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Basically, either you let ISIS escape, or you completely flatten the city to get rid of them. I mean considering the way Raqqa looks now, I'm not sure it was e

Basically, either you let ISIS escape, or you completely flatten the city to get rid of them. I mean considering the way Raqqa looks now, I'm not sure it was effective in preventing much destruction, but if you have an opportunity to save a large city, you try to.

JohnStrange 9y ago
Seconded. This sounds like a reasonable deal that probably prevented a lot of civilian deaths of people who could have been caught in the crossfire.
- cm2187 9y ago
  But the potential price is more suicide attacks in the streets of Paris or London. Not a concern of the SDF of course (and who could blame them?), but what outcome is more desirable from a western point of view is less obvious to me.
  - raverbashing 9y ago
    Then maybe the west should actually check who crosses their borders instead of just waving anyone through if they come from a boat And increase their intelligence resources and not be afraid to act on radical preachers
    - icebraining 9y ago
      What makes you think the West doesn't check who crosses the borders? What do you think the dozens of thousands of people stuck in detaining centers all over Greece and Italy are waiting for?
    - emn13 9y ago
      You do realize that e.g. the US spends approximately as much on the DHS (which is primarily borders+immigration stuff) as on the FBI, CIA, NSA, DEA and FBP (federal prisons) combined? And that's the US, which through history and geography has had the luck of relatively trivial borders? Border control is a huge focus! It's also an almost impossible task, which is not something people want to hear. It'd be easier to claim western countries spend too much on controlling their borders simply because all that cash doesn't seem to have had the desired effect, judging by popular opinion.
  - brazzy 9y ago
    You really think murdering women and children will lead to less suicide attacks in the future? That kind of short-sighted inhumane idiocy is exactly what keeps fueling the whole mess!
    - emn13 9y ago
      Come on, that's a strawman - you know that. It's not like there was a briefing with two options: mass murder, or let the bad guys retreat: pick one. Nor are the causes of "the whole mess" that trivially pinpointable.
  - boomboomsubban 9y ago
    Continued fighting would have killed thousands of more civilians, while France and Great Britain have had under a thousand terrorism related deaths since 1970. How isn't this obvious?
    - Zpalmtree 9y ago
      Because we value our own citizens higher than the lives of terrorists?
      - bjl 9y ago
        The vast majority of people killed in Syria were not terrorists.
      - boomboomsubban 9y ago
        Civilians aren't terrorists, though your own citizens might be.
  - belorn 9y ago
    There will always be a potential price to pay as long a single person lives that we define as enemy or define us as enemy. This is the classical reason why nations create final solutions to a conflict. Its a choice between a bad outcome and a really bad outcome, and I doubt neither is currently desired by a western point of view.
- ssijak 9y ago
  How is that even remotely reasonable. You got a convoy full of terrorists leaving for safety and/or Europe. It could have been easily bombed to destruction without touching anything else. Easiest and most valuable target of the whole war. And don`t even try to answer with something like "but it was a deal, we had to stand by it". They are a bunch of psychopath terrorists, period. You don`t make deals with them unless it is temporary to screw them later.
  - masteruvpuppetz 9y ago
    Perhaps you're forgetting.. there were coalition war planes guiding them to safety. Which means SDF won't be able to tinker with the arrangements even if they wanted to.
    - ssijak 9y ago
      Those coalition planes should be bombing them and not guiding them to safety lol I don`t get this thread. Majority of people think that this was totally ok. I guess until next 9/11, or London, or Paris or whatever happen (hope not) and then it is again ok to bomb the country half randomly and drone strike wherever the current administration wants.
