I agree that the execution in Afghanistan sucked. The initial invasion and plan was, IMHO, close to brilliant…and then we just fucked it up from there. I agree, we don’t have enough boots on the ground, and I also agree with you (3 agreements in one post…unreal :)) that it’s stupid to think we could or should attempt to swamp the country with US troops. A commitment of even our initial deployment to Iraq would have been more than sufficient, coupled with NATO forces.
But I disagree (you knew it had to happen) concerning your point about air strikes. Whether we had more boots or not we’d still have and need air strikes…and, if you are striking an enemy in close proximity to civilians then you are going to kill some, no matter how careful you are. If the goal is to never kill any civilians then you might as well pack up and go home…it’s impossible if your enemy is willing to to either kill as many as they think it will take or to deliberately put themselves in the proximity of civilians and force you to do so. So, it boils down to…should we be there or not?
If so, then you have to realistically accept that some civilians are going to be caught in the cross fire. What you have to do, and what I think we’ve done an adequate (not stellar) job of doing is minimizing those causalities to the extent we can, without those magical weapons.
Well, consider the effect the invasion and subsequent war has had on the country’s infrastructure - it wasn’t the best before the US went in, and now it’s a complete ruinous joke. ISTR that at the beginning of the war a number of charitable organizations stopped sending food convoys into the country due to the impending situation, and the food drops that the US military sent in to replace them were beyond woefully inadequate. And whatever medical care the folks out in the hills did have beforehand is most certainly nonexistent now. I lean towards “yes” on the malnutrition and disease - true, it may have been there before the US went in, but not to the extent it is now.
Oh, and xtisme - “It could be a lot worse” is a pitiful justification for war.
If you want to know how effective the guidance systems are you need to look at civilians killed as a percent of the air strikes, not the absolute numbers. Your cites don’t say how many air strikes were carried out, so I have no way of evaluating if the guidance systems are getting better or worse.
Why? There are few targets left to bomb. If we thought spreading bombs around would work ,we would do it with no trouble. But now we are forced to pick off little groups of people are pretend they can be identified as Taliban. Carpet bombing what? Huge open areas , mountains, Where do you want to blow up the people and pretend we are doing it for their own good?
Few targets left to bomb, huh? Why then is Pakistan mobilizing it’s own military so strongly on the other side of the border? Why has Pakistan’s military (finally) taken a hard-line stance in the Swat Valley?
Gonzo, you can’t possibly be this naive. To claim that because the 9/11 attacks happened “oh so long ago” and that we are merely there to exact revenge on whomever wears a turban is silly. These are some bad guys, and they have training, drug money and the wherewithal to possibly strike the USA at home again.
They are better served for our purposes to be constantly on the run and being harrassed and killed by our military rather than being given a place where they can collaberate and attempt another attack on us.
If some civilians have to die in that effort…so be it.
But to claim that we just arbitrarily bomb whomever whenever is just nonsense. It really is, and only serves to show your lack of understanding of how the US military works in the 21st century. Seriously.
Not arbitrarily. But they care little if they get it wrong. Just like you think, breaking a few eggs, to make an omelet. is justified. If you or your friends and family are being killed, would you think it was OK. If your country was being incinerated by a land that is thousands of miles away, that you have spent a life giving zero thought to, would that sit well with you? The problem is you only see your side. From those receiving your explosive airmails, it is different. We are creating a bunch more enemies and are not solving anything. Kill my family and I would take it personally. Your justifications would fall on deaf ears.
We bombed the shit out of Iraq. Baghdad was one of the most beautiful cities in the world and we slaughtered it.
A few minutes’ thought should show the mathematical error in this way of thinking. Allow me to demonstrate.
Let’s take the number of airstrikes in 2006 as the baseline and set it at 100. So now we have three scenarios before us:
No change in the number of airstrikes between 2006 and 2008. Expressed fractionally we get 116/100 for 2006 vs. 530/100 for 2008. Increase in percentage of civilian deaths per airstrike. No good.
Decrease in number of airstrikes between 2006 and 2008. This time, we get 116/100 vs (for the sake of argument) 530/80. Another, sharper increase in civilian deaths per airstrike. No good.
