'Staggering' loss of civilian life from US-led airstrikes

realities of war, there's no way to not have civilian damage when ISIS is basically mixed in with the population

Sad really, but your other option is to do nothing and let ISIS reign supreme.

 

You have got some issues to work through.

I did specifically address the issue. We don't know much about it really at this point. I already said it's awful. It's a damn tragedy.

War is hell.

However, if our choices are no civilian casualties+ISIS runs amok OR degrade, destroy ISIS+unintended civilian casualties, we don't really have much of a choice at all.

 

Sure, if we it can be demonstrated that we didn't exercise proper restraint, there should be blow back. Nobody in this thread wants civilians killed. We aren't cheering it on. We do recognize it happens though. "Restraint" is not always achievable, particularly in situations where enemies are among the populace.

This seems like a preposterous comment to me. Don't fight them in foreign countries? So what, you'd rather us just let them establish their caliphate unfettered? You think those 300 civilians would be alive in the end if we didn't bomb and just left them to ISIS?

How many countries would you want to fall to ISIS before you'd be OK fighting them in foreign countries? How many thousands do they need to murder? You really want them to burn the Middle East to the ground and do NOTHING until they are in our own country?

 

Posts in this thread are good examples how little Americans care about the civilians who are not their people.

You lose every war if you do not care about civilians.

 

Just admit that you are pro-ISIS, everyone suspects it anyway and it'll make your weird stances make a bit of sense. You are worried that your ISIS brothers are losing and so you are showing up here parroting their propaganda. It's okay man, no one will think any less of you for admitting it. I'm not sure it's possible to think less of you honestly.

 

White Knighting? ISIS wants to export terror to the West and has on multiple occasions. But yes, absolutely, letting them run wild is extremely disruptive to American (and Western) interests at large. Not just because of oil like you suggest (but yes, that too) but also because they would help destabilize the entire volatile region if they could get away with it. A region full of nations that could unleash havoc on a global scale.

It isn't like if we just left them alone to conquer Syria and Iraq they'd stop there after they were done raping and murdering all that opposed them.

As for your North Korea reference, I'd love to White Knight in North Korea but it's complicated by the fact that they could launch nukes at our allies and kill hundreds of thousands of people before we took out Dear Leader.

The World is a shitty, complicated place. No one is White knighting and nobody here is rooting for civilian deaths. You can preach all you want to about not fighting enemies in foreign countries, but the world hasn't worked that way since the first man saw the second man.

 

There's nothing pretty about war. The US does more than any other nation to avoid civilian causalities, sometimes we value them so much we decline striking high value targets to spare them. Nobody wants to see civilian casualties. But how can you justify your anger for the death of 300 civilians, but have no issue with the US doing absolutely nothing to stop the 200,000 who have been killed in the last 6 years in Syria?

Do you see these countries dropping flyers prior to bombing regions to alert civilians? Do you see the US stashing weaponry and firing rockets from schools and hospitals like Hamas? Nobody is innocent in war. There are mistakes and casualties on both side. But the US takes an extreme amount of caution to avoid civilian deaths and we should absolutely recognize this fact when casting shame.

 

When we feel like it? You act as if there is no justification for fighting ISIS or the Assads. And it's quite disgusting and troubling that you think we're killing civilians when we feel like it...

It's also troubling that you think Sryians are angry with us for interfering in their civil war. They're upset because this has been going on since 2011 and we've done almost nothing about it. We even drew a line in the sand, it was crossed, and we did almost nothing.

It's hard to believe this is still going on. I was in Lebanon in 2011, just a few months after everything began. I have family in Syria. They WANT our help.

You said it best. They are nut jobs, these guys wielding hammers in Europe. Don't try to make sense of their justification for legitimate murder. It's a false equivalency to equate a purposeful attack on a civilian with a casualty in a war zone. A war zone. I can't say that enough....Syria and Iraq is a WAR ZONE.

 

200,000 > 300

We're not calling the Marines in for the occasional atrocity. This has been going on for decades in Iraq and Syria.

It's funny how we're called the racists, but people like you seem to think that because they're not American, we shouldn't consider their lives. They're not worth fighting for. What is it that John Stuart Mills said about those unwilling to fight for anything?

We mourn those that are lost in war. We try to avoid their deaths. But far more people would die if we did nothing.

"All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing." - Edmund Burke

 

Convenience? LOL?

My principles include being rational. It isn't "convenience" to not topple North Korea, it's the nuclear missiles pointing at millions of people.

Just noting that this will be my last response to you as clearly your only real goal is throw a temper tantrum on the internet and mock everyone who lacks your enlightened view of what SHOULD be done in the mIddle east.

This is a tangled ball of dumb.

1) We don't want to conquer Syria and at least most of us don't want to conquer Iran
2) "conquer" in the way ISIS wants to do it is totally different than American attempts at regime change. ISIS does not have a goal of creating a stable, democratic government. They are perfectly fine slaughtering everyone.
3) Your mindset would have led to the total downfall of the world generations ago. Powerful nations can't just stick their thumb up their butts and watch monsters run wild. Sometimes you make tragic mistakes and a kid on the internet will get to be really upset, but hey, that's the price of poker.

My ideal world would also involve no civilians dead ever, no terrorism, no American troops abroad, no unemployment, free education, amazing healthcare for everyone and World Championship Wrestling would have never sucked so hard that the WWF got to buy out them out in 2001. We all have to come to grips with reality though.