally. ISIS did however. Unfortunately, this is perfect propaganda material for ISIS. So their sick and barbaric tactics worked well for them here. We can't let this shake our resolve. Our air power is extremely helpful in the push to retake Iraq. [editline]27th May 2017[/editline] [QUOTE=GHOST!!!!;52281557]Yeah, that's like dropping a fucking Grizzly Bear on someone m8, [I]not large at all.[/I][/QUOTE] What else are you supposed to kill two people with from the sky? A gun run from something else might've been better, but would've turned the building into Swiss cheese anyway. Such an asset might not have been readily available, too. Using explosives to take out a guy or two is pretty standard if you've seen helicopter/plane gun cams. Apaches use Hellfire missiles on single targets all the time. And that might not have stopped ISIS from detonating the building and murdering those people, either.
What? I was on about him saying it's not large at all so I compared it to dropping a Grizzly Bear on someone/something, I wasn't on about what the fuck you'd use to do this shit.
[QUOTE=GHOST!!!!;52281629]What? I was on about him saying it's not large at all so I compared it to dropping a Grizzly Bear on someone/something, I wasn't on about what the fuck you'd use to do this shit.[/QUOTE] Because it's a small bomb by compassion. It's not that large. It was likely the best option available.
[QUOTE=hexpunK;52280929]It's been more than "one" fuck up tbh. Drone strikes, while useful, seem to lead to a lot of collateral damage. "Precise" munitions might not blow the entire neighbourhood up, but they sure as shit will blow up more than you really needed to destroy. Either we're accidentally killing a load of innocent bystanders, or we're destroying their livelihoods.[/QUOTE] I can go find the stats again if you want me to, but statistically drone strikes have the [i]lowest[/i] collateral damage of current military operations at something like 10-20% collateral, with precision airstrikes right behind. Killing a hundred civilians is inexcusable, but those are the stories that hit the news, not the successful strikes with no collateral.
[QUOTE=MatheusMCardoso;52280766]Really makes you think who are the biggest terrorists here.[/QUOTE] Yeah I can't believe people still support the US army after they keep releasing videos where they set on fire or behead prisoners, journalists and aid workers
[QUOTE=GHOST!!!!;52281629]What? I was on about him saying it's not large at all so I compared it to dropping a Grizzly Bear on someone/something, I wasn't on about what the fuck you'd use to do this shit.[/QUOTE] When you compare it to the bigger bombs in the US arsenal, like the 19,000 pound MOAB, it seems more fitting in comparison.
[QUOTE=MatheusMCardoso;52280766]Really makes you think who are the biggest terrorists here.[/QUOTE] Yeah I think I'm gonna go with the guys throwing gays off the top of buildings, setting prisoners on fire in cages, running them over with tanks, sawing off non-believers heads in the street, and [B]actively awaiting and seeking the end of the world[/B] dude It really makes me think you didn't [I]really[/I] think before you made this post
The terrorists were the ones that rigged a building full of civilians to explode. Not the people that engaged two enemy combatants unaware the building was full of people.
US Imperialism strikes again!
I can only imagine there being something darkly mystical about the USA to someone who is illiterate and grew up since 2001. I can imagine there being people who know nothing about them except the hell they rain from above.
There was an NPR report on this a few days ago. Pretty horrifying stuff. They authorized a heavy engagement on two combatants, despite having almost no intelligence as to potential civilians in the area. Bad weather had prevented adequate reconnaissance and surveillance. If you don't have intel on civilian presence, don't drop a fucking 500 lb bomb.
[QUOTE=MatheusMCardoso;52280766]Really makes you think who are the biggest terrorists here.[/QUOTE] Definitely isis. These airstrikes are not launched to incite fear in civilians, they target armed combatants and their infrastructure. I'm no strategist or bean counter, why aren't the US employing gunships? I understand they're more vulnerable to SAMs, but they're a lot less indiscriminate which is important in such a densely populated area
[QUOTE=ImUnstoppable;52282151]US Imperialism strikes again![/QUOTE] Nothing is funnier than when someone cries "Imperialism!" when it has no relation to the topic at hand. [editline]28th May 2017[/editline] [QUOTE=Zenreon117;52282806]I can only imagine there being something darkly mystical about the USA to someone who is illiterate and grew up since 2001. I can imagine there being people who know nothing about them except the hell they rain from above.[/QUOTE] Afghanistan has a tradition of making artful rugs that depict warfare. About 50 years ago it showed soldiers carrying sword and spear fighting off ancient invaders, now they depict AK-47s and drones. [T]http://media.npr.org/assets/img/2015/02/07/warrug1-16c4e0185e8d3183ed29d1b8b3e982dcd9f937ef-s900-c85.jpg[/t] The ongoing wars in the region have had a profound effect on culture there.
