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anon_ph7vrsh7abnty
Guest
I personally don't find a couple of hundred thousand dead civilians acceptable. There is a middle ground between this hoo-rah nonsense in the article and the half-assed fecklessness from Obama. It's called Iraq with the surge. The issue is in filling the void left behind after you're done--Obama cutting and running in 2011, and leaving in charge the same flavor of dirty, vengeful scumbags is what allowed ISIS to happen. While it shouldn't be our job to ensure and train every government across the world, I'm not sure what other option we have.
The problem is these trainwreck countries with no strong central government or military become breeding grounds for these groups. Even evil central govs like Saddam's see groups like these as threats and keep them under their thumbs. The rats don't live in that biggest as**ole in your neighborhood's house, they live in the abandoned one.
Go into Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, third world African countries, toss out their weak governments and divy them up to the civilized countries that want them. Afghanistan becomes our 51st state, We'll drop a few thousand McDonalds in there, let hippies move into the mountain caves, create a theme park or 8, make drugs legal and Al Queda can make honest cash with their poppy fields. Hollywood can film every war, alien landscape, Mad Max movie they want there. The UK can have Iraq. They can drop in a bunch of soccer stadiums and warm beer pubs. France can decorate Syria. Give Russia a winter home destination somewhere. We don't have to do genocide, just westernise. They will still hate us, but will be too fat and lazy to do much about it.
Go into Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, third world African countries, toss out their weak governments and divy them up to the civilized countries that want them. Afghanistan becomes our 51st state, We'll drop a few thousand McDonalds in there, let hippies move into the mountain caves, create a theme park or 8, make drugs legal and Al Queda can make honest cash with their poppy fields. Hollywood can film every war, alien landscape, Mad Max movie they want there. The UK can have Iraq. They can drop in a bunch of soccer stadiums and warm beer pubs. France can decorate Syria. Give Russia a winter home destination somewhere. We don't have to do genocide, just westernise. They will still hate us, but will be too fat and lazy to do much about it.
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anon_ph7vrsh7abnty
Guest
Millions of people died in WWII including over 300,000 Americans. Some people estimated that casualties inflicted during an invasion of Japan would be over a million. How many Americans has ISIS killed?
It's amazing to me that a bombing in Paris that kills 1 American can induce some people to think it's reasonable to kill hundreds of thousands of civilians. Actually it's more scary than amazing. ISIS needs to be dealt with but sending in B-52s to annihilate cities and murder civilians is idiotic.
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anon_ph7vrsh7abnty
Guest
Not sure there's really any more to add to this point, it's self-evident to me. I dare say we have superior bombing capabilities today vs. 1945. To act like it's either "bomb them all" or "do nothing" is silly.
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anon_ph7vrsh7abnty
Guest
Again, no one is saying that.
But we can't pretend to fight any foe without some innocent casualties. I'm just trying to figure out what is the threshold.
Where do your morals meet victory?
They are in hospitals and schools. They are in regular houses in the middle of neighborhoods. They are in mosques. They are hiding Among civilians. You have to kill civilians in large numbers and frankly I would say bomb my family if rape and beheading is what awaited us.
Is there a magic number that makes it okay? One innocent will always be too many. However, we all realize that it will never be practically attainable but prevent innocent losses.
If there is a realistic threat of annihilation, the locals may out the rats in order to save themselves.
Obviously that depends on the level of threat you are eliminating. Only a fool would believe you could conduct an operation to severely cripple ISIS without some civilian casualties. The article linked suggested leveling a city of 220,000 to take out 25,000 ISIS fighters. A 10:1 civilian to combatant ratio is not acceptable to me based on what I perceive as the threat level of ISIS. If in a few years they've killed a million people I'd probably be OK with Hiroshima level destruction.
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anon_ph7vrsh7abnty
Guest
So, there is an acceptable casualty number for you on the flip side as well.
Interesting.
What's interesting about it? All I've ever said is the casualty level outlined in that article is ridiculous.
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