Whose hallway were they shooting down when the US Air Force demolished the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade? When they destroyed a convoy of pro-US elders on their way to Kabul? No matter how accurate weapons are, if the target is wrong, innocent people are cooked or gutted. There is no serious doubt that thousands of innocent people have died in Afghanistan - the only question is how many thousands.
What do you mean “except for that village”? Which of the innocent Afghan villages destroyed by bombing are you referring to?
Do you really believe that some villages are carefully marked “Taliban” or “Al Qaeda” by their occupants, to distinguish them from innocent ones? If they were, then you could use weapons technology to crisp the bad guys and not the good. Targets are picked by human beings, who often get it wrong. That is the nature of warfare.
About accuracy - during the Gulf War, the US military claimed that its Patriot missiles were incredibly accurate and had successfully downed a large number of Iraq’s Scud missiles. A few months ago, they admitted that most Patriots had missed their targets, and had actually caused more damage than the Scuds themselves.
When will they make equivalent admissions about their present technology?
I think you can legitimately hold the position that WTC-type attacks are morally indefensible, and that the US is entitled to respond to them, and to seek to prevent further similar attacks, through the use of military force, and at the same time question whether the Afghan campaign is, in the long run, an effective response or an effective deterrent.
Even if we grant that there is a moral case for a military response, it doesn’t follow that every military response is going to be effective, and if it’s not likely to be effective then it’s not justified. Nor, for that matter, does it follow that there is necessarily any military action which the US can take which will be an effective defence.
I think it is therefore possible to question the morality of the Afghan campaign without being unpatriotic (if American) or anti-American (if of any other nationality).
I also think it is possible that a US president might be justified in undertaking military action in response to the WTC attacks, and at the same time unjustified in seeking to milk public feeling on the issue for his own political advantage. I’m not close enough to US domestic politics to say whether this is happening but, again, those who argue that it is are not necessarily unpatriotic or anti-American.
From what I’ve read in the Washington Post newspaper and seen on TV, there’s good news and bad news:
The good news is that the Taliban and Al-Qaeda have been defeated and are on the run. There is a fledgling government in place, schools are being rebuilt, and boys and girls are back in school.
The bad news is that the Taliban and Al-Qaeda are like cockroaches; they scurry around and just regroup and strike back. There is a lot of support for these monsters in western Pakistan; sympathizers give them shelter and supplies. What passes for government in western Pakistan refuses to let American soldiers come in to check for Taliban/Al Qaeda–they say they will deal with them (yeah, right).
This struggle won’t be over soon; we still have plenty of hornet’s nests to clean up.
The “We Have It Coming” crowd with respect to the Al-Queda mass murders in New York, Arlington and Pennsylvania on 9-11-2001 are quick to whine about civilian deaths in Afghanistan, I suppose with the twisted logic that as soon as the death toll over there hits 3,202 or whatever, that makes us “even” or worse, or whatever.
Standard chomskyist “We Hate Everything America” type BS; most thinking individuals make a distinction, and a very great one at that, between accidental deaths and purposeful murder of civilians. The military goes to great lengths to try (yes, try; remember that word?) and prevent civilian deaths.
We are dealing with ultra-religious islamo fascists, “Poverty” has nothing to do with this, despite what we hear in the press and from the talking heads. IIRC, Osama himself is fairly well off, if he’s not under tons of rubble in some cave.
Tedster, I smell what you’re cookin’, but I gots ta aks you a question. Do you think that the military would be more or less selective in their air campaign if their targets were hiding in Idaho?
Can you explain the “We have it coming” Crowd reference? Who constitutes this crowd?
So how many airplanes have to crash into skyscrapers before you feel the United States is at stake? No we are not in danger from being overrun by Taliban. That does not mean that terrorists do not pose a clear and present threat to the US. What if one of those planes crashed into a nuclear power plant in a populated area?
The fact that American soldiers are not dying by the thousands has nothing to do with the level of threat. How big a threat US were the Viet Kong to the? How many Americans died fighting them.