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Surgical strikes is mostly a myth presented to make the war on terrorism look better than it is. The US military defined anyone killed above the age of 15 to be

by belorn 1y ago

Surgical strikes is mostly a myth presented to make the war on terrorism look better than it is. The US military defined anyone killed above the age of 15 to be a terrorist regardless of situation, and thus by definition had almost zero civilian deaths. It was one of those things that got leaked through the war logs. The war on terror is estimated to have killed 4,5 million people. Surgical strikes is not a good description for that, nor was the war on terror a good model for how to behave in a war.

JumpCrisscross 1y ago
> Surgical strikes is mostly a myth presented to make the war on terrorism look better than it is Even if they are, which I don't grant, myths matter in the fog of war. More pointedly, surgical strikes would mean serially decapitating Hamas and destroying its infrastructure from the sky. It would preclude messing with aid flows. (Even if Hamas steals all the food, you can't turn most food into weapons. And Hamas amassing fighters they have to feed isn't a strategic threat to Israel in the way their ports and tunnels are.) > war on terror is estimated to have killed 4,5 million people One, source? Two, the U.S. obviously didn't prosecute a surgical war on the Taliban or Al Qaeda. We invaded, occupied and attempted to rebuild two nation states.
- throwaway3060 1y ago
  > the U.S. obviously didn't prosecute a surgical war on the Taliban or Al Qaeda. We invaded, occupied and attempted to rebuild two nation states. Which is why holding Israel to a higher standard than we hold ourselves is odd, to say the least.
  - tguvot 1y ago
    the atlantic article from almost exactly year ago: https://archive.is/wKScw https://archive.is/wKScw Brett McGurk would push back against the complaints, invoking his stint overseeing the siege of Mosul during the Obama administration, as the U.S. attempted to drive ISIS from northern Iraq: We flattened the city. There’s nothing left. What standard are you holding these Israelis to? It was an argument bolstered by a classified cable sent by the U.S. embassy in Israel in late fall. American officials had embedded in IDF operating centers, reviewing its procedures for ordering air strikes. The cable concluded that the Israeli standards for protecting civilians and calculating the risks of bombardment were not so different from those used by the U.S. military. When State Department officials chastised them over the mounting civilian deaths, Israeli officials liked to make the very same point. Herzl Halevi, the IDF chief of staff, brought up his own education at an American war college. He recalled asking a U.S. general how many civilian deaths would be acceptable in pursuit of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the jihadist leader of the anti-American insurgency in Iraq. The general replied, I don’t even understand the question. As Halevi now explained to the U.S. diplomats, Everything we do, we learned at your colleges.
    - actionfromafar 1y ago
      Well, one huge difference is that the UN was allowed to set up camps for refugees during the Mosul offensive. In Gaza, people are just herded from one kill box to another, back and forth.
      - tguvot 1y ago
        i believe official un position about setting any refugee camps in gaza it's that it will be forced displacement of population. or something like this. going back to days when Israel setup camps for evacuation of population from Rafah. I don't remember UN asking to setup refugee camps or helping them to evacuate out of war zone and you ignored the middle, which says that IDF using same procedures like USA (and in other words entire NATO)
      - snapplebobapple 1y ago
        whose fault is that though? It's not the Israeli's fault the surrounding countries are blocking refugees and it's certainly not their fault that the terrorist's strategy depends on a large civilian population acting as a shield. It's a rock and a hard place situation because the whole area pretty clearly needs to be pacified from anyone sane living in Israel's perspective, as the raping, pillaging and murder orchestrated against israel that started this latest campaign can not be allowed to happen again and from the Hamas position their whole goal is to exist and cause atrocities against the Israelis until they leave. This all seems like a very measured response given the reality of the situation.
- belorn 1y ago
  Do you accept Washington post as source? https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2023/05/15/war-on-terror-911-deaths-afghanistan-iraq/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2023/05/15/war-on-terro...
  - JumpCrisscross 1y ago
    That is the Post reporting on a report. Do you know who wrote the report? To be clear, the estimate doesn’t sound incredulous. I’m just curious to see how they are estimating.
- tguvot 1y ago
  hamas sits in estimated 350-450 miles of tunnels below cities. deepest known tunnels are ~230ft deep. entrances to tunnels are in buildings how do you see surgical strikes on this ? and what kind of munition ? or what is surgical strike when you have hamas team with rpg in the window of the building ?

