US Air Strike Kills 85 Civilians

[AE Bravo]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016...taken-for-isi/

US forces mistook them as IS fighters and droned them all. Tired of all these terrorists lately.

[Seamus Fermanagh]

You're playing a little rough with the specifics of the very article you cite.

Drones were not involved. Drones, by the way, are less likely to kill civilians by mistake because the stealth/loiter time gives them more time to assess targets. Mistakes still occur, of course, but the incidence is lower than for a pilot flying rapidly in a combat zone and concerned for her/his own safety. According to the article you cite, it was a aircraft attack and not a drone attack.

Saddening to see the wrong people harmed.

[Strike For The South]

Many Isil fighters are still holed up in the city, and are preventing thousands of civilians from leaving, effectively using them as human shields.

Reminds me of Hamas.

I also enjoy the false equivalency people try to create by starting these threads. So deep bro, making me think real hard. The United States does not go out of its way to kill civilians, nor do they use human shields. When something like that does happen, and over the course of American operations, it certainly has, The perpetrators are dealt with using a very unsympathetic military justice system. Of course, this is opposed to the literal dogs they were trying to bomb who deserve nothing more than to be scourged from Earth.

Combat is nasty. People die. More often than not, the people who die have no stake in the outcome of the fight. The American media has done a fairly good job of whitewashing this fact. Seeing a smart bomb hit a target is so sterile, almost medical. The lead up to the war in Iraq talked a lot about bringing democracy but very little about a sectarian conflict whose cost would mostly fall on the shoulders of those with no voice.

Of course bringing democracy to these regions usually devolves into some sort of theocracy where the young men, with no job or marriage prospects are thrown into the meat grinder. It was easier dealing with the autocrats.

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016...taken-for-isi/

US forces mistook them as IS fighters and droned them all. Tired of all these terrorists lately.

Your article says "nearly 60", not "85".

Aside from that, there's a huge difference between the legendary stupidity of the USAF and ISIL's terrorists activities.

I'm going to take the same line as I did when that MSF hospital was hit - it'll be the pilot/aircrew that screwed this up. I was right last time (proved after a lengthy investigation) and I expect I'll be right this time. Such tragedies are usually avoidable, the result of badly thought out Rules of Engagement or failure to check intelligence before pulling the trigger.

These sorts of things will keep happening until there's a complete rethink by the US in how they use heavy weapons. Bombing people whoa re running away is roughly the same as shooting people in the back. In war it's necessary sometimes if you think they're liable to turn around and counter-attack but in the case of ISIL our Air-Dominance makes such considerations moot.

[Hooahguy]

Didnt you and I have a huge argument last time about how British pilots are just as stupid?

[AE Bravo]

I also enjoy the false equivalency

I meant IS when I said terrorists. Just wanted to point out the typical incompetence you can expect from US forces in the middle east, not that they're just as much murderers as IS. The best thing for them to have done is leave it to the Syrian armed forces, because as of now it seems that they're dishing out just as much unintentional collateral damage.

[spmetla]

I meant IS when I said terrorists. Just wanted to point out the typical incompetence you can expect from US forces in the middle east, not that they're just as much murderers as IS. The best thing for them to have done is leave it to the Syrian armed forces, because as of now it seems that they're dishing out just as much unintentional collateral damage.

Though this is a lot of lives in this one incident it is no where near as close to the damage done to Syrian civilians done by the Syrian army and air force. Bear in mind that same air power has protected kurds fighting IS, helped the Iraqis retake some of their cities and helped keep the expansion and free rein of IS in check, at least so much as can be without sending divisions of troops to kick them out.

As for just as much murderers, the US doesn't do this intentionally or on the same scale as IS. We don't enslave women and children and them sell them as sex toys. We don't execute everyone who disagrees with us. We are as flawed as any military and when fighting dudes driving around in pick up trucks and limited military equipment taken from the Iraqis and Syrians it is very hard to tell what is a military target. Seeing as the coalition has done 450 airstrikes around the city since May they seem to have been mostly successful in avoiding civilian 'collateral.'

[AE Bravo]

Though this is a lot of lives in this one incident it is no where near as close to the damage done to Syrian civilians done by the Syrian army and air force. Bear in mind that same air power has protected kurds fighting IS, helped the Iraqis retake some of their cities and helped keep the expansion and free rein of IS in check, at least so much as can be without sending divisions of troops to kick them out.

