90, including 40 civilians, killed by NATO strike in Afghanistan

[TheJ0K3R]

Is there any possibility that some people died in the strike can be families of Taliban?
If so,i would count those people as normal,harmless civilians.There should be old people,children.And isn't that against military operation rules?

 

[Camikaze]

That's entirely unreasonable. And completely unrealistic.

Yeah, civilian casualties suck, but hey, if they are necessary to achieve a particular military objective, who cares, right? It's unreasonable to think that we should go out of our way to make sure we aren't massacring innocent people, right?

Would you have NATO go to the trucks and preform interviews before the strike, asking those who are questionable to kindly step back from the trucks?

I certainly wouldn't just bomb. Everyone knows that's a recipe for collateral damage. And for what it's worth, I wouldn't attack if there was any reason to believe that civilians could be in the area.

The Taliban cannot call civies over to the truck and then haul ass. C'MON. Don't you think the civies would be like "hey, wait a minute!".

The upper echelions of the Taliban don't care about their own fighters any more than those fighters or they care about their own civilians. This was an opportunity to turn lemons into lemonade for the Taliban powers that be. All those killed are martyrs and get 70 or 80 virgins, so the Taliban thinks no real harm done, right?

It seems a very unrealistic scenario. It seems you're just invoking fanaticism in order to attempt to prove your point. Cos if you mention the virgins, then all Taliban actions make sense, no matter how farfetched, right? No, I don't think that the upper echelons of the Taliban would waste 50 men on absolutely nothing. Therefore, they must not have known of an imminent attack, even if they knew of an eventual one.

If you know that some of them are Taliban and that they are potentially very dangerous, then attack. I personally would have made sure that any civillians had got out of the way first, but that loses the initiative which is vitally important, so I support their actions even if I think they could have been done better

The initiative pales in comparison to civilian casualties when it comes to what is vitally important. Every precaution necessary to ensure absolutely no civilian casualties should be taken. Military objectives should not get in the way of basic humanity.

 

[Flying Pig]

The initiative pales in comparison to civilian casualties when it comes to what is vitally important. Every precaution necessary to ensure absolutely no civilian casualties should be taken. Military objectives should not get in the way of basic humanity.

It can make the operation, and it doesn't take much imagination to work out what the Taliban will do with that much flammable liquid. There comes a point where you have to go with a 75% chance that you're right, if that means you will stop something even worse than the 25% happening

 

[Ecofarm]

Cos if you mention the virgins, then all Taliban actions make sense, no matter how farfetched, right?

Islamic terrorists use remote-detonated retards and sentence women to gang rape, I hardly think anything is beyond them.

 

[Flying Pig]

Amen to that. They don't care about saving their own lives, so they end up killing a lot of us.

 

[El Koeno]

It can make the operation, and it doesn't take much imagination to work out what the Taliban will do with that much flammable liquid. There comes a point where you have to go with a 75% chance that you're right, if that means you will stop something even worse than the 25% happening

Flammable liquid stuck in a truck that isn't moving... That does not justify an action that potentially kills dozens of civilians. And you'd say that NATO would realize by now that EVERY airstrike comes with the possibility of civilian casualties.

 

[Flying Pig]

Isn't moving yet. When it does move, I would assume at least one of them's got a light, and at least one of them has a map to the nearest military base

 

[Defiant47]

A convenient rebuttal to a post I never cared to reply to by eastsidebagel.

When we first got down there, you could basically kill whoever you want.

Warning: some harsh language later on in this clip...


Link to video.

 

[Ecofarm]

I certainly wouldn't just bomb. Everyone knows that's a recipe for collateral damage. And for what it's worth, I wouldn't attack if there was any reason to believe that civilians could be in the area...

The initiative pales in comparison to civilian casualties when it comes to what is vitally important. Every precaution necessary to ensure absolutely no civilian casualties should be taken. Military objectives should not get in the way of basic humanity.