by belorn 1y ago

JumpCrisscross 1y ago

> Surgical strikes is mostly a myth presented to make the war on terrorism look better than it is Even if they are, which I don't grant, myths matter in the fog of war. More pointedly, surgical strikes would mean serially decapitating Hamas and destroying its infrastructure from the sky. It would preclude messing with aid flows. (Even if Hamas steals all the food, you can't turn most food into weapons. And Hamas amassing fighters they have to feed isn't a strategic threat to Israel in the way their ports and tunnels are.) > war on terror is estimated to have killed 4,5 million people One, source? Two, the U.S. obviously didn't prosecute a surgical war on the Taliban or Al Qaeda. We invaded, occupied and attempted to rebuild two nation states.

throwaway3060 1y ago
> the U.S. obviously didn't prosecute a surgical war on the Taliban or Al Qaeda. We invaded, occupied and attempted to rebuild two nation states. Which is why holding Israel to a higher standard than we hold ourselves is odd, to say the least.
- tguvot 1y ago
  the atlantic article from almost exactly year ago: https://archive.is/wKScw https://archive.is/wKScw Brett McGurk would push back against the complaints, invoking his stint overseeing the siege of Mosul during the Obama administration, as the U.S. attempted to drive ISIS from northern Iraq: We flattened the city. There’s nothing left. What standard are you holding these Israelis to? It was an argument bolstered by a classified cable sent by the U.S. embassy in Israel in late fall. American officials had embedded in IDF operating centers, reviewing its procedures for ordering air strikes. The cable concluded that the Israeli standards for protecting civilians and calculating the risks of bombardment were not so different from those used by the U.S. military. When State Department officials chastised them over the mounting civilian deaths, Israeli officials liked to make the very same point. Herzl Halevi, the IDF chief of staff, brought up his own education at an American war college. He recalled asking a U.S. general how many civilian deaths would be acceptable in pursuit of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the jihadist leader of the anti-American insurgency in Iraq. The general replied, I don’t even understand the question. As Halevi now explained to the U.S. diplomats, Everything we do, we learned at your colleges.
  - actionfromafar 1y ago
    Well, one huge difference is that the UN was allowed to set up camps for refugees during the Mosul offensive. In Gaza, people are just herded from one kill box to another, back and forth.
    - tguvot 1y ago
      i believe official un position about setting any refugee camps in gaza it's that it will be forced displacement of population. or something like this. going back to days when Israel setup camps for evacuation of population from Rafah. I don't remember UN asking to setup refugee camps or helping them to evacuate out of war zone and you ignored the middle, which says that IDF using same procedures like USA (and in other words entire NATO)
    - snapplebobapple 1y ago
      whose fault is that though? It's not the Israeli's fault the surrounding countries are blocking refugees and it's certainly not their fault that the terrorist's strategy depends on a large civilian population acting as a shield. It's a rock and a hard place situation because the whole area pretty clearly needs to be pacified from anyone sane living in Israel's perspective, as the raping, pillaging and murder orchestrated against israel that started this latest campaign can not be allowed to happen again and from the Hamas position their whole goal is to exist and cause atrocities against the Israelis until they leave. This all seems like a very measured response given the reality of the situation.
belorn 1y ago
Do you accept Washington post as source? https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2023/05/15/war-on-terror-911-deaths-afghanistan-iraq/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2023/05/15/war-on-terro...
- JumpCrisscross 1y ago
  That is the Post reporting on a report. Do you know who wrote the report? To be clear, the estimate doesn’t sound incredulous. I’m just curious to see how they are estimating.
tguvot 1y ago
hamas sits in estimated 350-450 miles of tunnels below cities. deepest known tunnels are ~230ft deep. entrances to tunnels are in buildings how do you see surgical strikes on this ? and what kind of munition ? or what is surgical strike when you have hamas team with rpg in the window of the building ?