[QUOTE=Cyke Lon bee;52283156] [T]http://media.npr.org/assets/img/2015/02/07/warrug1-16c4e0185e8d3183ed29d1b8b3e982dcd9f937ef-s900-c85.jpg[/t] The ongoing wars in the region have had a profound effect on culture there.[/QUOTE] I have one of those brought back from my Dad. No drones, just a huge AK, RPGs, tanks, and other things. Even says Afghanistan in misspelled English. [editline]27th May 2017[/editline] This thread is not about Afghanistan, but I've heard some villages didn't even know about 9/11 or why we were there. We just rolled into town one day and took over. They had to explain why Americans were in their towns. The contrast in technology is extreme. Imagine being a goat herding teenager that's never seen a flat screen TV, and having a V-22 unload a troop of armored Marines, Strykers unloading bomb robots with cameras and arms, while a corpsman uses modern tools and devices on your little brothers broken arm. It must be crazy. Iraq is a lot more developed than Afghanistan, though. But they have much the same situation with the extreme contrast in technology.
[QUOTE=Zero-Point;52281087]Still seems a [I]little[/I] over the top, though. That and aren't JDAMs less accurate than laser-guided munitions, relying on GPS and all that?[/QUOTE] DCS/BMS Falcon armchair pilot here It may not technically be a JDAM and it pretty low yield for a single bomb. Most are old vietnam era bombs that have had laser guided a kit put on them. They're pretty effective since you can get 3 a rack on a single wing pylon and use laser targeting for precise strikes against multiple targets. They use laser targeting from a jet or something the of the like using a targeting pod and they're pretty accurate. For reference, pilots have been able to drop them down through air vents into buildings. If you want any lower you have to use a GBU-39 which are 250lb but are relatively new, expensive and not widely available yet. It wouldn't of made a difference what yield bomb was used since the building was rigged with explosives anyway.
[QUOTE=Emperor Scorpious II;52280752][url]https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/may/25/us-mosul-airstrikes-deadliest-attack-iraq-2003[/url][/QUOTE] So when a terrorist kills a couple dozen people in Europe, it's all we hear about in the news, but when the U.S. brutally murders 100+ innocent civilians as collateral it doesn't even make the news until 2 months later and no one is held accountable. And people wonder why we have radical extremists. America and our allies have been creating our own enemies through disgusting incompetence for the last 50 years.
[QUOTE=TraderRager;52283296]So when a terrorist kills a couple dozen people in Europe, it's all we hear about in the news, but when the U.S. brutally murders 100+ innocent civilians as collateral it doesn't even make the news until 2 months later and no one is held accountable. And people wonder why we have radical extremists. America and our allies have been creating our own enemies through disgusting incompetence for the last 50 years.[/QUOTE] Well intentionally murdering 20 people with a nail bomb in a country that is not at war is naturally going to be more shocking than an unfortunate instance of bad intel in a warzone with an enemy that has no problem lining buildings with explosives intentionally, surely it shouldn't come as a surprise why one is more shocking than the other? And what you think if the US wasn't there these kinds of deaths would suddenly stop? That the Iraqi airforce would perform absolutely 100% perfect bombings for the entire campaign? Don't kid yourself, it was probably them who gave the bad intel in the first place. I don't get why you think this would make people hate the west more than ISIS, a group that regularly beheads, bombs and burns civilians for all manner of reasons. Do you think the Iraqi people are idiots? Would you support an organisation like that if you were an Iraqi just because of one bad bombing? I guess you could always hand Iraq over to ISIS? Sure they'll kill thousands if not millions of Kurds and Shia's, but hey at least you as a western middle class person can feel good that a couple of hundred accidental civilian deaths weren't caused by American bombs, and that's what really matters at the end of the day!
[QUOTE=TraderRager;52283296]So when a terrorist kills a couple dozen people in Europe, it's all we hear about in the news, but when the U.S. brutally murders 100+ innocent civilians as collateral it doesn't even make the news until 2 months later and no one is held accountable. And people wonder why we have radical extremists. America and our allies have been creating our own enemies through disgusting incompetence for the last 50 years.[/QUOTE] It's disgusting to see this. Hundreds of people dead and not a single mention, because they aren't Westerners. Just take a look at the World Terrorism Index. The U.S. is #36 and is miles below countries that experience tens of thousands of yearly deaths from terrorist attacks. But those ones don't matter, because those are the other guys. The amount of social media virtue-signaling that happened after the attacks in France, compared to the near-simultaneous (and [I]significantly[/I] larger) attack in Lebanon, genuinely bothers me. People are so saturated with images of the Middle East as some backwards shithole full of raghead terrorists that they forget to even give a shit that real people, not much different from them, are dying by the tens of thousands to terrorist attacks. We freak about two or three deaths, when that happens every single day there. It's pathetic that nobody cares - a Muslim terrorist kills ten and suddenly the entire Muslim community needs to stand up and be accountable. The U.S. military drops a bomb on 100 civilians and the news doesn't run the story for months. Fucked priorities.
