U.S. military acknowledged killing 23 civilians

[Bilge_Rat]

Originally Posted by OneToughHerring

Weren't you Jews supposed to be smart?

smart enough not to take the bait...

...haven't you figured out by now I only respond when it furthers my argument...

Originally Posted by Bilge_Rat

smart enough not to take the bait...

...haven't you figured out by now I only respond when it furthers my argument...

Well the IDF has a long history of summary killings and torture and it's known that it is partial to the mistreatment of prisoners in Iraq and Afghanistan.

[tater]

Long history? The country is little more than 60 years old. Wanna go back that short length of time when your country was allied with the nazis?

Yeah, yeah, it's totally different when you paint it powder blue (who'da thought anyone could out-gay the nazis in terms of decor?)

If the IDF (or the US Military for that matter) wanted to kill civilians, we'd kill them wholesale. The Allies were not even good at aiming in WW2, and we could manage to kill 10s of thousands in a single night—as many as 100,000 sometimes. If either the IDF or USAF wanted to, we could easily top those kinds of numbers today, day after day. Since we don't—and they don't—killing civilians is clearly not the goal.

In WW2 the USAAF was specifically aiming at non-civilian targets in fact, and none the less killed many hundreds per raid, sometimes thousands. These days, we drop thousands of tons of bombs, and kill orders of magnitude fewer people per ton of bombs dropped. That's the stat to check, civilian toll per ton of bombs dropped. Compare to the past, and watch the trend lines.

[Jimbuna]

Originally Posted by jimbuna

All quiet on the western front

Looks like I spoke too soon

Originally Posted by tater

Long history? The country is little more than 60 years old. Wanna go back that short length of time when your country was allied with the nazis?

Co-belligerant. We did give away 8 Jewish people to the nazis, plus loads of Soviet POW's with Jewish POW's among them.

Yeah, yeah, it's totally different when you paint it powder blue (who'da thought anyone could out-gay the nazis in terms of decor?)

If the IDF (or the US Military for that matter) wanted to kill civilians, we'd kill them wholesale. The Allies were not even good at aiming in WW2, and we could manage to kill 10s of thousands in a single night—as many as 100,000 sometimes. If either the IDF or USAF wanted to, we could easily top those kinds of numbers today, day after day. Since we don't—and they don't—killing civilians is clearly not the goal.

In WW2 the USAAF was specifically aiming at non-civilian targets in fact, and none the less killed many hundreds per raid, sometimes thousands. These days, we drop thousands of tons of bombs, and kill orders of magnitude fewer people per ton of bombs dropped. That's the stat to check, civilian toll per ton of bombs dropped. Compare to the past, and watch the trend lines.

Well all I know is that civilians have been dying and are dying. All wars have certain aims and I'm not at all convinced that these wars aren't supposed to cause civilian deahts in both Iraq and Afghanistan. Of course the US can't kill them all or target them openly but it can wage the war in a manner that will result in a considerable amount of civilian deaths in both Iraq and Afghanistan. Why? Because obviously nobody can stop the US from doing so.

[tater]

Co-belligerent. LOL.

Parse the language all you want, the rest of the world counts that as "allies."

BTW, the CCCP was also a co-belligerent with the nazis in Poland. Orcs fighting orcs, basically, no one expects more.

The US wages war in a way that is specifically designed to minimize civilian casualties. Again, it's not in our interest to needlessly kill civilians. The OP in fact proves this, since it references a scathing report—the point of which is to prevent situations like this.

Sh*t happens, study the problem, try and fix it.

[Weiss Pinguin]

Originally Posted by OneToughHerring

Of course the US can't kill them all or target them openly but it can wage the war in a manner that will result in a considerable amount of civilian deaths in both Iraq and Afghanistan. Why? Because obviously nobody can stop the US from doing so.

LOL

Sorry, but that's all I have to say about drivel like this. Actually I'm not sure what else there is to say about drivel like this...

If there are deaths it doesn't really matter what your opinion is of the US's war plan. Look at the results, even according to your own media.

[Bilge_Rat]

just ran across an interesting article which provides a bit of background on the tragedy as well as how the USAF coordinates and disseminates the drone data:

Hunched over monitors streaming live video from a drone, Lieutenant Christopher and a team of analysts recently popped in and out of several military chat rooms, reaching out more than 7,000 miles to warn Marines about roadside bombs and to track Taliban gunfire.

“2 poss children in fov,” the team flashed as Marines on the ground lined up an air strike, chat lingo for possible innocents within the drone’s field of view. The strike was aborted.

“fire coming from cmpnd,” another message warned, referring to a Taliban compound. The Marines responded by strafing the fighters, killing nine of them.

Lieutenant Christopher and her crew might be fighting on distant keypads instead of ducking bullets, but they head into battle just the same every day. They and thousands of other young Air Force analysts are showing how the Facebook generation’s skills are being exploited — and paying dividends — in America’s wars.

