U.S. military acknowledged killing 23 civilians

Originally Posted by GoldenRivet

Get yourself a notepad and a few pens, and go do a body count on behalf of finland.

Im sure the margin of error between your count and "ours" will be less than 5 to 10 thousand.

Im so glad peace loving pacifists like you exist OTH without you the world would surely lose its direction.

OTH... i dare you to go join the Peace Corps or something instead of sitting there typing about how the world should be changed - go change it.

Now that the US troops are largely off the streets in Iraq the fighting has died down considerably. Wish they'd done that earlier so they wouldn't have had to deliver so many US dead and wounded back home, eh? Time to do the same in Afghanistan and sieze the mindless killing of civilians which has been going on for about a decade now.

[Bubblehead1980]

War is hell, things happen.The US went into Afganistan because the Taliban were harboring terrorists, that is the truth, no spin.Now, the war was mismanaged under Bush since he was sidetracked with Iraq.The focus is on Aghanistan now and hopefully it will work out.The US was not the aggressor, terrorists had a home in Afghanistan and the Taliban was aiding Bin Laden and his bunch, so they were accessories to 9/11 in a sense, thus they were the aggressors.People who argue the US was the aggressor are usually the great thinkers who say Japan was not the aggressor in the Pacific, that America provoked Japan.

No matter what there will always be a segment of Afghanistan that is unhappy with the US being there and the change due to their ignorance and backwards way of thinking heavily influenced by the great
pestilence nown as Islam.However, the US and Allies in the country have done a lot of good by building schools, hospitals etc and setting up a government to build a better nation where women and girls can learn to read and have choices.That government is much perfect, but no government is.

Bottom line, it is sad that some civs died but it was an accident and these things happen in war but things are getting better there and great care is taken to prevent civ casualties but it happened and will most likely happen again at some point, part of war and building a decent society in Afghanistan.

[Castout]

The thing is soldiers train hard to kill the enemy. When friendly forces are too great in numbers while action is rare I can understand that these men who are looking forward to kill the enemies mistakenly identify friendlies or civilians as hostile forces. These people may be living on edge.

Happens every time, happens in ArmA 2 too.

What needs to be done is to investigate whether the incident happened
due to poor honest misjudgment or lack of it or restraint.

Even if you're in favour of the war there is still the many questions of how the war is actually being fought. Now I'm sure a lot of people here in Subsim know a thing or two about warfare etc. and also understand that even in a war there should be an attempt being made to mitigate civilian losses, right?

There are many tactics the US military is using that are causing civilian casualties and the inaccurate drone bombings are just one of these tactics. Whenever the US causes civilian casualties there are people, usually Americans, saying that "it's just how war is".

Well that's not the case, troops from other countries are managing without killing civilians in Afghanistan, now how can this be? And it's not just a question of smaller area of responsibility, they just are not killing civilians. It's called being carefull and going after hearts & minds. The US is waging the war as if the Afghan civilians are the enemy. No wonder Karzai has been saying "US troops out" for a long time.

[Weiss Pinguin]

Originally Posted by OneToughHerring

Now that the US troops are largely off the streets in Iraq the fighting has died down considerably. Wish they'd done that earlier so they wouldn't have had to deliver so many US dead and wounded back home, eh? Time to do the same in Afghanistan and sieze the mindless killing of civilians which has been going on for about a decade now.

Right, because American involvement is the reason for all the violence in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Originally Posted by Weiss Pinguin

Right, because American involvement is the reason for all the violence in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Are you saying that, say, the Finnish military is welcome to invade the US and then if any commotion would ensue among the general US population we would be within our rights to say "Oh, it's those US citizens that are the cause of all the unrest".

[Catfish]

" ... War is hell, things happen.The US went into Afganistan because the Taliban were harboring terrorists, that is the truth, no spin. ..."

Well it is not really a war, just because Bush said so.

