Pentagon confirms airstrike that killed more than 100 civilians

[Wyrt]

Seems like a productive way of producing more terrorists.

[Venant]

Whether you see it or not the use of chemical weapons is strictly prohibited. To prevent a chemical and biological weapons arms race the use of these weapons can not become normalised.

The chemical weapons arms race ended in the 1950s. We now have weapons that instantly heat hundreds of square miles to the temperature on the surface of the sun.

Things won't end well for those who hold on to utopian ideas, like thinking that you can prevent all violence in the world if you only had enough power.

Do you know what sarin does to a person or what VX does or chlorine gas?

You can also do pretty terrible things to a person with a cheap butcher knife. Its odd that so many people believe that war is a good means by which to prevent people from doing terrible things to each other.

[Venant]

Like the GOP & Trump criticizing Obama for civilian deaths by employing drone strikes.

Funny how quickly political bullshit can bite you in the ass.

To be fair, Trump criticized Obama for civilian deaths far more than the mainstream media. Obama conducted around 25,000 airstrikes every year, then retroactively declared anyone they happened to kill a terrorist, and the media went along with it. The media was so bad when it came to holding the Obama administration accountable that we will probably never know how many civilians he actually killed, but it wouldn't be surprising if it was much higher than 50,000.

[Rafoel]

Civilians.... they decide to stay at the area of warfare. They are mixed on same streets, buildings, or even rooms with active fighters. We are there to destroy ISIS, not play cat and mouse.

If you want to fight a war with goal of no civilian casualties, your opponent already won it.

[Deleted]

It's horrible, but it happens in a war

And let's not forget that IS fighters are positioning themselves between civilians on purpose.

[May90]

Civilians.... they decide to stay at the area of warfare.

They... "decide"? When the alternative is having your head cut off for trying to escape the heaven which is ISIS, I would hardly call it a decision.

[rogueMatthias]

What the hell do you want the people there to do?

Your attitude is sickening and clearly you led a sheltered and pampered life without having to worry about anything.

Come over to Europe to help with the raping and pillaging

Jokes aside, in a lot of these places the civilians are locked in pretty tight and don't have a choice about being there. A lot of the talks and ceasefires between groups in Syria were half about just letting the civilians out of the town/city.

[Deleted]

Well... shit happens. ISIS is always hiding among civilians, so there are bound to be casualties. This time US military simply didn't have time to declare them "terrorists".

[Deleted]

Tell me, oh wise one, what do you do when they hide behind or among civilians? Do you lay down your arms, shrug and just accept their victory?

[rogueMatthias]

Tell me, oh wise one, what do you do when they hide behind or among civilians? Do you lay down your arms, shrug and just accept their victory?

Send in more ground troops instead of continually airtstriking everyone and everything?

[Life-Binder]

put the US military leadership (at least the ones responsible here) on trial for war crimes and mass murder

do it now


USA doesnt get a free pass for being USA

[Deleted]

Send in more ground troops instead of continually airtstriking everyone and everything?

and put our soldiers' lives at risk?

[Deleted]

Send in more ground troops instead of continually airtstriking everyone and everything?

That would get some of those troops killed and does not guarantee that fewer civilians would die. Those civilians are fucked either way.

[rogueMatthias]

and put our soldiers' lives at risk?

This is the fundamental issue with debating any of this. For all the "horror" at hundreds of civilians dying, too many people seem to much rather the idea of 100 civilians dying in an airstrike than risking even one AMERICAN soldiers life (who actually signed up for this in the first place).

[Deleted]

This is the fundamental issue with debating any of this. For all the "horror" at hundreds of civilians dying, too many people seem to much rather the idea of 100 civilians dying in an airstrike than risking even one AMERICAN soldiers life (who actually signed up for this in the first place).

yeah that's totally understandable though, those are our nation's sons and daughters

[Skulltaker]

This is the fundamental issue with debating any of this. For all the "horror" at hundreds of civilians dying, too many people seem to much rather the idea of 100 civilians dying in an airstrike than risking even one AMERICAN soldiers life (who actually signed up for this in the first place).

As weird as it feels, I partially agree with Taft on this. A gouvernment has a responsibility towards the families of it's soldiers in case they get killed. Sending ground troops now would either equire a tremendous force or bog the US down in another Middle East adventure. If they believe there may be a solution while not exposing its own troops... the reasonable thing to do.

And yes. The lines on this are extremly blurred. Terrorist alsways use civilians as human shields. They make camp in hospitals. They don't care about human rights, conventions etc.

Were the casualties in this case avoidable? Maybe. Probably. Can you start a long-winded discussion if the US is responsible for there currently being any terrorists? yes, you could. It would result iun dozens of pages of the same old arguments and several infractions.

So, do I blame the US for this? No. Even though it saddens me greatly to admit it, sometimes the loss of innocent life is unavoidable.

That doesn't mean that there shouldn't be investigations to find out if the strike was necessary, or if any mistakes were made. But still. This, sadly, is how war works.

[zenkai]

It will be interesting to see Democrats care what happens in airstrikes again, since they have been ignoring it the last 8 years.

[Elim Garak]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Use_of...rian_civil_war

It doesn't matter where perpetrators took the weapons from.

The last bit is a fabricated lie.

http://time.com/4492670/syria-chemic...-assad-regime/

Try again, apologist.

Media? Really? Lies all of it.

[GennGreymane]

Islamic extremists kill or hurt THOUSANDS of civilians... and we are told to be tolerant.

U.S. forces commit to bombing which has a side effect of killing 100 civilians, and countries want our heads on a platter.

No, no, no.. that is TOTALLY fair. Totally.

to bold 1. When?

to bold 2. Who said it was just about this single instance?

[Kuax]

So, where is Merkel and other politicians screaming their lungs out, like they did during bombings of US-backed terrorists in Syria?