Bombing a village to try to kill one man?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/3306621.stm
I was under the impression that the war in Afghanistan was over. If that is the case why the hell is this still going on! (even if it isn’t I still don’t condone it)
Um…that link isn’t about bombing. Or Afghanistan.
Erm, your link is about the ban on non-US investment in Iraq.
Was “children die in bombing raid” what you were looking for?
No, I do not believe this is civilised behaviour. A terrorist deliberately killing 15 children with a bomb is no more reprehensible than a state failing to avoid killing 15 children with a bomb aimed at a terrorist .
If the choice is between killing a terrorist [size=10SUSPECT plus 15 children, or allowing the terrorist [size=10SUSPECT[/size] free until he can be captured or targeted without such a risk, to choose the former is IMHO criminally negligent and as bad as killing the children deliberately.
On preview, yes it was that page!
Oh jesus, why did I go and change my previewed version?
If the choice is between killing a terrorist SUSPECT plus 15 children, or allowing the terrorist SUSPECT free until he can be captured or targeted without such a risk, to choose the former is IMHO criminally negligent and as bad as killing the children deliberately.
Could a mod please remove the above carbuncle?
Don’t you know that non-US dead are only
collateral damage
?
They are not humans… They are
“collateral”
and
“damage”.
The word “collateral” is used to describe the extremely unimportance of the matter.
The “damage” is of course only for those who are killed but what do they know? They are dead, no?
Salaam. A
What’s that SentientMeat I can’t here??!
Allah on a pongo stick! You just busted my ears! You can file my hearning under collateral damage perhaps? oh oy!
Jesus in an Oldsmobile! I can’t spell either! here=hear, hearning=hearing. oh oy!
Urgh. :rolleyes:
Can I get an official Spokesperson’s Clue-By-Four[sup]TM[/sup] in here, please…
Hello? Mr. Dolt? They live there. [whap]
Duck Duck Goose: I can see your point, but I can’t see that it is so very cut-and-dried that opposing viewpoints are those of dolts and clueless persons…
Isn’t there some validity to the argument? If you know that your neighbor is a bomb-maker, are you completely without responsibility for your losses when the day comes that there is an explosion?
The problem, of course, is that in some parts of the world, it simply isn’t possible to pick up the kids and move away. The ugly problem is that many terrorists deliberately set up shop inside family housing units.
On balance, I agree with the critics, you included. I just can’t see the “dolt” aspect of the other side’s argument.
Trinopus
The point is that they haven’t demonstrated that it was necessary to bomb the compound. Perhaps there was another way to kill (or ideally, take into custody) the terrorist in question.
If it was truly necessary to bomb everything, then I can see why we would be accepting of civilian casualties immediately around him. But I see no reason why they couldn’t have sent a task force to capture or kill him. That risks more military lives, but presumably fewer civilian casualities would result.
I guess that is the reason you need to look at. And not only in these cases.
It goes like this:
Quickly classify it under “collateral damage” and the public will overlook that you talk about people that were killed.
Message :
Good PR ; brave US heros “fight terrorists” is the message read by the public.
Shockwave… Hysteria among US’ers possible. (comes in variations)
Message:
Horrible Bad PR; US can’t kill terrorists. Terrorists kill the Heros.
Salaam. A
Ahhh… as always you spin a good yarn Mr. Alderbaran. I’ll give it 10 for imagination but just 2 for originality (I seem to remember you having whistled that particular tune before), and this thing about the US’eres… gotta pull you down one extra for that one - shees… how knuckleheaded can you get.
Now I don’t know what world you guys live in, mine is the real one – woefully flawed and imperfect and all that. Shit happens. In war that means innocent deaths. Dead children. That’s sad but unfortunately unavoidable and to be expected - regardless what some desk-general 8000 miles from the scene, after the event says should and should not have been done. Of course had the Islamofacists not thought it a swell thing to fly aircrafts into skyscrapers, or had the Taliban not thought it a good idea to keep Osama under their wings. None of this would ever have had to happen. Alternatively of course, had the Americans (that’d be the US’ers Mr. A) been perfect like Alderbarans beloved Belgians, they could just have magically picked up the terrorist and carried him away on a magic carpet.