Why did the US pay the Taliban, and even Mr. Bin-Laden, directly, with money, and gave him weapons ? When Russia was still in Afghanistan, and its army being harrassed by Bin-Laden's terrorists ?
The US have paid him, and gave him the weapons he still uses.
"There must have been some misunderstanding" oh well.


"[...]
Bush's Former Oil Company
Linked To bin Laden Family
By Rick Wiles
American Freedom News.com
c. 2001
10-3-1

President Bush recently signed an executive order to freeze the US financial assets of corporations doing business with Osama bin Laden. He described the order as a "strike on the financial foundation of the global terror network." "If you do business with terrorists, if you support or succor them, you will not do business with the United States," said President Bush. He didn't say anything about doing business with a terrorist's brother - or his wealthy financier. When President George W. Bush froze assets connected to Osama bin Laden, he didn't tell the American people that the terrorist mastermind's late brother was an investor in the president's former oil business in Texas. He also hasn't leveled with the American public about his financial connections to a host of shady Saudi characters involved in drug cartels, gun smuggling, and terrorist networks. Doing business with the enemy is nothing new to the Bush family. Much of the Bush family wealth came from supplying needed raw materials and credit to Adolf Hitler's Third Reich. Several business operations managed by Prescott Bush - the president's grandfather - were seized by the US government during World War II under the Trading with the Enemy Act. On October 20, 1942, the federal government seized the Union Banking Corporation in New York City as a front operation for the Nazis. Prescott Bush was a director. Bush, E. Roland Harriman, two Bush associates, and three Nazi executives owned the bank's shares. Eight days later, the Roosevelt administration seized two other corporations managed by Prescott Bush. The Holland-American Trading Corporation and the Seamless Steel Equipment Corporation, both managed by the Bush-Harriman bank, were accused by the US federal government of being front organizations for Hitler's Third Reich. Again, on November 8, 1942, the federal government seized Nazi-controlled assets of Silesian-American Corporation, another Bush-Harriman company doing business with Hitler. Doing business with the bin Laden empire, therefore, is only the latest extension of the Bush family's financial ties to unsavory individuals and organizations. Now that thousands of American citizens have died in terrorist attacks and the nation is going to war, the American people should know about George W. Bush's relationship with the family of Osama bin Laden. Salem bin Laden, Osama's older brother, was an investor in Arbusto Energy. - the Texas oil company started by George W. Bush. Arbusto means "Bush" in Spanish. Salem bin Laden died in an airplane crash in Texas in 1988. Sheik Mohammed bin Laden, the family patriarch and founder of its construction empire, also died in a plane crash. Upon his death in 1968, he left behind 57 sons and daughters - the offspring he sired with 12 wives in Saudi Arabia, Syria, Lebanon, and Jordan. About a dozen brothers manage Bin Laden Brothers Construction - one of the largest construction firms in the Middle East. Fresh out of Harvard Business School, young George W. Bush returned to Midland, TX, in the late 1970s to follow his father's footsteps in the oil business. Beginning in 1978, he set up a series of limited partnerships - Arbusto '78, Arbusto '79, and so on - to drill for oil. One of President Bush's earliest financial backers was James Bath, a Houston aircraft broker. Bath served with President Bush in the Texas Air National Guard. Bath has a mysterious connection to the Central Intelligence Agency. According to a 1976 trust agreement, Salem bin Laden appointed James Bath as his business representative in Houston. Revelation about Bath's relationship with the bin Laden financial empire and the CIA was made public in 1992 by Bill White, a former real estate business partner with Bath. White informed federal investigators in 1992 that Bath told him that he had assisted the CIA in a liaison role since 1976 - the same year former President George Herbert Walker Bush served as director of the CIA. During a bitter legal fight between White and Bath, the real estate partner disclosed that Bath managed a portfolio worth millions of dollars for Sheik Khalid bin Mahfouz and other wealthy Saudis. Among the investments made by Bath with Mahfouz's money was the Houston Gulf Airport. A powerful banker in Saudi Arabia, Mahfouz was one of the largest