One day after the United States, the country that killed three million people carpet bombing Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos, warned Russia against causing civilian casualties while pursuing US backed Jihadists in Syria, the US kills at least twenty by dropping bombs on an Afghan hospital run by Doctors Without Borders that had provided the US its coordinates in the futile hope that it wouldn't.
The US effort in Afghanistan is as futile as its efforts were in Indochina. US efforts in Iraq and Syria have produced immense human suffering and a strategic disaster. Assad, for all his faults, at least protects the rights of woman and religious minorities. If he is taken out by Saudi funded Jihadists,(who have the covert support of the US) the country will be in the control of psychopathic beheaders.
This has to stop.
But since the Western media won't be there to cover it, I guess you can pretend it won't happen and sleep better at night.
You can't possibly believe some of this nonsense can you? I'm not happy about this bombing either, but you're comparing us to Assad? There are a few (couple hundred thou give or take) people over there who were demonstrating for regime change who might disagree with you.
One doesn't need, though, to read it as some kind of evidence of the horrors of the USA.
Apropos: I just heard a debate where Sam Harris told a story of a discussion he had with a member of the Presidential Commission on Bioethics (one of 13 people on the Commission), who told him that FMRI scans of terrorists' brains as a kind of lie-detector test are grossly immoral, but that we have not moral right to claim that Islamic treatment of women is wrong. She (the ethicist) even said that if such a culture plucked out the eyes of every third child for religious reasons, we would not have any place to judge it as wrong.
It's just shocking sometimes. "Useful idiots" comes to mind.
This may have been a "warning" shot. The US military basically telling Doctors without Borders that they can't affiliate with Taliban in any shape or form.
Highly doubt it was a mistake. Your're being gullible.The bombing continued for thirty minutes after DWB contacted military. Our missile technology is incredibly precise. They can hit the cup of coffee in your hand. This was not a "terrible mistake".
Just ask yourself: If Putin did this and then claimed it was a mistake, would you believe him? Obviously not. Then logically, your argument is predicated on the belief that the US does not do things like this, whereas Russia does.
Deliberate really? (sorry Eric) but this asshole is a fucking idiot.
Hope I don't get banned but if so it was worth it.
It's a tough choice.
But I am saying if you believe this was just a mistake and that our military and leaders would never do this, then I have a bridge to sell you. Every military has to do things like this. The US once dropped atomic bombs on two Japanese cities.
taking what may be a failure of local afghan forces fighting for awhile now street to street with a group considered even within Islam for low end ethics and extrapolating it to Assad ( how can we laud his relative decent treatment of women within an awful human rights record) in the same post we condemn our involvement with stopping a group renowned for being cruel to women?).
It's a tragedy no matter the explanation. One can be against us being in Afghanistan. But loading those two different freights on a sweeping condemnation of the US...and defense of Assad and ignoring the ethics towards the defenseless possessed by the people being fought....while choosing to continue living here ...is too much inconsistency to be considered an assertion of the high ground.
Limiting the objection to the linkage between cruelty our presence accidently produces and the cruelty ( including the flood of smuggled heroin towards the destruction of the young people of Russia) the presence of the Taliban produces by actual proven design is awfully slim a logic thread as well.
bombing north Vietnam was on purpose. Very reasonable to condemn it. IMHO. This was on purpose? Makes a big difference.
I dunno. I dunno that leaving a group of people to the mercy of funded proxy forces of Pakistan' s wish to link with Tajikistan and thereby encircle Kashmir is high on the scale of admirable either.
Imho, war and the world and ethics gets to be a very slippery slope.
I'm more astounded that our military takes such precautions and seems to be as successful as it is now to prevent more civilian deaths.
People get killed in war, and in most "modern" wars (20th-21st century) civilian deaths outweigh military deaths.
But somehow, the U.S. is the bad guy? We do more to prevent civilian deaths - including at risk of success and the mission - than any country on Earth.
That's bad history and bad math. Total casualties for the US, North and South Vietnam during the Vietnam War (1960 - 1975) total about 1.3 million, including about 590 thousand civilians. There are estimates of more than 2 million deaths at the hands of Hanoi after the US withdrawal between 1975 and 1984, from executions, drownings (boat people) and starvation. Cambodian communists (Khmer Rouge) killed even greater numbers of their own people. RJ Rummel - University of Hawaii
1) The current campaign in against Syria is a regime change effort that began years ago. The US and its allies determined that the secular Assad government should be replaced. Jihadists were the means to that end. We know this from Wikileaks and Defense Intelligence Agency memos.