+

And you'd say that NATO would realize by now that EVERY airstrike comes with the possibility of civilian casualties.

=

Airstrikes are no longer permitted at all, ever - no matter what; thus, everyone disband your airforce. Can we go back to reality now, Cami?

 

[Flying Pig]

Airstrikes are like artillery - don't use them when there's less than a battalion of you on one side of this field. Any smaller scale and it doesn't tend to work. Would you give a platoon of 30 a creeping barrage?

 

[Ecofarm]

Would you give a platoon of 30 a creeping barrage?

I don't play the Brits in Company of Heroes, so I dunno; however, I would definately nebelwerfer, walking stukka or howitzer them.

 

[Flying Pig]

Ugh - aren't you meant to be a squaddie? We still use them, occasionally (OK, mostly on exercise)

 

[Ecofarm]

They didn't let us break big stuff. We only got to play with Hum-Vs, machine guns, automatic grenade launchers, AT missile systems, rockets, etc. You know, stuff you can push out of an airplane before you jump.

 

[Flying Pig]

Ha! We got to do integrated exercises, with us lot jumping out of planes/tabbing for a few miles, while the RA got busy blowing stuff up and the guys in tanks looking cool. American paras get a bad deal

 

[cardgame]

I certainly wouldn't just bomb. Everyone knows that's a recipe for collateral damage. And for what it's worth, I wouldn't attack if there was any reason to believe that civilians could be in the area.

You are a fighter pilot in WW2. You are intercepting an enemy fighter group above the skies of a major city. Do you shoot them down, knowing that there is a reason to believe that the planes could fall down and hit the city below, killing civilians? Or do you just sit there and watch the bombers come in?

By your reasoning all of Europe would be speaking German.

 

[SS-18 ICBM]

But this isn't World War II.

 

[cardgame]

It is similar though.

You are a fighter pilot in WW2. You are intercepting an enemy fighter group above the skies of a major city. Do you shoot them down, knowing that there is a reason to believe that the planes could fall down and hit the city below, killing civilians? Or do you just sit there and watch the bombers come in?

By your reasoning all of Europe would be speaking German.

1st bold: The tanker in a crowd.

2nd: The tankers could have gotten rolling again after they empty some fuel, in which case they would certainly be used in suicide bombings.

 

[Flying Pig]

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=283166

Read. Digest. Edit Post

 

[SS-18 ICBM]

Oh no, my problem is with your last sentence. Stricter protocol to prevent civilian deaths would not lead to a situation within the same order of magnitude as your German-speaking Europe.

 

[Camikaze]

Airstrikes are no longer permitted at all, ever - no matter what; thus, everyone disband your airforce. Can we go back to reality now, Cami?

Well, perhaps it would be a better strategy. McChrystal himself said:

We will not win simply by killing insurgents. We will help the Afghan people win by securing them, by protecting them from intimidation, violence and abuse.

Meaning that the war will not be won through air strikes on targets that could possibly kill civilians. Which, as we have already established, is all air strikes.
In a separate statement, McChrystal said:

As Commander of the International Security Assistance Force, nothing is more important than the safety and protection of the Afghan people

Meaning, of course, that military objectives do not come before civilian casualties. So, the head of the Afghanistan war is saying that civilian casualties are the first and foremost concern, if the war is to be won. Which obviously would indicate that air strikes are not the optimal strategy, when they lead to civilian casualties.

You are a fighter pilot in WW2. You are intercepting an enemy fighter group above the skies of a major city. Do you shoot them down, knowing that there is a reason to believe that the planes could fall down and hit the city below, killing civilians? Or do you just sit there and watch the bombers come in?

By your reasoning all of Europe would be speaking German.

Because WWII and the War in Afghanistan are totally comparable. Not that civilian casualties are acceptable in the first place. But why would you, as an enemy fighter pilot, be above an enemy city in the first place? To support your bombers, who are killing civilians, which is unacceptable. So the grounds for being there in the first place are not good, so really, no matter what you do in that situation, it's wrong.