stockholders in the Bank of Credit and Commerce International. BCCI was a corrupt global banking empire operating in 73 nations and was a major financial and political force in Washington, Paris, Geneva, London, and Hong Kong. Despite the appearance of a normal banking operation, BCCI was actually an international crime syndicate providing "banking services" to the Medellin drug cartel, Pamama dictator Manuel Noriega, Saddam Hussein, terrorist mastermind Abu Nidal, and Khun Sa, the heroin kingpin in Asia's Golden Triangle. The BCCI scandal implicated some of the biggest political names in Washington - both Democrats and Republicans - during the first Bush White House. The bank was accused of laundering money for drug cartels, smuggling weapons to terrorists, and using Middle Eastern oil money to influence American politicians. The chief of the Justice Department's criminal division under former President Bush was Robert Mueller. Because the major players came out of the scandal with slaps on the wrists, many critics accused Mueller of botching the investigation. Mr. Mueller was recently appointed by President George W. Bush as the new Director of the FBI, replacing Louis Freeh who did nothing while William Jefferson Clinton allowed the Red Chinese to loot our national security secrets. The Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN), a division of the Justice Department, reviewed allegations by Bill White in 1992 that James Bath funneled money from wealthy Middle Eastern businessmen to American companies to influence the policies of the Reagan and Bush administrations. Robert Mueller, the new FBI chief, was in a senior position at the Justice Department at the time of the review. White told a Texas court in 1992 that Bath and the Justice Department had "blackballed" him professionally and financially because he refused to keep quiet about his knowledge of an Arabic conspiracy to launder Middle Eastern money into the bank accounts of American businesses and politicians. In sworn depositions, Bath admitted he represented four wealthy Saudi Arabian businessmen as a trustee. He also admitted he used his name on their investments and received, in return, a five- percent stake in their business deals. Indeed, Texas tax documents revealed that Bath owned five percent of Arbusto '79 Ltd., and Arbusto '80 Ltd. Bush Exploration Company controlled the limited partnerships, the general partnership firm owned by young George W. Bush. Although George W. Bush's Texas oil ventures were financial failures, his financial backers recovered their investments through a series of mergers and stock swaps. He changed Arbusto's name to Bush Exploration, then merged the new firm into Spectrum 7 Energy Corporation in 1984. The Bush-controlled oil business eventually ended up being folded into Harken Energy Corp., a Dallas-based corporation. Mr. Bush joined Harken as a director in 1986 and was given 212,000 shares of Harken stock. Bush used his White House connections to land a lucrative contract for the obscure Harken Energy Corp. with the Middle Eastern government of Bahrain. On June 20, 1990, George W. Bush sold his Harken stock for $848,000 and paid off his loan he took out to buy his small share in the Texas Rangers. The Bahrain deal was brokered by David Edwards, a close pal to Bill Clinton and a former employee of Stephens Inc. Shortly after Bush sold his stock, Harken's fortunes nose-dived when Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait. Some critics claim young George was tipped off in advance by his father about the soon-coming Gulf War. George W. Bush, however, worked wonders for Harken Energy Corp. before the stock collapse. Using the Bush family name, he managed to bring much-needed capital investment to the struggling firm. George W. Bush traveled to Little Rock, AR, to attend a meeting with Jackson Stephens - a powerful Arkansas tycoon who help bankroll the state campaigns of young Bill Clinton. He first gained political prominence as a fund-raiser for President Jimmy Carter. Stephens was also deeply involved in the BCCI scandal by helping the corrupt bank take control of First American Bank in Washington, DC. Jack Stephens didn't need an introduction to young George W. Bush. Mary Anne Stephens, his wife, managed Vice President George Bush's 1988 presidential campaign in Arkansas. Stephens Inc., the well connected brokerage firm owned by Jack Stephens, donated $100,000 to a Bush campaign fundraising dinner in 1991. When George W. Bush won the contested Florida election in 2000, Jack Stephens made a substantial contribution to the Bush inauguration. Recently, former President Bush played golf on April 11, 2001, with Jack Stephens at the Jack