Bumbling Obama and his merry band of warmongers are at it again. Nine civilians including women and children have been slaughtered in what NATO are calling a "precision strike". http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/sep/08/afghan-nato-air-strike-civilians
I never understood why people always add "and women and children" in their posts. A civilian is a civilian, innocent is innocent.
Camels aren't excluded either. I must say though, I'm probably guilty of using the "women and children" thing, but when you stop and think about it, it's just dumb. Any loss of innocent life, if preventable, is fucked.
I hear you and you are correct, it is silly. I guess it is to emphasis the fact that being women and children, they are innocent and not "terrorists". That said the wan i live with is far from innocent and terrorizes me with her constant moaning.
Because most countries don't allow women and children in combat. They are especially "off limits", because they cannot even be considered a threat. An innocent man could possibly be trained in combat, and their deaths are "justified" because they could "possibly" be a threat. Bullshit, but that's the reasoning.
60% civilian casualties is what they consider "precision," and these people are pretending they are going to kill less civilians than assad or hos opposition will. They need to just be honest about it. "Hey, thousands of civilians are gonna die, but here is what it means for us business wise if we are the ones that kill them."
While I'm certainly not defending our asshole, hawk POTUS, I don't see the purpose in sharing every civilian fatality. If we as a species are willing to fight, rather it's a just fight or not, we are going to have innocents who perish. It has happened in every war, skirmish, conflict, revolution, etc.. in history. We certainly shouldn't ignore civilian death once a war is underway, but I assume that there are far more than 9 civilians dying probably everyday.
We couldn't keep up with every civilian casualty which is why we clearly aren't posting every single one. More like simply stating that its not ending. Just because people are willing to "fight" doesn't guarantee an innocent life lost. Its not like we are saying "Hey you over there causing war, dont kill innocents while you go about your biz!" no, its more like "STOP SPENDING OUR FORCED TAXATION ON A FUCKING WAR NO ONE WANTS, KILLING PEOPLE NO ONE WANTS TO FUCKING KILL". Yeah, more like that.
It is worthwhile drumming home the message that Obama's precious drones are not the "precision weapon" that they are claimed to be.
Good point, I agree. I'd still rather have unmanned bombers do the job though than to send over troops which may get killed themselves, or may rape and kill the civilians in a much more brutal way.
It truly is precision warfare though. Accuracy and precision, as close as they are in definition, have slightly different meanings. One dealing with the degree of closeness, the other dealing with unchanged conditions to show the same results. It is impossible to have a truly accurate "god missile" to kill only the intended target. At the end of the day, it's still a bomb.. I think when the military uses the word "precision," they mean that they can annihilate this building and its occupants, while this building over here is virtually untouched and unharmed.
Saudi Arabia has sent death-row inmates from several nations to fight against the Syrian government in exchange for commuting their sentences, the Assyrian International News Agency reports. Citing what it calls a "top secret memo" in April from the Ministry of Interior, AINA says the Saudi offered 1,239 inmates a pardon and a monthly stipend for their families, which were were allowed to stay in the Sunni Arab kingdom. Syrian President Bashar Assad is an Alawite, a minority Shiite sect. According to an English translation of the memo, besides Saudis, the prisoners included Afghans, Egyptians, Iraqis, Jordanians, Kuwaitis, Pakistanis, Palestinians, Somalis, Sudanese, Syrians and Yemenis. All faced "execution by sword" for murder, rape or drug smuggling. http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2013/01/21/saudi-inmates-fight-syria-commute-death-sentences/1852629/ Thoughts?