This seems obvious to me, but it seems a lot of you just don't understand it...

Padawanbater2

Well-Known Member
This thread stems from a different one where someone commented about civilian deaths in the middle of battle and the high civilian death toll accumulated so far in Iraq.

The proponents of the war feel these deaths are necessary and reasonable because they ensure future safety and any reasonable civilian (without aggressive intentions) would be long gone by the time a battle erupted, so any civilians remaining must be involved in the insurgency in one way or another.

I just wanted to get to the logic behind this kind of reasoning, because I've looked for it, and it simply isn't there. What is there is inhumane actions that would never be defended by posters here if the people committing the actions were not American. This is a blatant double standard and obvious political American bias.

How would you expect a civilian to simply leave the designated battle zone? Walk? What do they tell AQ or the Taliban as they leave? They don't want to be killed in the upcoming assault? I bet they'd understand, right? As mentioned, every single time a civilian dies by American hands, it gives them and their cause justification and creates MORE people to kill. You guys really need to understand how that works because it's extremely important, especially regarding future safety and stability.

Further, how would you expect an insurgency of this type to fight the full force of the Coalition forces, made up mainly of American forces? This gets brought up a lot! "well the civilian casualties are the terrorists fault, if they dressed in soldiers uniforms and fought conventional war and didn't use civilians as shields, there wouldn't be so many deaths"... How can you reason that out with a straight face and not feel embarrassed about actually saying it and defending it?

Think it through, what would happen if all the terrorists put on soldiers uniforms? The coalition forces would INSTANTLY recognize them as a TERRORIST, right? They have a higher chance of getting killed, right? From the terrorists perspective, it is logical to dress in civilian clothing. It's a tactic a force of the size of the insurgency MUST use to be effective. You would do the exact same thing if it were you, if you wouldn't, you sir would not remain a terrorist for very long.

So do you finally see how killing innocent people, even in war, is not justified simply by propping up how the enemy wages war?

It's as if you guys are saying it would be totally OK to open fire on a group of men walking towards you carrying an AK47 in one hand and a 5 year old child in the other. It would be different if the man was walking into your house, but that's not the case at all.

Thoughts?
 

westhamm1132

Active Member
yh its like where would they even get uniforms there in afghanistan ffs lol the taliban are just stupid tribals who just want there land back they dont care about over afghans they will use them as human shealds any day.

another thing america needs wars for its industreys they make alot of money from wars and they view there own men as expendable do you realy think they give a fuk about the afghans? its all about image for the U.S congress they would sacrafice 10,000s of there own men just so they dont lose face.

team america fuk yea (americans are cool just have a fuked up goverment)
 

Keenly2

Active Member
i would put cold hard cash down that in the last 3 years the us has killed more civilians (worldwide) than any other country except maybe the continent of africa
 

KaleoXxX

Well-Known Member
what the fuck is an "insurgent" anyways? any one who arms them selves, because they are not satisfied with us involvement? anyone the occupying forces happen to kill?
 

Keenly2

Active Member
what the fuck is an "insurgent" anyways? any one who arms them selves, because they are not satisfied with us involvement? anyone the occupying forces happen to kill?

basically if you resist the use of control or force, your a terrorist
 

Ring'n

Active Member
The war that breeds future insurgents.... If someone killed my family for no reason,
you bet your ass I wouldn't roll over and take it.

So ugh, where is Osama anyways? They sure found Saddam fast, but then again he had oil they wanted.
 

KaleoXxX

Well-Known Member
The war that breeds future insurgents.... If someone killed my family for no reason,
you bet your ass I wouldn't roll over and take it.

So ugh, where is Osama anyways? They sure found Saddam fast, but then again he had oil they wanted.
how long do people on dialysis usually survive for in the desert?
 

Mindmelted

Well-Known Member
So all the people that blow themselves up are really not killing anybody but soldiers right!!!!!!

So they kill their own people trying to get to us soldiers but that is fine.

Not saying killing cilvillians is right.

But you guys seem to think all the deaths are our fault.
 

Man o' the green

Active Member
Who do you define as a civilian inside a war zone ? Are all people who stay providing aid to the enemy in some way ? Was dropping the bombs on Japan a war crime since civilians were necessarily going to be killed ? Dresden ?
There are necessary calculations when determining how to use force in war, how many can be saved by how many deaths. Civilians are involved regardless of whether they want to be or not. Accidental deaths of civilians cannot be avoided. Even intentional ( collateral ) deaths of civilians need to be weighed against the benefits.
War is brutality, it can't be reformed. We can only try to avoid it.

Isn't the real question here if we should be involved ? And are the inevitable civilian deaths worth the ultimate goal ?
 

Mindmelted

Well-Known Member
Who do you define as a civilian inside a war zone ? Are all people who stay providing aid to the enemy in some way ? Was dropping the bombs on Japan a war crime since civilians were necessarily going to be killed ? Dresden ?
There are necessary calculations when determining how to use force in war, how many can be saved by how many deaths. Civilians are involved regardless of whether they want to be or not. Accidental deaths of civilians cannot be avoided. Even intentional ( collateral ) deaths of civilians need to be weighed against the benefits.
War is brutality, it can't be reformed. We can only try to avoid it.

Isn't the real question here if we should be involved ? And are the inevitable civilian deaths worth the ultimate goal ?

You have a better way with words than i do...:clap:

War is not pretty and never will be.
 

Ring'n

Active Member
What is the ultimate goal? Does anyone really know?

Of course civilians will be lost during war, but if the ultimate goal is finding Osama then there should be more
effort put into finding him rather than fighting "insurgents" that the war created....

At first it was Osama and his merry men that the US was fighting, now it is also the family
members of people killed by errand "Smart Bombs", amongst other atrocities civilians have suffered
at the hands of the US.....
 

NoDrama

Well-Known Member
What is the ultimate goal? Does anyone really know?

Of course civilians will be lost during war, but if the ultimate goal is finding Osama then there should be more
effort put into finding him rather than fighting "insurgents" that the war created....

At first it was Osama and his merry men that the US was fighting, now it is also the family
members of people killed by errand "Smart Bombs", amongst other atrocities civilians have suffered
at the hands of the US.....
Our goal is not to find Osama ( IMO hes been dead for 8 years), our goal is to kill as many people as it takes to make all of them bend to our will. Then we will rape them of their resources, setup a marionette regime and use the barrel of a gun to enforce all the new laws the new puppet government can come up with. Its what we do, we have been doing the same thing for 2 generations now.
 

kappainf

Well-Known Member
Ummm, civilians definitely die in war, some are killed by US soldiers, some are killed by AQ, taliban, or other local terrorist groups. I don't know anyone from the armed services who enjoyed killing anybody. It sucks that people have to die, but it's just the way it is, civilians casualties by the hands of US troops is actually much fewer today than it was several years ago. Attacks today are much more strategic.
 

dukeofbaja

New Member
I wonder what some folks here would be saying if, say, North Korea killed 20,000 innocent civilians while enforcing an occupation after a pre-emptive war (you'd have to suppose in this scenario we don't have the military might to kick them out, like if the US was Hawaii-sized).
 

IAm5toned

Well-Known Member
I wonder what some folks here would be saying if, say, North Korea killed 20,000 innocent civilians while enforcing an occupation after a pre-emptive war (you'd have to suppose in this scenario we don't have the military might to kick them out, like if the US was Hawaii-sized).
yeah, that already happened bout 50 years ago.... hate to burst your bubble. our troops are still there.
 
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