Attacks in Paris Stadium, concert hall

FA wrote: "If they join the terrorists because of the unintended deaths of innocents in retaliation for the intended murder of innocents, then I don't think they were on the fence either."

Yet you subsequently wrote::

FA: "The drones seldom "mess up." If there is collateral damage it was anticipated and accepted..."

How can it be called "unintended" if it is anticipated and accepted?

Finn wrote:

That's a good point. It may, for some, be a difference without distinction, but the aim of the drone strikes, unlike terrorist attacks, is not to kill innocents. A lot of the terrorists deliberately travel everywhere with non-targets who we might consider "human shields." It appears that currently this ploy is working with ISIS if we believe those who report that the Rules of Engagement are such that the potential death of even one "innocent" scrubs a mission. This was not the case with Obama's drone attacks in the past and maybe the collateral deaths have weighed heavily on his conscious since then, despite the apparent glee he took in ordering the strikes.

In larger bombing raids, "innocents" are almost certainly killed whether the bombs are American, Russian or French, but they were not the intent of the strike.

Perhaps my phrasing could have been better, but my point was and remains that on the one hand there is ISIS that very deliberately targets and attacks non-combatant Muslims for rape, torture and death.

On the other hand there is the West that is targeting ISIS for death so they will cease the behaviors cited above. In the course of these efforts non-combatant Muslims have been killed. They are far fewer in number than the victims of ISIS and their deaths were not intended, but they did die. Insisting that only ISIS fighter be killed will require engaging them on the ground in a conventional war scenario. No one has the stomach, at present for sending in ground troops or (other than the Kurds) for being those ground troops so we are limited to killing them from the sky or mounting Special Forces suicide missions.

If there is a zero tolerance for non-combatant Muslim deaths, then ISIS will not be defeated and they will continue to slaughter the very people we are insisting can't be killed.

For a Muslim, particularly one who is not in the war zone, the choices are not pretty and I don't say they have to wave French or American flags as bombs dropping on ISIS kill non-combatant Muslims, but to make the decision to fight the forces that are, ultimately, trying to save the lives of Muslims is, at the very least, not logical. With the exception of the insane or those temporarily insane due to personal grief, I simply do not buy for one minute that attacks against ISIS are recruiting new terrorists who would otherwise never become jihadis.

For a sympathizer of ISIS the attacks may induce them to join the ranks, but the hearts and minds of such people were lost to the West long ago and anything might prompt them to pick up a gun or a suicide vest.

These strikes are mostly illegal anyway, taking place in sovereign nations against the wishes or without the permissions of the government. They occur because the United States wishes to avoid casualties and so instead of commando raids or infantry actions which might result in the death or kidnapping of American troops, stand-off weaponry is used.

Finn wrote:

First of all, if the drone strikes are illegal so would be commando raids and infantry actions. Secondly what is wrong with avoiding American casualties? Or you also of the opinion that if we are going to try and kill these jihadis we should "at least" man up and put our soldiers lives on the line? I don't think I've ever seen so many militant doves. Finally, as much as the nations in which the drone attacks occur may crow (and they do so very softly) most if not all or them are happy the villains have been killed and, as well, they much prefer an incursion by drone than on the ground. With the later they might be forced to engage American troops in combat which is something they do not want.

Bombs are by their nature indiscriminate, destroying whatever is in their large blast radius, even when they hit their target. In urban areas that means hitting homes and businesses or streets with traffic.

Imagine your wife and children stopped by the bank one day, and were held hostage by criminals or terrorists who wanted to use them as bargaining chips or human shields. If the SWAT team stormed the building and in the process they were killed by stray bullets, you might not blame the police. But if instead the police dropped a bomb on the building, you'd call the action grossly irresponsible and ask for criminal charges against them.

Now imagine that the bomb is dropped not by the police, but by a foreign government acting without invitation or legal authority; one that furthermore has a longstanding habit of doing this. They rarely acknowledge civilian casualties, and when they do, they employ an absurd euphemism (collateral damage) to make the event sound bloodless and abstract; and instead of taking responsibility for their actions, they blame their targets for hiding behind civilians, in a meaningless press release that's as close to an apology as they ever come, but is really nothing more than a justification offered in a public relations statement. You might be upset. All the more so if you read about such incidents all the time in your own media,but theirs never mentions it, except when the bombing is conducted by their geopolitical enemies.

Obviously its wrong to take revenge for the death of innocents by targeting more innocents for a reprisal attack (terrorism). Yet western governments and many of their citizens routinely do and urge to be done this same thing. Bomb foreign cities because militants operate there. If civilians are killed, that's war. Maybe they'll think twice next time. But western governments don't think twice the next time a terrorist attack occurs, do they? Why expect terrorists to respond more rationally?