How much damage has the SAF done to civilians exactly? Western-backed opposition groups have done more damage than Assad. Recently the democratic forces who are funded by the UK too in northern Aleppo beheaded an 11 year old Palestinian boy for allegedly being a Syrian government spy. West funds brigades who do IS style killings, it’s no mystery.

[Seamus Fermanagh]

I meant IS when I said terrorists. Just wanted to point out the typical incompetence you can expect from US forces in the middle east, not that they're just as much murderers as IS. The best thing for them to have done is leave it to the Syrian armed forces, because as of now it seems that they're dishing out just as much unintentional collateral damage.

An inevitable consequence deriving from asymmetric conflict. You saw what happened the last time a conventional military went toe-to-toe with NATO in 1991. Even in 2003 for the reprise Iraq deployed Fedayeen from day one, limiting the "conventional" character of the conflict.

Any opponent of NATO that chooses a conventional warfare approach loses hard and fast. Since they are NOT, on average, stupid, they tend to choose a non-conventional strategy when fighting NATO. Guerrilla (pronounced as /gwair - EE - yuh/ btw, not like the animal as most yanks do) tactics and terrorism are the tools of choice for asymmetric warfare. So, by design, our opponents are more or less always mixed into a larger mass of civilians, un-uniformed, and often posing as (or NOT posing as but actually being) civilians except when actively involved in an operation.

Such conflicts are necessarily more messy and a greater percentage of civilians die in the crossfire. This, for the faction having chosen asymmetric tactics, is actually a plus as there is propaganda/public relations value in dead civilians who lost their lives at the action of the conventional (NATO) power.

[Pannonian]

An inevitable consequence deriving from asymmetric conflict. You saw what happened the last time a conventional military went toe-to-toe with NATO in 1991. Even in 2003 for the reprise Iraq deployed Fedayeen from day one, limiting the "conventional" character of the conflict.

Any opponent of NATO that chooses a conventional warfare approach loses hard and fast. Since they are NOT, on average, stupid, they tend to choose a non-conventional strategy when fighting NATO. Guerrilla (pronounced as /gwair - EE - yuh/ btw, not like the animal as most yanks do) tactics and terrorism are the tools of choice for asymmetric warfare. So, by design, our opponents are more or less always mixed into a larger mass of civilians, un-uniformed, and often posing as (or NOT posing as but actually being) civilians except when actively involved in an operation.

Such conflicts are necessarily more messy and a greater percentage of civilians die in the crossfire. This, for the faction having chosen asymmetric tactics, is actually a plus as there is propaganda/public relations value in dead civilians who lost their lives at the action of the conventional (NATO) power.

To limit civilian casualties, we should leave the hellhole that is the middle east to the s who live there, trading only for resources we need, and limit or stop immigration from these countries. More people would die, but they'd die from the actions of their own, and would be nothing to do with us. Since people like Showtime are going to hate us anyway, we might as well leave them to their own devices. They'd still hate us, but it would be cheaper. And IIRC, Showtime comes from the middle east, but is currently living in the west, possibly the US.

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

Didnt you and I have a huge argument last time about how British pilots are just as stupid?

We did, then the report came out and showed the USAF had achieved a new level of Top-Down fail (and irrc no one was punished).

Reams and reams have also been written on the general breakdown of basic UK doctrine in Iraq and Afganistan due to being chronically under-manned.

[Hooahguy]

You have such a hard on for hating on US forces (despite the fact that British forces have just the same level of "fail" that you accuse US forces with) that you seem to have forgotten that people were punished for the Kunduz bombing. But hey, you are entitled to your own opinion.

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

You have such a hard on for hating on US forces (despite the fact that British forces have just the same level of "fail" that you accuse US forces with) that you seem to have forgotten that people were punished for the Kunduz bombing. But hey, you are entitled to your own opinion.

I don't hate US forces, I just think it's unhealthy to be in the same Theatre with them if you aren't waring Stars and Stripes.

It's a prejudice I inherited from the British Soldiers I grew up around.

[Papewaio]

You have such a hard on for hating on US forces (despite the fact that British forces have just the same level of "fail" that you accuse US forces with) that you seem to have forgotten that people were punished for the Kunduz bombing. But hey, you are entitled to your own opinion.

Well USA is just a rebranded Britian 2.0 from many outsiders perspective. Anglosphere and all.