Braddock wrote:
dayarath wrote:
Braddock wrote:
How many are you suggesting roughly? I would be highly sceptical of the idea that the American military campaign only killed only a small number of civilians given the ferocity of the initial air strikes and the sheer messy nature of the ground assaults... and accidents are neither an excuse nor a justification for deaths.
Braddock, all missiles and big offensives made in Iraq or Afghanistan were made in order to eliminate hostiles; talibans and insurgents. All the civilians that died in artillery fire / missile attacks / air bombings etc. are considered accidental, they're not supposed to die, and given the high precision of our weapons these days it's very remarkable if alot of civilians die in these accidents.
The taliban and it's fellow insurgencies are responsible for probably 90% or more of all the casualties in Iraq. I can't give you an exact number, I haven't been there and I don't think there's really a statistic showing : Taliban killed number A, Americans killed number B. That doesn't exist.
Just keep in mind, the americans and it's allies are incredibly carefull when it comes to taking out hostiles, and with that reduces the amount of civilian casualties as much as possible. Also, any intentional killing of civilians results in the soldier in question going through alot of shit.
I know the US military don't set out to kill or injure civilians and I'm well aware that military technology is more accurate than ever but there are still several cases in war where many civilians are killed by being near legitimate targets, as a result of targets being misidentified and in some cases because of soldiers violating the rules of war altogether (we've all seen YouTube videos and whatnot, although I'd like to think these are not indicative of most soldiers). I mean just look at all the friendly fire incidents never mind accidents involving civilians.
Responsibility must also be placed for the bloodbath that has ensued after normal military operations ended. I know Bush and the US army don't carry out all the attacks and murders that take place there but Bush's decision to invade is responsible for the situation that we now have. Saddam would have had to be butchering round the clock to get near the rising death toll that we are now witnessing.
The rising dead toll is more dead insurgents and Taliban, I don't think anyone's going to miss those people - infact most would be happy to see them leave. We are however talking about civilian casualties. Now if you wish to compare modern day military operations from the western allies to Saddam's rule you're going in an incredibly wrong direction. Saddam wiped out entire villages for testing his weapons, and killed anyone opposing him. We don't have exact numbers but they're considerably higher than those of the casualties made today.
It's easy to blame someone for killing civilians, especially when there was no intention to do so. Anyone who kills a civilian intentionally will get his ass dragged back to the country he came from and put in prison.
Now, the current shitty situation we are in is something noone likes, I agree. I opposed the war when they wanted to start it, but now we're there we are damn well not going to leave those people there in the midst of a war, if we do they'll all die and the Taliban will gain control.
This targetting gone wrong you're speaking of happens rarely. Friendly fire is something that doesn't happen every day. With a bit of sense you can imagine that preventing civilian casualties all togheter is impossible, and so we're doing the best we can to minimize the chance, but it'll always happen.
Now those people that do get killed by the allies are pure accidents, you can't keep someone responsible for that. What are you going to do, trial innocent military personell putting their lives on the line over there, doing their jobs to protect those civilians? That goes far beyond our moral responsibility. What we should do is eliminate the taliban and the insurgencies, which we are doing.
What Bush did was wrong, but I'm not voting to put him in front of a war tribunal for it.