I don't think you can really blame ordinary people, especially considering people are going to care more about those closer culturally to themselves then others. At the same time it is quite sad. I do remember hearing about the attacks in Lebanon at the time. It was surprising more wasn't mentioned.
[QUOTE=Trebgarta;52284244]Theyd care about Tokyo. Theyd care about Shanghai, theyd care about Rio. Cultural similarity isnt a metric for caring about civilian deaths. It is something else.[/QUOTE] It's more people just don't find it surprising when it happens in war torn middle east countries with massive amounts of ethnic tension. "People die in warzone" isn't going to shock many people. It's the shock factor that gets people to care, terrorist attacks aren't overly common in the west compared to the middle east, hence why people are more shocked by them, even more so if they're closer to home. Even then though they're becoming so common here people don't seem to be nearly as shocked by them as they used to.
[QUOTE=TraderRager;52283296]So when a terrorist kills a couple dozen people in Europe, it's all we hear about in the news, but when the U.S. brutally murders 100+ innocent civilians as collateral it doesn't even make the news until 2 months later and no one is held accountable. And people wonder why we have radical extremists. America and our allies have been creating our own enemies through disgusting incompetence for the last 50 years.[/QUOTE] US jets dropped the bomb because the Iraqi spotters called it in and confirmed it to be clear. Blame Iraqi military, not the US. Furthermore if you read the article, you would notice that it said that ISIS had explosives in that building, which is actually what leveled the building. Even further, it was Iraqi forced that refused to pull survivors from the rubbel or refused help to those that escaped on their own. But I can dig ignorant, blind hatred for the US, especially when theyre not even at fault this time.
[QUOTE=Trebgarta;52284244]Theyd care about Tokyo. Theyd care about Shanghai, theyd care about Rio. Cultural similarity isnt a metric for caring about civilian deaths. It is something else.[/QUOTE] Cultural similarity is definitely part of it when most of the civilian deaths people care about in the Middle East are non-Muslims getting killed for their religion or lack thereof.
[QUOTE=Trebgarta;52284244]Theyd care about Tokyo. Theyd care about Shanghai, theyd care about Rio. Cultural similarity isnt a metric for caring about civilian deaths. It is something else.[/QUOTE] None of those are war zones. If terrorists blew up the Burj Khalifa, or something in Saudi Arabia, or Kuwait, people would be in shock. The reason no one reports or shows concern for people dying in Iraq is because people have been dying in Iraq for decades. (Even during Saddam) "People die in military bombing run" is a lot more expected than "terrorist blows up concert full of kids" Simple truth of it. People expect violence from the region. [editline]28th May 2017[/editline] [QUOTE=TacticalBacon;52284771]Cultural similarity is definitely part of it when most of the civilian deaths people care about in the Middle East are non-Muslims getting killed for their religion or lack thereof.[/QUOTE] This is because the biggest religion in the United States and the West are Christian ones. Christians are naturally going to care more about their own dying when it happens.
[QUOTE=OvB;52284880]This is because the biggest religion in the United States and the West are Christian ones. Christians are naturally going to care more about their own dying when it happens.[/QUOTE] That's what I'm saying, people care more when they have cultural similarity. It quite clearly is a metric, unlike Trebgarta thinks.
[QUOTE=Trebgarta;52284244]Theyd care about Tokyo. Theyd care about Shanghai, theyd care about Rio. Cultural similarity isnt a metric for caring about civilian deaths. It is something else.[/QUOTE] It's funny you mention that, because the Allies purposefully killed millions in Germany and Japan during WWII, in one instance fire-bombing 30,000 civilians to death and Germany, and vaporizing 150,000 in Japan. Nobody cared at the time, in the military or civilians as a whole. What it comes down to is the norm. It's normal for people to die because of terrorism in the middle east, but not in the west. It's not pretty or just but it's true. When you see a stream of news articles about suicide bombings and civilian deaths coming from that region, people tend to get numb to it, just like people got numb to the massive amount of death during WWII unless it was directly related to them. It's not that they don't care about it anymore, it's just that it's hopeless to worry about it. It's not like caring about it does anything to help or halt the situation anyways; changing your FB profile picture to have an Iraqi flag overlayed isn't going to save any lives or stop the bombs from dropping, and having a French flag over your profile picture didn't help wash the blood off the streets of Nice after the truck attack. [editline]28th May 2017[/editline] [QUOTE=TacticalBacon;52285017]That's what I'm saying, people care more when they have cultural similarity. It quite clearly is a metric, unlike Trebgarta thinks.[/QUOTE] It more has to do with Arab Muslims dying regularly in these conflicts as opposed to White Christians. Arab Muslims dying as a result to Terrorism is the norm currently.
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