While I agree that ground forces should be used in these instances, just to prevent these things from occurring, it’s not like the military wiped out an entire village, or even indiscriminately bombed.
None of the houses around the Ghazni compound were struck by the attack and they had no reason to believe that a bunch of children would be playing nearby as far as I can tell.
SentientMeat’s assertion that this is the same as delibertately killing a bunch of children is simply ridiculous on its face.
winston,
So you hold Afghan children responsible for the september attacks or how do I need to read your lumping everything together?
Ah… If only US’ers would be Belgians and live in Belgium. Yet you can’t, there are far too many of you and Belgium is already more then full as it is. How sad.
And if you even knew in which paradise I was born and raised and live.
I freely admit that my countries aren’t a paradise for everyone there but where do you need to go to find a heaven on earth.
Oh no… Now don’t write it…
Don’t write the predictable…
Thank you.
Salaam. A
Children responsible for 9/11 huh?.. umm… no, as I said I hold Osama responsible. However your grievances seem to be that we’re not living in a perfect world, or that Americans are not perfect. On both counts we can heartily agree – however this doesn’t make for much of an OP.
You might look to my location Aldebaran. I’m not American. In fact I’ve never been closer to America than that American chick Laura from Florida I spend a summer with after meeting her in the Hippodrome in London in 1991. And paradise on earth is naturally The Faeroe Islands – everybody knows that. Lotsa booze, rain and fog, beautiful women, folk dance and roasted sheep. Doesn’t get any better that that my friend.
What a horrible tragedy.
Winston,
You must admit that you were on the “cheap generalising/provoking” tour with your comment about 9/11, no? So I took the liberty to reply as I did.
US’ers not perfect?
mmmmm… A certain amount among them certainly think the US is.
How cold is it in Copenhagen these days? I’m only as far north as in Belgium now and already shivering. I can’t imagine how you people can survive the winter overthere.
By the way: my personal paradise is where my family and my home is.
But yes, your islands can do for a temporary replacement.
Although I should cut the “booze” out, I can imagine the paradise of meeting folk dancing beautiful women in the fog, who are holding an umbrella up to protect me from the rain while others feed me roasted sheep.
I think I’ll replace your “booze” with champagne. Question of keeping the sin balance.
Salaam. A
Uh, not to interrupt Alde in one of his always-entertaining rants, but no one in an official capacity, to my knowledge, has used the term “collateral damage” to describe the civilians killed in the recent bombing raids in Afghanistan. The article linked by the OP quotes US officials using the terms “non-combatants” and “civilians”, not “collateral damage”.
Even if they had used such a term, the press would have been all over it. In fact, they were anyway, as seen by the widespread headlines in the US press, mostly some variation of “US bombs kill Afghan Children”. So, if Aldebaran is once again trying to make some sort of of point about the inhumanity of Americans in general, I’m afraid he’s also, surprise, surprise, once again got his facts a bit wrong.
Oh, what, you want cites? Why, my post is my cite, of course.
Just kidding. Here’s the AP wire report on the most recent civilian casualties. In case Aldebaran or other non-US’ers 
are unclear on this, many, if not most, local newspapers in the US base their coverage of foreign events on AP reports:
http://www.lasvegassun.com/sunbin/stories/w-asia/2003/dec/10/121000161.html
Gee, I’ve just been watching the news and I see U.S. Army and goverment officals falling all over themselves to apologize and say what a terrible tragedy and accident it was.
Has anyone ever apologized for the thousands of people killed in Fundamentalist Islamic attacks all over the world? Has anyone done anything but jump up and down and cheer and shoot off guns in celebration?
(Note: Fundamentalist Islamics, not the normal, not-killing brand)