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I suspect this opinion will be unpopular, but I feel like this needs to be remembered- just a few months ago people were shitting all over the US military and t

by parsimo2010 5y ago

I suspect this opinion will be unpopular, but I feel like this needs to be remembered- just a few months ago people were shitting all over the US military and the president for leaving Afghanistan. A bunch of people in this comment section are saying how horrible it is that these “systematic” failures could happen. We can’t have it both ways. We can’t complain about civilian casualties and also say that the military should have continued to occupy Afghanistan. The US military are the best in the world but they aren’t perfect. If there is fighting in a place then people are going to die. There isn’t a system in the world with perfect precision and specificity. So I guess what I’m trying to get at, is before you skewer some commander on the choices made in action or their findings in an investigation for scenarios that (statistically) more than 99% of us have no experience in, consider the alternative we have seen play out in the last few months. The Taliban took over at an astonishing pace. The Afghanistan Ministry of Women’s Affairs is now gone, and the Taliban Ministry of Vice and Virtue is back. The literal thought police are back in Afghanistan after the US military kept them at bay for 20 years. Those pilots and soldiers made mistakes, and it’s tragic for the families that lost a loved one. But just take a pause to consider the rest of the story and the alternative. And don’t say the alternative is a perfect utopia where bombs only get dropped on bad people.

jackpirate 5y ago
> And don’t say the alternative is a perfect utopia where bombs only get dropped on bad people. The alternative is that bombs don't get dropped at all. That means less US hegemony and more need for non-military solutions. Those also have their drawbacks, but to pretend those options don't even exist is nonsense.
- parsimo2010 5y ago
  That alternative you’re suggesting is the one we’re seeing right now with the Taliban. The one the citizens were so afraid of that they were filling planes to the brim to evacuate- something that didn’t happen when the US military was there. I wasn’t pretending that alternatives don’t exist, but make sure the alternative you’re suggesting is actually preferable.
geoduck14 5y ago
>just a few months ago people were shitting all over the US military and the president for leaving Afghanistan The complaints I remember - and the ones I hold - are about HOW we left Afghanistan. It was a chaotic train wreck. I'm glad we left, I think staying longer would have continued to risk innocent civilians, but I think our departure was a nightmare. >And don’t say the alternative is a perfect utopia where bombs only get dropped on bad people. I actually think that our technological advantage allows us to be VERY precise and gives me confidence that we have reduced collateral damage. We have missiles that take a bunch of pictures before blowing up, so can say "look, this really was a bad guy place and not a shoe factory". We have people embedded in the country so we can accurately say "the bad guy is in X room". We have really cool sniper weapons that automatically shoot guys that are deliberaly "tagged" as bad guys and avoid bystanders. I'm proud of a lot of what we are able to do and not do. That being said, we blew up a car full of children and the response was "we thought there was 1 bad guy surrounded by 8 civilians, but it was just 9 civilians". This makes me sad.

jackpirate 5y ago

> And don’t say the alternative is a perfect utopia where bombs only get dropped on bad people. The alternative is that bombs don't get dropped at all. That means less US hegemony and more need for non-military solutions. Those also have their drawbacks, but to pretend those options don't even exist is nonsense.

parsimo2010 5y ago
That alternative you’re suggesting is the one we’re seeing right now with the Taliban. The one the citizens were so afraid of that they were filling planes to the brim to evacuate- something that didn’t happen when the US military was there. I wasn’t pretending that alternatives don’t exist, but make sure the alternative you’re suggesting is actually preferable.

geoduck14 5y ago

>just a few months ago people were shitting all over the US military and the president for leaving Afghanistan The complaints I remember - and the ones I hold - are about HOW we left Afghanistan. It was a chaotic train wreck. I'm glad we left, I think staying longer would have continued to risk innocent civilians, but I think our departure was a nightmare. >And don’t say the alternative is a perfect utopia where bombs only get dropped on bad people. I actually think that our technological advantage allows us to be VERY precise and gives me confidence that we have reduced collateral damage. We have missiles that take a bunch of pictures before blowing up, so can say "look, this really was a bad guy place and not a shoe factory". We have people embedded in the country so we can accurately say "the bad guy is in X room". We have really cool sniper weapons that automatically shoot guys that are deliberaly "tagged" as bad guys and avoid bystanders. I'm proud of a lot of what we are able to do and not do. That being said, we blew up a car full of children and the response was "we thought there was 1 bad guy surrounded by 8 civilians, but it was just 9 civilians". This makes me sad.