Funny for all the bad press the US and Western Europe get. I don't see anyone here voting with their feet and moving elsewhere. :)
Mod - Let's get back to discussing Afghanistan please, you can discuss the various aspects of WW2 in the military forum. Thanks
"Nine members of one family were killed in a US drone strike targeting a vehicle in a residential neighborhood of Kabul....Those killed included six children, the youngest being a 2-year-old girl".
The swamp keeps on growing. When will they ever learn?
But last week we had people saying the US should be using drone strikes to take out ISIS/Taliban troops. Collateral damage didn't seem to matter then but now its a talking point.
I've said it before and I'll say it again, no matter what Biden does he will be wrong in the eyes of some.
Do you take out the vehicle if it’s rigged with explosives now endangering the family of the militant or let them kill over a hundred in a suicide bombing?
I read an interesting interview with an Afghan translator who has been on the ground there working since 9/11.
He said that there was a time around 2003/4 that the Taliban were demoralised and defeated and retreated to the mountains. He felt strongly that that was the point where some dialogue around a peace deal would have been possible and was sought out by the Taliban but the Americans appeared only interested in revenge and continued bombings and drone strikes on controversial targets.
It was after this point that any chance of building on support from the Afghani people was irrevocably lost.
He described situations where there were land disputes or tribal disputes and people would falsely inform on neighbours so the Americans would carry out a drone strikes to their benefit. So in effect they were by proxy settling disputes and old scores due to being duped by unscrupulous locals. Of course they didn't put much effort in to verifying informant information.
One can only imagine the deep seeded hate this has sowed for future generations against the west and the US.
I think the Americans have only wrought revenge and destruction in Afghanistan and never had any notions of rooting out dissidents. The damage they have done here will have an impact for years and will lead to terrorist attacks which Europe will bare the brunt of.
Desperately sad and frustrating to see.
This sh*tshow goes from bad to worse. Now they appeared to have killed an innocent family with a drone strike while claiming it was a suicide bomber on the way to Kabul airport.
US "Intelligence" strikes again.
I think it was lot less complicated than that after the initial US involvement, and being busy elsewhere, they scaled back, which let the taliban regroup and come back, which why Obama surged more troops back there with a peak in 2011.
The local population always knew eventually the US and Allies would leave. They would be left to deal with the Taliban.
One of the most surreal videos I have seen yet about what the new Afghanistan will look like. And we all think our jobs are high pressure!
Maybe, although I'll hold out some suspicion that the Taliban or some other group is using this as a propaganda piece, and the actual facts different from what was reported.
I don't have a lot of faith in US intelligence, and fully believe that they would kill an entire family if they felt they were right to do so... however, I also know that any Islamic group would do the same if it meant increasing the hate towards the US, and increasing their own support.
Frankly, we're all far too removed to know what's really going on..
Hasnt "collateral damage" been a talking point for many years, since the beginning of the war, in fact? One of the first big stories I recall was the pentagon trailing a convoy supposedly carrying Al Zawahiri and the heated debate that ensued whether or not to zap the mosque into which the convoy had alighted. The hawks were frustrated on that occasion, whatever his other many crimes GWB didn't seem entirely sold on zapping large numbers of innocent human beings to take out one suspect. (From what i recall the conclusion was that Zawahiri was not even among the convoy, there was no absolute clarity).
The point is, though, a military strategy based on minimising your own casualties while inflicting greater casualties on the civilian population - and rationalizing it as "collateral damage" - is as doomed as pouring in huge numbers of troops and facing the wrath of people back home, as in the 60s.
"Parody is dead"
Afghanistan version of Question Time!
"You sir, top row, with the AK47, what would you like to ask?"
Suicide bombers are not exactly precision weapons.
That said most precision weapons are not that precise.
There was an AFB photo posted online showing the car they blew up with the rocket launchers inside it.
Many more lives saved.
Apparently it was a vehicle loaded with rockets and other explosives, which increased the power of the blast, and it was this which killed the Family.For sure, whoever sent the vehicle on it's mission did not give a damn about "collateral damage", and if it had not been destroyed, what would the death toll have been??? Including innocent family members, men women and children.For the last two years , Kabul ( and other Afghan cities) have been victims of ruthless bombing campaigns, targetting and hitting the most vulnerable of targets,,,
I suppose the US is rightly held to a higher standard here...
Just had a thought. Turkey has had these drone weapons as well for a few years and has become quite the drone "power". From what I've (edit) read the Turkish govt. uses them as the US has done (to kill their own versions of "terrorists") but perhaps with less restraint. I rarely see a reference to their actions in the media (which can also involve "collatoral damage") & the government certainly don't apologise and the Turks don't seem too worried about it either. In fact they are impressed (according to below article).
The drones have provoked little controversy at home. They “are seen as a source of national pride and an unmistakable symbol that Turkey is able to take care of its own,” said Ahmet Kasim Han, a professor of international relations at Altinbas University in Istanbul. “I would say that is the extent of the public debate.”
I'm not sure whether that indicates a failing by the US in setting ground rules for the use of these remote and possibly soon to be fully autonomous weapons (since they developed and deployed them first). IMO it's more likely expecting states to avoid civilian deaths when they use drones and the like to kill their enemies is totally unrealistic. We all know how the countries of the world have used "dumb" bombs dropped from aircraft since WW2 that are even more likely than drone strikes to result in civilian deaths.
Precision guided weapons are precise, very precise in fact. If they want to put one down the chimney of your house, they can and have done it many times. Suicide bombers either solo or vehicle borne on the other hand depend on massive destruction over a wide area, the wider the better. I'm pretty sure that they hit that vehicle dead centre, exactly where they wanted, and if it had not contained weapons / explosives, the death toll would have been much less. Had they not taken action on it, and it had reached its planned target area, the death toll would have been horrendous.I blame the people who sent that vehicle 100% for these innocents being killed,and no one else.
But but but,,,can you not see that they are protecting him????🙄
Population increase from 8 million to 40 million since 1950 and a birth rate still around 5 children per women. No real chance of change or successfully turning it around, throw in outside interventions from all sides and regressive religious dogma.
A basket case for the foreseeable future.
The war is officially over.
Last plane left.
Right or wrong, it’s the end of a 20 year war.
Another humiliation for the US...
Mission Failed...
"The last manned aircraft is now clearing the airspace, leaving Afghanistan," Gen Frank McKenzie, US Centcom.
manned*
Think this was their longest war.
so if you just hate the US, happy days bet u use google/ms ur probably trolling US freak lots here..
You misunderstand me. It's not the weapon that's imprecise it's the human element. Human shields etc.
will this mean the middle east will go to sh1t again? with civil wars, oil prices sky rocketing etc?
Horrible to think of the atrocities that could be happening there right now with the US done.
A calamitous decision.
How many civilians died in the last 20 years?
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