Finn wrote:

I don't expect terrorists to respond rationally. I expect non-terrorist Muslims to. When it is convenient, people such as yourself love to point out that the terrorists are killing far more of their fellow Muslims than Westerners. You offer this as evidence that all Muslims are not terrorists and it makes sense, but you can't ignore the fact when you want to make another point. If all Muslims are not terrorists and the terrorists are killing far more of them than Westerners then surely it is in their interest to have the terrorists killed. If, as is the case with ISIS, more Muslims are being killed by terrorists than by Western raids then the simple but grim math is: Better that the West kills a few Muslims now than to have ISIS killing far more for years to come. Obviously I am making a very dispassionate, to say the least, assessment here and there are all sorts of complicate emotions for Muslims to consider, but I would like to think that deciding to pick up an AK-47 and a suicide vest and wage jihad against the West is not a light decision for a Muslim to make. They are capable of viewing this rationally, as terrible as it is, and if they are not, again, virtually nothing we do or do not do is going to influence their decision to join the terrorists.

To reiterate, there is a difference between targeting innocents and accepting that some may die. Yes, it is a subtle difference, but this mess doesn't allow for entirely black and white choices. I can understand the argument that the Iraqi War was a huge recruitment tool for terrorists. In that case, America was not responding to a terrorist attack and neither was it precise in taking out Iraq soldiers and Baathists who, ostensibly, could be called the "enemy." By the same token, any war waged against Assad and his terrorist regime in Syria as an attempt to liberate the Syrian people, could easily be considered identical to Iraq. If Obama had ordered airstrikes after it was revealed that Assad was using chemical weapons, it is almost certainly the case that innocents would have been killed. But the very real possibility exists that if the US and the West had intervened in Syria early on, many of the 200,000 plus dead Syrians would be alive today and ISIS may not exist. Would that outcome have been worth the deaths of 1000 or more innocent Syrians? It's not an easy question to answer.

As far as your bank hostages analogy goes, why would the police drop a bomb on the bank and not raid it? If it was simply to prevent death or injury to their own people, their actions would be called into question but then you would have to ask if there was any reason why the made that decision. Was it the case that the townspeople had been vehemently opposed to putting police in harms way, no matter what the cause? Was the Chief of Police simply following the will of the townspeople? We have a situation in America where a lot of people think we need to do something about ISIS as long as it doesn't mean sending troops. We also, frankly, have a lot of Muslims (and not just in their governments) around the world who think we need to do something about ISIS, but would likely pitch a fit, at some point, if we invaded Syria to do it.

There are no easy choices and there is much to consider. My argument is that the consideration that our actions will lead to more terrorists particularly in the case of ISIS, is largely a canard.

Finn dAbuzz wrote:

Do your prefer our warriors to get bloody in hand to hand combat?

yes

preferably leader to leader

So, you really prefer the people who have to fight wars get bloody?

P.S. During the Second World War both the Axis and Allied governments targeted enemy civilian populations on a vast scale, using both conventional and incendiary bombs. The idea was to undermine the morale of foreign populations to undermine or end the war effort. Bomb the Huns. Bomb the Japs. Gott strafe England. (OK, that's a slogan from a different war. The point is the same.)

Totally immoral. But do we expect the Third World to adhere to higher standards when it comes to redressing grievances against "them"?

I don't see Middle Eastern terrorists attacking Mexico. Or Finland. Or New Zealand. Is that just a coincidence?

Finn dAbuzz wrote:

So, you really prefer the people who have to fight wars get bloody?

yes

if I'm completely honest, I also want them to die. I have no nice, polite feelings about it. If they're going to fight, they should fight fairly - get bloody and die.

oralloy wrote:

Until recently Islamic State was no in need of any donations, as they made lots of revenue from stealing and then selling Syria's oil.

Depends on what you call "recently".

The source of the donations from Kuweit and Saudi Arabia was first noted back in 2012, 'recently', in 2014, by James Stavridis ... ... ... Today (2015), it has been said that most of the donations now comes from Qatar.

There's something to this, but though the Shiites used various types of repression including death squads, there was no campaign of extermination.

Well, who is this "we" that will unilaterally determine the borders of the sovereign state of Iraq, which has a government?

If Syria is split up into an Alawite coastal state, a Kurdish state in the north, a non-ISIS radical Islamic state in the central portion, and a moderate FSA controlled state in the south, that still leaves a Sunni radical controlled state in place; and who will keep them separated and at peace? All of the pragmatic alliances between rebel groups that now exist to fight Assad will fall apart once the central government falls. The end of Assad need not mean the end of civil war in Syria. And from Syria, Islamic radicals can still subvert Sunni Iraq.

They still do. They also make lots of money from taxes (both personal and business), fines for common infractions like smoking, the international drug trade, and even banking, as well as extortion and kidnapping.

These strikes are mostly illegal anyway, taking place in sovereign nations against the wishes or without the permissions of the government.