      - icebraining 9y ago
        The question is whether it's acceptable to kill a bunch of innocents now (certainly the children, probably many of the women and possibly even some men) to avoid an hypothetical attack in the future. If this was just about ISIS fighters, I'd agree with you, but that's not what the report described.
        emn13 9y ago
        Considering women innocents (I'm assuming you mean non-combatants) is pretty absurd, IMHO. As in: they're certainly aware of what they're involved in; and their participation contributes significantly to the problem, and to the degree that they're forced to stay: that probably goes for most of those present: desertion isn't something any army takes lightly. And although the children cannot be at fault, I doubt they'll be either innocent or harmless after that childhood. To be clear, I'm not suggesting mass execution is therefore justified - but this bad situation is going to cause more bad situations in the future.
odiroot 9y ago
How about arrest and question them?
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- konart 9y ago
  You'll have to fight and most likely kill them in the process. Not to mention they are using human shields
- hssys 9y ago
  I cannot fathom the depth of your idiocy to even consider this as a feasible possibility.
aedron 9y ago
So intercept the convoy and fight them honorably, or whatever you believe is the better alternative. I hope you are not suggesting that they should just be getting a free pass because they brought their wives and kids in tow. At the very least track them and pick them out whenever the opportunity arises. It's not like the U.S. does not have any intelligence capabilities in the region. I'll tell you what I believe: The U.S. has been in collusion with Saudi Arabia and their ISIS henchmen from the beginning, trying to use them as a tool to force a regime change in Syria and Iraq. This is why ISIS has been treated with kids gloves for the duration of the campaign, first in Iraq and later in Syria. It was shown that the supposedly intense bombing campaigns were mysteriously ineffective for years, both the British and the American ones, ISIS again and again happened upon stashes of cash and weapons, etc. etc. Too many weird coincidences to mention. This will not be a difficult theory to consider for anyone with knowledge of history and the American modus operandi in foreign policy. But somehow you're a crackpot to challenge the official story. The mainstream media has been shown to selectively present news to support the official line, and occasionally lie, but people reel at the thought that there is another very different side to the story they get told. Government sponsored covert propaganda campaigns are exposed every other week, but people still buy the 'grassroots' reports from Twitter et al. It's sad but unforunately it may just be human nature to tend towards believing authority.
- Udik 9y ago
  While I agree with you on the real motives and goal of the US (even if I believe they're mixed and confused, and not as clear cut as you present them), I still find unacceptable the talk of total annihilation, not to mention the actual killing of thousands of people, women and children included. Yes, even if they're armed, the aim should be victory, not massacre.
- frandroid 9y ago
  1) I'd rather lean towards Hanlon's razor 2) Obama was actually quite mindful of int'l law and seriously restricted aerial strikes 3) Once Trump came to power, the military has been allowed carte blanche, and they basically wiped Mosul and Raqqa to take ISIS. As for your first paragraph, the point is that if you double-cross the enemy on a deal on made with them, then they won't make any more deals with you, and the U.S. needs leverage in Syria more than anyone else. So it's likely that the U.S. said, "you get out of Raqqa, we'll let you get to Albukamal or [whatever other place], and after that you're fair game again." Otherwise why would these jihadists have taken the bargain? They knew they would be a sitting target without assurances of safety until a destination.

