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America tries to bomb ISIS kills children instead

In every military exercise, we can expose our soldiers to greater danger in order to ensure we hit the right targets, or we can protect our soldiers, increasing the risk of collateral damage.

It's a lot easier to get votes by killing terrorists than it is to get votes by getting voters' kids shot. Look at how hard Bush's administration tried to keep flag-draped coffins off of the news.
 
It is the function of the military to kill people and destroy things. That is all they do. Who gets killed, is a political issue. There has yet to be a war where no children were killed.

It's a simple fact of reality. If it is more important to protect children than it is to achieve the political goals, some other method will have to be found. Until then, crying over dead children is a wasted effort.
 
1) Al-Jazeera is now owned by Qatar. They're one of the sponsors of terrorism. Thus their credibility in such matters is suspect.

2) Note the casualty numbers: 21 men, 3 women, 6 children. When you see 21 men to 3 women you're almost certainly dealing with something that is highly male oriented. While it could possibly be civilian that's not the horse to bet on. Without having ages "children" means little--they start younger over there, there are a lot of below-18 combatants.
 
Keith&Co. said:
It's a lot easier to get votes by killing terrorists than it is to get votes by getting voters' kids shot. Look at how hard Bush's administration tried to keep flag-draped coffins off of the news.
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The easy part is the just say whoever gets killed was a "terrorist", and hope the people paying the taxes don't wake up.
 
Loren Pechtel said:
2) Note the casualty numbers: 21 men, 3 women, 6 children. When you see 21 men to 3 women you're almost certainly dealing with something that is highly male oriented. While it could possibly be civilian that's not the horse to bet on. Without having ages "children" means little--they start younger over there, there are a lot of below-18 combatants.
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Are you saying we can safely assume the children are combatants? Without evidence that they are combatants?
 
GenesisNemesis said:
Loren Pechtel said:
2) Note the casualty numbers: 21 men, 3 women, 6 children. When you see 21 men to 3 women you're almost certainly dealing with something that is highly male oriented. While it could possibly be civilian that's not the horse to bet on. Without having ages "children" means little--they start younger over there, there are a lot of below-18 combatants.
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Are you saying we can safely assume the children are combatants? Without evidence that they are combatants?
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I'm saying we can't assume them to be noncombatants. Given the high male:female ratio I rather suspect at least some of those "children" were combatants.
 
thief of fire said:
Bronzeage said:
It is the function of the military to kill people and destroy things. That is all they do. Who gets killed, is a political issue.
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I would not agree. To call it a political issue misses what is happening.
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There is no army in the world that gets up in the morning and decides to kill people and destroy things on their own. Who the military targets and why is a political issue. It always has been and always will be. There's nothing missed. What's happening is military force to achieve a political goal. This means people get killed and stuff gets destroyed. Sometimes the targeted people get killed and sometimes unintended people get killed.

What did I leave out?
 
Yeah, there's been page two reports of hitting ISIS. Nothing of any collateral damage. They spew all this bullshit about how we have to hit ISIS, so we do and the hit is like, meh. Let's talk about something else now. What the fuck. Has war become such a casual occurrence?
We are not being informed. Do we even have news media? What would Uncle Walter think?
 
Bronzeage said:
thief of fire said:
I would not agree. To call it a political issue misses what is happening.
Click to expand...

There is no army in the world that gets up in the morning and decides to kill people and destroy things on their own. Who the military targets and why is a political issue. It always has been and always will be. There's nothing missed. What's happening is military force to achieve a political goal. This means people get killed and stuff gets destroyed. Sometimes the targeted people get killed and sometimes unintended people get killed.
What did I leave out?
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That if someone killed your children, you'd be hardly likely to call it political. You miss how other people see it, how the victims see it. Why they want to kill Americans
 
thief of fire said:
Bronzeage said:
There is no army in the world that gets up in the morning and decides to kill people and destroy things on their own. Who the military targets and why is a political issue. It always has been and always will be. There's nothing missed. What's happening is military force to achieve a political goal. This means people get killed and stuff gets destroyed. Sometimes the targeted people get killed and sometimes unintended people get killed.
What did I leave out?
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That if someone killed your children, you'd be hardly likely to call it political. You miss how other people see it, how the victims see it. Why they want to kill Americans
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What sense does that make? Why do you think I miss how other people see it or how the victims see it? Would my sympathy change reality? I could rant and express outrage, but it wouldn't change any of the facts.
If someone killed my children, I would be building IED's, very big ones.
 
Bronzeage said:
thief of fire said:
That if someone killed your children, you'd be hardly likely to call it political. You miss how other people see it, how the victims see it. Why they want to kill Americans
Click to expand...