Bombs are by their nature indiscriminate, destroying whatever is in their large blast radius, even when they hit their target. In urban areas that means hitting homes and businesses or streets with traffic.

Imagine your wife and children stopped by the bank one day, and were held hostage by criminals or terrorists who wanted to use them as bargaining chips or human shields. If the SWAT team stormed the building and in the process they were killed by stray bullets, you might not blame the police. But if instead the police dropped a bomb on the building, you'd call the action grossly irresponsible and ask for criminal charges against them.

Now imagine that the bomb is dropped not by the police, but by a foreign government acting without invitation or legal authority; one that furthermore has a longstanding habit of doing this. They rarely acknowledge civilian casualties, and when they do, they employ an absurd euphemism (collateral damage) to make the event sound bloodless and abstract; and instead of taking responsibility for their actions, they blame their targets for hiding behind civilians, in a meaningless press release that's as close to an apology as they ever come, but is really nothing more than a justification offered in a public relations statement. You might be upset. All the more so if you read about such incidents all the time in your own media,but theirs never mentions it, except when the bombing is conducted by their geopolitical enemies.

Obviously its wrong to take revenge for the death of innocents by targeting more innocents for a reprisal attack (terrorism). Yet western governments and many of their citizens routinely do and urge to be done this same thing.

Bomb foreign cities because militants operate there. If civilians are killed, that's war. Maybe they'll think twice next time. But western governments don't think twice the next time a terrorist attack occurs, do they? Why expect terrorists to respond more rationally?

P.S. During the Second World War both the Axis and Allied governments targeted enemy civilian populations on a vast scale, using both conventional and incendiary bombs.

ehBeth wrote:

Finn dAbuzz wrote:

So, you really prefer the people who have to fight wars get bloody?

yes

if I'm completely honest, I also want them to die. I have no nice, polite feelings about it. If they're going to fight, they should fight fairly - get bloody and die.

I don't think it's a question of being polite, just sane.

It's a good thing you're not Secretary of Defense.

Mankind fought the sort of wars you prefer for thousands of years. It didn't crimp warfare. If we reverted to it today, it wouldn't reduce the number of wars.

Better that technology continue to advance weaponry to increase it's precision and accuracy.

Here's a concrete counterexample:

"At this point, LeMay ordered the B-29 bombers to attack at a relatively low altitude of 5,000 to 9,000 ft (1,500 to 2,700 m) and at night, because Japan's anti-aircraft artillery defenses were weakest in this altitude range, and the fighter defenses were ineffective at night. LeMay ordered all defensive guns but the tail gun removed from the B-29s so that the aircraft would be lighter and use less fuel.

"On the night of 9–10 March ("Operation Meetinghouse"), 334 B-29s took off to raid with 279 of them dropping 1,665 tons of bombs on Tokyo. The bombs were mostly the 500-pound (230 kg) E-46 cluster bomb which released 38 napalm-carrying M-69 incendiary bomblets at an altitude of 2,000–2,500 ft (610–760 m). The M-69s punched through thin roofing material or landed on the ground; in either case they ignited 3–5 seconds later, throwing out a jet of flaming napalm globs. A lesser number of M-47 incendiaries was also dropped: the M-47 was a 100-pound (45 kg) jelled-gasoline and white phosphorus bomb which ignited upon impact. In the first two hours of the raid, 226 of the attacking aircraft unloaded their bombs to overwhelm the city's fire defenses. The first B-29s to arrive dropped bombs in a large X pattern centered in Tokyo's densely populated working class district near the docks in both Koto and Chuo city wards on the water; later aircraft simply aimed near this flaming X. The individual fires caused by the bombs joined to create a general conflagration, which would have been classified as a firestorm but for prevailing winds gusting at 17 to 28 mph (27 to 45 km/h).

"Approximately 15.8 square miles (4,090 ha) of the city was destroyed and some 100,000 people are estimated to have died."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombing_of_Tokyo

Here's another one:

The bombing of Dresden was a UK/US aerial bombing attack on the city of Dresden, the capital of the German state of Saxony, that took place during the Second World War in the European Theatre. Germany would surrender three months later. In four raids between 13 and 15 February 1945, 722 heavy bombers of the British Royal Air Force (RAF) and 527 of the United States Army Air Forces (USAAF) dropped more than 3,900 tons of high-explosive bombs and incendiary devices on the city. The bombing and the resulting firestorm destroyed over 1,600 acres (6.5 km 2 ) of the city centre.

An estimated 22,700 to 25,000 people were killed."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombing_of_Dresden_in_World_War_II

Of course where you part ways with your fellow hawks, eh beth and osso is that neither of them will endorse a ground attack.

I suppose my baseline is, if you have not fought in combat, have not been shot and captured by a murderous enemy, shut the **** up.