Increase in number of airstrikes between 2006 and 2008. Here, we only get a decrease in the number of deaths per airstrike as a percentage if we increase the number of airstrikes in the same proportion as the number of deaths. In other words, since 4.57 civilians died in 2008 for every 1 civilian that died in 2006, 4.57 airstrikes in 2008 needed to be called for every 1 called in 2006 - just in order to maintain the same percentage as 2006. A smaller increase in airstrikes (<4.57) still results in an increase in civilian deaths as a percentage of airstrikes. A greater increase (>4.57) results in the desired reduction in percentage, but at the cost of pushing airstrikes into carpet-bombing territory.
Which brings us to the next question:
As I said, I’m sure Afghanistan hasn’t had much of an infrastructure since at least 1979, but the current eight years of war has thoroughly destroyed what did exist prior to 2001. It should be almost painfully obvious that a healthy, functioning infrastructure is vital for a modern democratic society; how is it then possible to build a democratic country by repeatedly bombing the bejesus out of it?
And yet that thinking among the leaders of al-Qaeda resulted in eight years of war in two countries. Do you really think the US can adopt the same attitude and expect no further consequences?
The argument that the US is not intentionally killing civilians just doesn’t hold water when the number of civilian airstrike deaths is on the increase. Either the technology is failing at an increased rate (in which case US forces are using weaponry they know won’t minimize civilian deaths) or they’re increasing the number of airstrikes and consequently the amount of munitions expended (in which case there’s no friggin’ way they could possibly hope to minimize civilian casualties - and they know it). If they know their approaches won’t minimize civilian casualties and they utilize those approaches nonetheless, they are intentionally killing civilians. And if they make no distinction between civilians and al-Qaeda targets when they conduct airstrikes, they are indiscriminately killing civilians. Neither of which is justified by the September 11 attacks - the majority of Afghanis had no say in the decision to allow al-Qaeda into the country or in the plans to attack New York and Washington. And yet they are clearly being punished for it.
Why would any one accept what our military men say? Remember the Patriots shooting down missile after missile in Iraq 1. Then slowly the truth comes out. They shot down practically none. They were a huge failure. The military loves to have shows demonstrating how well they are doing. But they have lied to the people so long, how can anybody accept what they say? How many civilians have died in Iraq? Yet we pretend to be surgically striking “bad guys”.
Was the Gulf of Tonken resolution beyond people memory banks?
What is the end of this war? The country is run by war lords. Atavistic thowbacks to a time before organized governments. Local battles are fought endlessly for control of drugs . The coutnry is corrupt from the top to the bottom. How can it end well?
Well, since you are the first to mention justification I’ll just chalk that up to hyperbole and straw on your part.
You really like these simplistic strawmen, don’t you? Do you assume that you are scoring points with this kind of bullshit? Well, perhaps you are with someone like gonzo…I doubt most others in this thread, even those who agree with your nominal position, are fooled, however.
Of course we all remember Powell’s dog and pony show at the U.N. He told a pack of embarrassing lies of epic proportions. They knew what they were doing. It was shameful and who paid for it? No Americans involved in the lies . The Iraqis paid big time. The tax payers and the soldiers paid and are still paying. It was a black mark in American Politics that will taint us forever.
So quit believing those liars. You can not trust them. Our soldiers and politicians just keep lying.
9/11/2001 is how it should be written. It was a long time ago. We went in to attack the people we helped train and arm to defeat Russia. They became a far better enemy thanks to our help. What a mess.
Would September 11 have happened if the US wasn’t rightly seen as interfering in Middle Eastern and Central Asian affairs when its interests were threatened?
As per your reasoning upthread and as quoted in my response to you which you obviously chose to ignore, you would support it anyhow. Thus rendering your question moot.
Of course 18 of the high jackers were Saudis. The Saudis actually have been funneling money into El Queda for decades. Afghanistan is just where the camps were. It is just wrong if your intent is to end terrorism.
I agree it’s a mess that’s partly of our own design. Honestly, I have always wondered why we would ever ascribe to the “enemy of my enemy is my friend” type of policy.
Iraq and Afghanistan are not related in my mind.
And what were we to do, sit idly by while terrorists struck us? Wring our hands and cry “woe is us, we deserve this because we, like every other giant oil-consuming nation, have foreign affairs in the Middle East”?
Compared to a strategy that breeds more enemies than it neutralizes? A strategy that squandors the lives of our soldiers for no purpose? That puts us in this position, of shrugging our shoulder over the loss of innocent lives?
Would I be prepared to be humiliated, to eat some shit? Here’s my spoon, here’s my grin, what was the question again?
Or is it just possible that these are not the only alternatives?