What sense does that make? Why do you think I miss how other people see it or how the victims see it? Would my sympathy change reality? I could rant and express outrage, but it wouldn't change any of the facts.
If someone killed my children, I would be building IED's, very big ones.
Click to expand...
Well I must have misunderstood what you were meaning.
You were saying very obvious things like..."It is the function of the military to kill people and destroy things." (as if no one knows this)..and then lastly that "crying over dead children was wasted effort."

So I could only assume you were saying that is should not be pointed out that the US was killing children. What else could it mean?
But as others have pointed out this is not being told to the American...or western people. So I'm not sure why pointing it out (or crying as you put it) is wasted effort. Unless you are saying that is is ok to point it out but not ok to cry over it????
 
thief of fire said:
So I could only assume you were saying that is should not be pointed out that the US was killing children. What else could it mean?
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I thought he was pointing out that when you say "he worlds most incompetent and careless military does it yet again and kills more children" you're missing the target.
I thought he was saying that the military is not the one that decides to invade a country or bomb a target without political direction. So when you say that calling it political misses the point, you're missing the point high, wide and handsome.
Thus, the subject of your ire should not be a careless military, but the people that hold the reins. And yes, it's political.
 
GenesisNemesis said:
Loren Pechtel said:
I'm saying we can't assume them to be noncombatants. Given the high male:female ratio I rather suspect at least some of those "children" were combatants.
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That's not good enough.
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It's never good enough. It's called war.

And it's either that or civilization falling. It's easy to criticize from the comfort of one's chair. At least Neville Chamberlain put his arse on the line when he chose to appease the warmongering Hitler and his admitted plans for Europe.

Given the situation as is, not some ideal land of Peace and Brotherhood where the warriors step on the flowers needlessly, like in some Hippie dreamscape, helping the enemies of ISIL with airpower si the only way both strategy and politics allow, lest having the enemy at the gate blowing everything up in the name of everything contrary to the right to life liberty and the pursuit of happiness, even if it means someone's going to be killed, another will be maimed and yet another is going to be unhappy because, well, no flower power utopia.
 
thief of fire said:
Bronzeage said:
What sense does that make? Why do you think I miss how other people see it or how the victims see it? Would my sympathy change reality? I could rant and express outrage, but it wouldn't change any of the facts.
If someone killed my children, I would be building IED's, very big ones.
Click to expand...
Well I must have misunderstood what you were meaning.
You were saying very obvious things like..."It is the function of the military to kill people and destroy things." (as if no one knows this)..and then lastly that "crying over dead children was wasted effort."

So I could only assume you were saying that is should not be pointed out that the US was killing children. What else could it mean?
But as others have pointed out this is not being told to the American...or western people. So I'm not sure why pointing it out (or crying as you put it) is wasted effort. Unless you are saying that is is ok to point it out but not ok to cry over it????
Click to expand...

Don't work so hard. I say what I mean.

We are bombing a city. We are not planting shrubs and hanging curtains. It's too late to point out the obvious. The death of civilians(including civilian children) is a given.

The most that can be accomplished by crying over dead children is the military maybe spurred to develop more accurate weapons. Actually, that already happened. We can now fire a missile through the window of a building, when in previous years, we had to drop a dozen bombs on the roof. The number of civilian casualties in these operations is greatly reduced from previous decades. In 1945, more than 25,000 civilians died in a single bombing, which was intended to destroy a railyard(opinions vary about the reason). Today, it would be an easy target.

If the military option is unacceptable, it is fruitless to argue about the results of military action. The changes must be made at the political level. Complaining about the military only results in more accurate weapons, but it does not get rid of any of them, or make them less likely to be used.
 
thief of fire said:
Bronzeage said:
What sense does that make? Why do you think I miss how other people see it or how the victims see it? Would my sympathy change reality? I could rant and express outrage, but it wouldn't change any of the facts.
If someone killed my children, I would be building IED's, very big ones.
Click to expand...
Well I must have misunderstood what you were meaning.
You were saying very obvious things like..."It is the function of the military to kill people and destroy things." (as if no one knows this)..and then lastly that "crying over dead children was wasted effort."

So I could only assume you were saying that is should not be pointed out that the US was killing children. What else could it mean?
But as others have pointed out this is not being told to the American...or western people. So I'm not sure why pointing it out (or crying as you put it) is wasted effort. Unless you are saying that is is ok to point it out but not ok to cry over it????
Click to expand...
Regarding the "this is not being told to the American...or western people" : how many Western media members do you think are willing to venture into Syria to observe, monitor and report the effects of the Coalition Forces bombing on the Syrian population? Are you not aware that the French Agence de Presse recently made a communique announcing that they will not accept reports from Western journalists in Syria in view of the extremely high risk for Westerners in ISIS controlled areas?

Do not expect the Western media to be actively present in Syria and "tell American or western people" anything at all.
 
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