JohnStrange 9y ago

Seconded. This sounds like a reasonable deal that probably prevented a lot of civilian deaths of people who could have been caught in the crossfire.

cm2187 9y ago
But the potential price is more suicide attacks in the streets of Paris or London. Not a concern of the SDF of course (and who could blame them?), but what outcome is more desirable from a western point of view is less obvious to me.
- raverbashing 9y ago
  Then maybe the west should actually check who crosses their borders instead of just waving anyone through if they come from a boat And increase their intelligence resources and not be afraid to act on radical preachers
  - icebraining 9y ago
    What makes you think the West doesn't check who crosses the borders? What do you think the dozens of thousands of people stuck in detaining centers all over Greece and Italy are waiting for?
  - emn13 9y ago
    You do realize that e.g. the US spends approximately as much on the DHS (which is primarily borders+immigration stuff) as on the FBI, CIA, NSA, DEA and FBP (federal prisons) combined? And that's the US, which through history and geography has had the luck of relatively trivial borders? Border control is a huge focus! It's also an almost impossible task, which is not something people want to hear. It'd be easier to claim western countries spend too much on controlling their borders simply because all that cash doesn't seem to have had the desired effect, judging by popular opinion.
- brazzy 9y ago
  You really think murdering women and children will lead to less suicide attacks in the future? That kind of short-sighted inhumane idiocy is exactly what keeps fueling the whole mess!
  - emn13 9y ago
    Come on, that's a strawman - you know that. It's not like there was a briefing with two options: mass murder, or let the bad guys retreat: pick one. Nor are the causes of "the whole mess" that trivially pinpointable.
- boomboomsubban 9y ago
  Continued fighting would have killed thousands of more civilians, while France and Great Britain have had under a thousand terrorism related deaths since 1970. How isn't this obvious?
  - Zpalmtree 9y ago
    Because we value our own citizens higher than the lives of terrorists?
    - bjl 9y ago
      The vast majority of people killed in Syria were not terrorists.
    - boomboomsubban 9y ago
      Civilians aren't terrorists, though your own citizens might be.
- belorn 9y ago
  There will always be a potential price to pay as long a single person lives that we define as enemy or define us as enemy. This is the classical reason why nations create final solutions to a conflict. Its a choice between a bad outcome and a really bad outcome, and I doubt neither is currently desired by a western point of view.
ssijak 9y ago
How is that even remotely reasonable. You got a convoy full of terrorists leaving for safety and/or Europe. It could have been easily bombed to destruction without touching anything else. Easiest and most valuable target of the whole war. And don`t even try to answer with something like "but it was a deal, we had to stand by it". They are a bunch of psychopath terrorists, period. You don`t make deals with them unless it is temporary to screw them later.
- masteruvpuppetz 9y ago
  Perhaps you're forgetting.. there were coalition war planes guiding them to safety. Which means SDF won't be able to tinker with the arrangements even if they wanted to.
  - ssijak 9y ago
    Those coalition planes should be bombing them and not guiding them to safety lol I don`t get this thread. Majority of people think that this was totally ok. I guess until next 9/11, or London, or Paris or whatever happen (hope not) and then it is again ok to bomb the country half randomly and drone strike wherever the current administration wants.
    - icebraining 9y ago
      The question is whether it's acceptable to kill a bunch of innocents now (certainly the children, probably many of the women and possibly even some men) to avoid an hypothetical attack in the future. If this was just about ISIS fighters, I'd agree with you, but that's not what the report described.
      - emn13 9y ago
        Considering women innocents (I'm assuming you mean non-combatants) is pretty absurd, IMHO. As in: they're certainly aware of what they're involved in; and their participation contributes significantly to the problem, and to the degree that they're forced to stay: that probably goes for most of those present: desertion isn't something any army takes lightly. And although the children cannot be at fault, I doubt they'll be either innocent or harmless after that childhood. To be clear, I'm not suggesting mass execution is therefore justified - but this bad situation is going to cause more bad situations in the future.

odiroot 9y ago

How about arrest and question them?

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
konart 9y ago
You'll have to fight and most likely kill them in the process. Not to mention they are using human shields
hssys 9y ago
I cannot fathom the depth of your idiocy to even consider this as a feasible possibility.

aedron 9y ago

So intercept the convoy and fight them honorably, or whatever you believe is the better alternative. I hope you are not suggesting that they should just be getting a free pass because they brought their wives and kids in tow. At the very least track them and pick them out whenever the opportunity arises. It's not like the U.S. does not have any intelligence capabilities in the region. I'll tell you what I believe: The U.S. has been in collusion with Saudi Arabia and their ISIS henchmen from the beginning, trying to use them as a tool to force a regime change in Syria and Iraq. This is why ISIS has been treated with kids gloves for the duration of the campaign, first in Iraq and later in Syria. It was shown that the supposedly intense bombing campaigns were mysteriously ineffective for years, both the British and the American ones, ISIS again and again happened upon stashes of cash and weapons, etc. etc. Too many weird coincidences to mention. This will not be a difficult theory to consider for anyone with knowledge of history and the American modus operandi in foreign policy. But somehow you're a crackpot to challenge the official story. The mainstream media has been shown to selectively present news to support the official line, and occasionally lie, but people reel at the thought that there is another very different side to the story they get told. Government sponsored covert propaganda campaigns are exposed every other week, but people still buy the 'grassroots' reports from Twitter et al. It's sad but unforunately it may just be human nature to tend towards believing authority.

Udik 9y ago
While I agree with you on the real motives and goal of the US (even if I believe they're mixed and confused, and not as clear cut as you present them), I still find unacceptable the talk of total annihilation, not to mention the actual killing of thousands of people, women and children included. Yes, even if they're armed, the aim should be victory, not massacre.
frandroid 9y ago
1) I'd rather lean towards Hanlon's razor 2) Obama was actually quite mindful of int'l law and seriously restricted aerial strikes 3) Once Trump came to power, the military has been allowed carte blanche, and they basically wiped Mosul and Raqqa to take ISIS. As for your first paragraph, the point is that if you double-cross the enemy on a deal on made with them, then they won't make any more deals with you, and the U.S. needs leverage in Syria more than anyone else. So it's likely that the U.S. said, "you get out of Raqqa, we'll let you get to Albukamal or [whatever other place], and after that you're fair game again." Otherwise why would these jihadists have taken the bargain? They knew they would be a sitting target without assurances of safety until a destination.