Stephens Youth Golf Academy in Little Rock. The former president told Stephens, "Jack, we love you and we are very, very grateful for what you have done." Perhaps the former president was thanking him for the money Stephens provided young George W. Bush. Stephens arranged for a $25 million investment from the Union des Banques Suisses. The Swiss Bank held the minority interest in the Banque de Commerce et de Placements, a Geneva-based subsidiary of BCCI. Both Stephens and Abdullah Taha Bakhsh, a wealthy and well-connected Saudi real estate investor, signed the financial transaction. The Geneva transaction was paid through a joint venture between the Union Bank of Switzerland and its Geneva branch of BCCI. The BCCI connection, therefore, linked George W. Bush with Saudi banker Khaled bin Mahfouz. Known in Arab circles as the "king's treasurer," Mahfouz held a 20 percent take in BCCI between 1986 and 1990. Mahfouz is no stranger to the Bush family. He was a big investor in the Carlyle Group, a defense-industry investment group with deep connections to the Republican Party establishment. Former President Bush is a former member of the company's board of directors. George W. Bush also held shares in Caterair, a Carlyle subsidiary. Sami Baarma, a powerful player in the Mahfouz-owned Prime Commercial Bank of Pakistan, is a member of the Carlyle Group's international advisory board. President Bush certainly is aware of that his former Saudi sugar daddy is still financing Osama bin Laden's terrorist network. USA Today newspaper reported in 1999 that a year after bin Laden's attacks on US embassies in Africa, Khaled bin Mahfouz and other wealthy Saudis were funneling tens of millions of dollars each year into bin Laden's bank accounts. Five top Saudi businessmen ordered the National Commercial Bank to transfer personal funds and $3 million pilfered from a Saudi pension fund to the Capitol Trust Bank in New York City. The money was deposited into the Islamic Relief and Bless Relief - Islamic charities operating in the US and Great Britain as fronts for Osama bin Laden. The Capitol Trust Bank is run by Mohammad Hussein al-Amoudi. His lawyer is Democratic Party bigwig Vernon Jordan, close friend of former President Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky. Abdullah Taha Bakhsh, the Arab who cosigned the $25 million cash infusion into George W. Bush's Harken Energy Corporation, appointed Talat Othman to manage his 17.6 percent share in Harken Energy Corp. Othman, a native Palestinian, is president and CEO of Dearborn Financial Inc. - an investment firm in Arlington Heights, IL. Bakhsh also bought a 9.6 percent stake in Worthen Banking Corporation, the Arkansas bank controlled by Jack Stephens. Abdullah Bakhsh's share was the identical percentage as the amount of shares sold by Mochtar Riady, the godfather of the wealthy Indonesian family with close ties to the Chinese communists, Bill Clinton and evangelist Pat Robertson. Bakhsh is represented by Rogers & Wells, a well-connected Republican law firm in New York whose partners include former Secretary of State William P. Rogers. Independent investigator reporter David Twersky reported in the early 1990s that Othman had a seat on Harken's board of directors and met three times in the White House with President George Herbert Walker Bush. Organized by Chief of Staff John Sununu, Othman's first meeting with President Bush at the White House was in August 1990, just days after Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait. There exist to this day an Arab-Texas connection. Khalid bin Mahfouz, financier of both George W. Bush and Osama bin Laden, still maintains a palatial estate in Houston, TX. Former President George Bush also lives in Houston. James Bath, Texas political confidant of George W. Bush, managed to obtain a $1.4 million loan from Mahfouz in 1990. Bath and Mahfouz, along with former Secretary of Treasury John Connally, were also co-investors in Houston's Main Bank. Bath was also president of Skyway Aircraft Leasing Ltd, a Texas air charter company registered in the Cayman Islands. According to published reports in the early 1990s, the real owner was bin Mahfouz. When Salem bin Laden, Osama' brother, died in 1988, his interest in the Houston Gulf Airport was transferred to bin Mahfouz. Since Osama bin Laden's bloody attack on America on September 11, the federal government has moved quickly to freeze bank accounts connected to Osama bin Laden, Khalid bin Mahfouz, and a host of Islamic charities. Perhaps federal agents should freeze the financial assets of the Bush family too. It would not be the first time Bush-family assets were seized by the US government for trading with the enemy.
[...]"

