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

When it comes to armed conflict, we basically get the news our government wants us to get. The media rolled over for the Pentagon since Vietnam and we all took a nap while it happened. Now we're in the era of if I don't like the news it's fake news.

 

How do you win a war? That is what we are fighting with ISIS. That is why wars should be the last resort.

 

US citizen's lives, especially those of the rich and powerful are worth more than the lives of people in third world countries, that is just the way things are. We can talk about the many lives lost in conflicts or natural disasters, but at the end of the day, most of us do not truly care about them. Unless there is an alien invasion or we form the federation, that will be the way things are going to be for a long time.

 

Is the charge that the US coalition was purposely targeting civilians? If not, I'm not seeing the hypocrisy angle.

That isn't to say we shouldn't hold the military accountable for not observing the rules of war.

 

I don't want to call YOU stupid, but this is a stupid comparison.

1) Intentional targeting of unarmed individuals for political reasons
2) Unintentional civilian casualties as part of airstrikes against a brutally oppressive force

These are not the same thing at all.

No one is going to celebrate the loss of civilians in Syria during airstrikes, but they are not being targeted. There is, unfortunately, a God awful war being waged and the horrible reality of war is that civilians get caught in the middle of them.

 

That is the same justification Assad uses when he kills civilians. Not saying it's not true but you have to determine how reckless the US military was and how confident that they were in the intel when they order these strikes. ISIS could get squashed but not without a cooperative effort between the USA and Syria. No one has better intel on Syria than Syria itself. They need to start sharing intelligence and coordinating attacks.

 

Its a war lots of people will die.

 

Intentions absolutely matter.

Basically every legal system in the world recognizes this.

 

You are making a lot of claims about me that don't have a basis in fact. I'm not ignoring anything.

You don't understand a different between intent, that's on you not me. I didn't say the 300 civilians dying in Syria wasn't bad, wasn't as bad as the Congressmen being shot, etc. I said they aren't comparable situations at all.

 

You are right that it's largely irrelevant, but YOU are the one who added it.

Instead of making this thread about the 300 civilians killed by US airstrikes you chose to make it a thread about how comparing how people react to gunmen attacking unarmed Congressmen vs the civilians killed in military operations. That was your decision, and you are right, it's an irrelevant comparison.

 

The responsibility for those deaths lies with your ISIS buddies. I like how you are attempting outrage over collateral damage but you say nothing about the 4000+ Syrian civilians who have been executed by ISIS for "crimes" such as apostasy and homosexuality. I'm not going to speculate as to the reason for that, but you always seem upset when the US kills terrorists and it's weird. Even in this case, you are pretending to be upset about the collateral damage but I suspect your real problem with it is that the US has put increased pressure on ISIS recently and with those 300 (assuming accuracy in the report) civilians there are likely thousands of terrorists who died.

 

Try reading what I wrote again and see if you comprehend it better the second time through. Good luck.