2)The recently retired chief of the Defense Intelligence Agency, General Michael Flyn confirmed the validity of a DIA memo stating that the US and its allies knew that a Salafist state centered in Syria would be a likely outcome of their policy of supporting Jihadists. The memo states that the west saw a Salafist state in Syria as a valuable strategic asset to be used against the secular Syrian government. It also states that the uprising against the Syrian government was driven not by popular support but by Jihadists. This can be found by anyone doing a google such. Chose your own source, left or right. The information is there. There is even a YouTube featuring General Flyn stating this.
3) Assad has a far better human rights record than our friends the Saudi's who are poised to behead a teenage boy and then publicly crucify his body. Assad as a better human rights record than our friends in Bahrain who brutally suppressed peaceful protests with major assistance being provided by the Saudi's. This post would be far to long if I were to name all of the leaders the US supported or placed into power who were more repressive than Assad. Our good friend Suharto and Papa Doc come to mind. The US does not care about human rights or democracy. The US has deposed democratically elected leaders and replaced them with tyrants. I cannot provide a history lesson here but as Casey Stengel would say, "You could look it up" if you are willing to make an effort. Like WMD, it is just a phony pretext used to justify ill fated regime change operations.
As a result of a botched US regime change operation, there are only bad choices left in Syria. ISIS and Jabhat Al Nusra, both savage Jihadists or the secular Syrian government. "Moderate Rebels" are a fiction. They never existed. Obama, in a rare moment of candor, admitted as much. The US has recently acknowledged spending five hundred million dollars to produce less than fifty who were immediately captured. The Russians know that for everyone concerned, Assad is the best option. There are US policy makers now who are reaching the same conclusion. The Russians are doing the world, including the US, a great favor by trying to clean up this mess. It is in their backyard. Russia is closer to Syria than New York city is to Dayton Ohio.
I realize the few on this site are going to accept any of this. I am writing this because it is possible that someone may take the opportunity to research what I'm saying. The United States is ostensibly "free" but the sources of information most people have are limited. The world looks very different to the ninety six percent of the world that lives outside its borders. In international surveys the rest of the world identifies the US as the biggest threat to piece in the world. A recent poll of Syrians revealed that 81% have concluded that the US is behind the creation of ISIS. Maybe they have heard General Flyns interview.
That said, it could very well be a mistake to remove him. US has to balance "standing up to Putin" against creating more instability in the area.
The world would be a much nicer place without us. As it was before we existed. The Middle East would be a big party of love and affection, just like it always used to be before bully showed up.
It's unbelievable that people can be this stupid.
British Colonel Richard Kemp on Israeli military.... - ( New Window )
We have no idea what the target was that was at issue. Did it pose a greater perceived risk to the wider civilian population than did the bombing? For instance, an active artillery position could inflict hundreds of casualties before being silenced through means with less risk of collateral damage. DWB/MSF was quick to label this a war crime. That is a blatant misunderstanding of what IHL requires, at least in light of what is now known.
How come of all humanity all the evil genes are in the Usa and all the good ones belong to everyone else?
What's annoying about this Homer is there are good points buried in screed to the depth that most will turn off all you say ...or could be saying. Imho.
All the best.
Seriously, why do you even post here? You provide little in terms of objectivity, and we know for damn well that you don't give a fuck about anything other than to get on your goddamn moral high ground for what? To make yourself feel better?
Go away. Seriously, your act is pretty fucking tiring, and it's a goddamn injustice for those spending time providing you with reasoned response when anyone who has ever dealt with you before know that you don't give a fuck about any of it.
There is a difference between being "critical" of a strategy and blaming an entire nation (that includes you) of purposely bombing hospitals, especially when the enemy has a habit of hiding in such places along with mosques while blowing up women and children in market places.
War is ugly and it is merciless. Bad things happen to the wrong people and it is easy to just blame without knowing the full story.
If you can't tell the difference between the two, I don't think anyone can help you. And anyone who has known me on BBI knows that I will be the first to criticize not only our strategy but also the military and its service members if the situation warranted. The OP, on the other hand, has a history of being less than objective in his posts and criticisms. Only time he ever posts is to shit on the nation and its military (both strategy and the institution)...so you can blame me if I'm not giving his post anything but scorn.
We have no idea what the target was that was at issue. Did it pose a greater perceived risk to the wider civilian population than did the bombing? For instance, an active artillery position could inflict hundreds of casualties before being silenced through means with less risk of collateral damage. DWB/MSF was quick to label this a war crime. That is a blatant misunderstanding of what IHL requires, at least in light of what is now known.
Bingo!! So true!
If the criticism is that we are indiscriminate in our bombing, okay. That has not been my experience, but so be it. But that is not a criticism of military strategy so much as ROE and targeting.