The Marines say the analysts, who are mostly in their early to mid-20s, paved the way for them to roll into Marja in southern Afghanistan earlier this year with minimal casualties. And as the analysts quickly pass on the latest data from drones and other spy planes, they are creating the fluid connections needed to hunt small groups of fighters and other fleeting targets, military officials say.

But there can be difficulties in operating from so far away.

Late last month, military authorities in Afghanistan released a report chastising a Predator drone crew in an incident involving a helicopter attack that killed 23civilians in February. Military officials say analysts in Florida who were monitoring the drone’s video feed cautioned two or three times in a chat room that children were in the group, but the drone’s pilot failed to relay those warnings to the ground commander.

For the most part, though, the networking has been so productive that senior commanders are sidestepping some of the traditional military hierarchy and giving the analysts leeway in deciding how to use some spy planes.

“If you want to act quickly, you’ve got to flatten things out and engage at the lowest possible levels,” said Lt. Col. Jason M. Brown, who runs the Air Force intelligence squadron at this base near Sacramento.

The connections have been made possible by the growing fleet of remote-controlled planes, like the Predators and Reapers, which send a steady flow of battlefield video to intelligence centers across the globe.

The Central Intelligence Agency and the military use drones to wage long-distance war against insurgents, with pilots in the United States pressing the missile-firing buttons. But as commanders in Afghanistan mass drones and U-2 spy planes over the hottest areas, the networking technology is expanding a homefront that is increasingly relevant to day-to-day warfare.

And the mechanics are simple in this age of satellite relays. Besides viewing video feeds, the analysts scan still images and enemy conversations. As they log the information into chat rooms, the analysts carry on a running dialogue with drone crews and commanders and intelligence specialists in the field, who receive the information on computers, and radio the most urgent bits to troops on patrol.

Marine intelligence officers say that during the Marja offensive in February, the analysts managed to stay a step ahead of the advance, sending alerts about 300 or so possible roadside bombs.

“To be that tapped into the tactical fight from 7,000 to 8,000 miles away was pretty much unheard of before,” said Gunnery Sgt. Sean N. Smothers, a Marine who was stationed here as a liaison to the analysts.

Sergeant Smothers saw how easily the distance could melt away when an analyst, peering at images from a U-2, suddenly stuck up his hand and yelled, “Check!” — the signal for a supervisor to verify a spotting.

Sergeant Smothers said he and two Air Force officers rushed over and confirmed the existence of a roadside bomb. Nearby on a big screen map in the windowless room, they could see a Marine convoy approaching the site.

The group started sending frantic chat messages to their Marine contacts in the area.

As they watched the video feed from a drone, they could see that their messages had been heard: the convoy came to a sudden stop, 500 feet from the bomb.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/08/te...agewanted=1&hp

[Dowly]

Originally Posted by tater

Parse the language all you want, the rest of the world counts that as "allies."

The same rest of the world who turned it's back on us and forced us to seek help from the Nazis to keep our independency.

[Ducimus]

Originally Posted by OneToughHerring

Well I got to express my view concerning the US so I'm happy.

That gave me an idea. Does anyone think there's a possiblity that If everyone put this racist, agenda toting, ITG bastard on ignore, so nobody reads his dribble, he'd go troll elsewhere? Or is it more fun not to, in order to mock this representative of scumbaggery for comedy relief? Inquiring minds want to know.

[Dowly]

Originally Posted by Ducimus

Or is it more fun not to, in order to mock this representative of scumbaggery for comedy relief?

Yes.

[AVGWarhawk]

Originally Posted by OneToughHerring

Well I got to express my view concerning the US so I'm happy.

Nothing stopped you before. So what is different about this thread?

[Ducimus]

Originally Posted by AVGWarhawk

Nothing stopped you before. So what is different about this thread?

I'm not sure either, but i think its related to want of attention. It's probably severe.

[Sailor Steve]

Originally Posted by tater

If the IDF (or the US Military for that matter) wanted to kill civilians, we'd kill them wholesale. The Allies were not even good at aiming in WW2, and we could manage to kill 10s of thousands in a single night—as many as 100,000 sometimes. If either the IDF or USAF wanted to, we could easily top those kinds of numbers today, day after day. Since we don't—and they don't—killing civilians is clearly not the goal.

Back in the original Gulf War I was a participant in a 'discussion' about 'Smart Bombs' in Bagdad. Someone said that the US was intentionally targeting civilians. My friend Rocky made the following comment: "How many have we intentionally killed? A dozen? A hundred? Compared to the fire bombings of Tokyo that's nothing. No, if we wanted to target civilians we'd send a squadron of B-52s out of Diego Garcia. If we wanted to we could carpet bomb Bagdad and kill an easy ten thousand every night. And there's not a thing they could do about it."

The fact is that civilians do get killed, as pointed out, try as we may to avoid it. The difference is that we do try to avoid it. I'm sorry that it happens, but there's practically no way to get around it. On the other hand I'm amazed that people try to stack that against the suicide bombers who really do target civilians in grocery stores, on city streets and in giant buildings, and if a military target happens to get in the way, so much the better.