Sorry for posting the whole paragraph, but i think reading it is worth it.
B.t.w. those Bin-Ladens died in plane crashes, in Texas. Some say Osama's terrorist attack was a revenge


Greetings,
Catfish

[tater]

Originally Posted by OneToughHerring

Even if you're in favour of the war there is still the many questions of how the war is actually being fought. Now I'm sure a lot of people here in Subsim know a thing or two about warfare etc. and also understand that even in a war there should be an attempt being made to mitigate civilian losses, right?

There are many tactics the US military is using that are causing civilian casualties and the inaccurate drone bombings are just one of these tactics. Whenever the US causes civilian casualties there are people, usually Americans, saying that "it's just how war is".

Well that's not the case, troops from other countries are managing without killing civilians in Afghanistan, now how can this be? And it's not just a question of smaller area of responsibility, they just are not killing civilians. It's called being carefull and going after hearts & minds. The US is waging the war as if the Afghan civilians are the enemy. No wonder Karzai has been saying "US troops out" for a long time.

The US does as much as possible to mitigate civilian deaths, period.

It's not US tactics that cause needless deaths, it's the enemy not following the rules of war, and operating out of uniform in areas mixed with civilians.

If the US wished to cause civilian deaths, there'd be MANY MANY more of them. We could in fact virtually wipe out all the civilians, but we chose not to.

Setting unrealistic expectations—say, zero casualties—helps no one. We continually work to minimize the number. Another way to look at it is to imagine how many we could cause if we wished to kill civilians, then look at how many fewer we actually do. So if the number was 25,000 killed in 10 years, and we could have killed 25 million, then we're killing 1% of the number we could if we wished to.

Originally Posted by tater

The US does as much as possible to mitigate civilian deaths, period.

It's not US tactics that cause needless deaths, it's the enemy not following the rules of war, and operating out of uniform in areas mixed with civilians.

If the US wished to cause civilian deaths, there'd be MANY MANY more of them. We could in fact virtually wipe out all the civilians, but we chose not to.

Setting unrealistic expectations—say, zero casualties—helps no one. We continually work to minimize the number. Another way to look at it is to imagine how many we could cause if we wished to kill civilians, then look at how many fewer we actually do. So if the number was 25,000 killed in 10 years, and we could have killed 25 million, then we're killing 1% of the number we could if we wished to.

Well obviously the US isn't trying to kill everyone in Afghanistan but that's not the point. The US wasn't trying to kill everyone in the North and South Vietnam's of the time but still ended up killing a significant amount of civilians.

If civilians are being killed, any civilians, for any reason (on purpose, in error or other), then it is equally wrong. Also we're not seeing any reliable numbers from Afghanistan, partly because it is in many respects a third world country. I doubt everyone is even under any kind of actual citizenship - system there, so broken down as a nation it is and has been. How would the outside world know if a whole bunch of civilians were to die there, for whatever reasons? Because of the media presence? I don't think I trust the 'embedded' media that has been there for the last decade.

[Weiss Pinguin]

Originally Posted by OneToughHerring

Are you saying that, say, the Finnish military is welcome to invade the US and then if any commotion would ensue among the general US population we would be within our rights to say "Oh, it's those US citizens that are the cause of all the unrest".

You have different branches of Islam and different ethnicities stuck together in the area that have been fighting and killing each other for hundreds of years. Even after western forces pull out, they'll just keep right on fighting and killing each other just as they've done.

[tater]

Originally Posted by OneToughHerring

If civilians are being killed, any civilians, for any reason (on purpose, in error or other), then it is equally wrong.

No, it's not "equally wrong" at all.

Intent matters.

By your definition, any civilian casualties negate the use of military power, period. Hitler starts WW2, and if there is ANY chance of the counterattack killing any civilians, it is tantamount to intentionally firebombing a population center with the express purpose of killing as many civilians as possible. That's what your statement I quoted means.

The enemy in this case is intentionally mixing his unmarked combatants with civilians because he knows we will tend to err on the side of not attacking civilians.

In your would-be world, al Queda would simply hide among civilians, and know they were 100% safe all the time. Allied forces could not even raid a house because of the chance they might harm a non-combatant.

Originally Posted by Weiss Pinguin

You have different branches of Islam and different ethnicities stuck together in the area that have been fighting and killing each other for hundreds of years. Even after western forces pull out, they'll just keep right on fighting and killing each other just as they've done.

...sooo because they've been fighting each other there for so long it's perfectly ok to send US military, the various merc companies, the Brits, whatever miserable Nato-countries and Nato-slaves such as Finland to do some target practice on those camel jockeys, eh? I mean, why waste a good opportunity to do some good shootin', with live ammo, on a live target.

It's also generic payback for 9/11, so it's all good.

[tater]

Afghanistan is hardly "generic payback." AQ was aided and abetted by the Taliban. In many senses, the Taliban was AQ's creature (not theirs alone, clearly).

The geopolitics are clear, however. The US interest is in preventing a regional hegemony in the Islamic world. To the extent that area is fractured, we "win." Nothing else is required in the long term. The Taliban was not such a risk, but a pan-Islamic state is the express goal of AQ, so harming AQ is also in the geopolitical "pro" column in addition to "payback"—which is fine, BTW, nothing wrong with disproportional payback.

The Taliban, in fact, was initially the creature of Pakistan. Since it was expressly Islamist, a link up with AQ was no great leap. Pakistan, formerly a US client state (India being the CCCP's back in the day) was distanced from the US during the Clinton administration in favor of economic ties with India in a post-Soviet world. Post 9-11, the Bush Admin told the pakis in no uncertain terms that they were to do as we asked them, or they'd be treated as allies of AQ/Taliban (the specifics of the short letter sent them are in Woodward's book, BTW). Forcing Pakistan to divorce the Taliban was also in US interest.

Iraq is similar. In the past, the US interest was served by Iran and Iraq fighting each other. Post 9-11, the US could no longer risk a nuclear power in the region, and a US held Iraq is a direct threat to Iran, as is a powerful, allied Iraq. Again, to the extent the region is destabilized, US geopolitical interest is served. The big problem will continue to be Iran, however. Ideally, we'd end their nuclear adventure with airpower, frankly (the sunnis nearby would be more than pleased, it's only really Russia that concerns us with Shia Iran (they'd make some noise for the masses, but would thank us in the back rooms).

Yea whatever. It's just a bunch of camel jockeys, their human rights don't matter. Shoot one and you won't go to court or anything, just make up a story that you mistook them for Taliban and there won't be any questions asked.

[tater]

Originally Posted by OneToughHerring

Yea whatever. It's just a bunch of camel jockeys, their human rights don't matter. Shoot one and you won't go to court or anything, just make up a story that you mistook them for Taliban and there won't be any questions asked.

What is your point, exactly, other than your knee-jerk anti-Americanism?

OP says the US acknowledged the mistake. The report in fact was pretty harsh. They will absorb the lesson, and try to do better next time. I have seen no posts here saying, "tough crap, 'camel jockeys,' I hope we kill more of your children."

The two POVs here seem to be:

Yours: that American is bad, and that the US accidentally killing noncombatants is tantamount to intentional attacks on civilians, and must in fact be what we want.

Mine (and others): that the US tries to minimize noncombatant deaths, but sometimes does so anyway, which is unfortunate, but a reality of war.

The US seeks to mitigate attacks largely because it is right to do so, but we also do it because it is in our interest to do so. The latter motivation is far more important, since our interest in this case is a long-term one, and is more reliable than "doing the right thing."