20 ms·

So what is the truth? This happened on purpose?

contingencies 13y ago
They don't just give people military hardware and let them go nuts. Employees have to attack the targets they are ordered to.
- twoodfin 13y ago
  So, yes? Civilians were directly targeted?
  - jlgreco 13y ago
    Somebody made the call to bomb the village. Either they knew it was a village, or they did not know it was a village. Therefore that person was either malicious or incompetent. Do we really care which? Mens rea isn't required for drunk drivers, why should we demand it for dropping bombs on villages?
    - smsm42 13y ago
      They knew it was the village. They knew there were Taliban there shooting on US and Afghan forces. They didn't know where the civilians were - because when there is shooting going around, civilians hide and it is very hard to see if there are any around, and how many of them, especially when you're being shot at at the same time. So they called an airstrike, and that turned out to be a big mistake. They could suspect that there might be civilians - since among Taliban, just like similar groups like Hamas or Hesbollah - hiding among civilians and using them as a cover is a common tactic, and since it is a village after all - but they did not know where, how many, etc. After many hours of fighting against hundreds of Taliban and after suffering casualties, the people on the ground made decision to call in air strike. Unfortunately, that resulted in tragedy, since the places where airstrikes were asked (presumably where Taliban forces were concentrated) turned out to be at or near the same places where the civilians hid. If the US soldiers on the ground knew that, they probably could do something else, but I don't see how they had to know it in the heat of the battle. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/15/world/asia/15farah.html http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/15/world/asia/15farah.html
      - ucee054 13y ago
        They could have run away in defeat instead of "destroying the village to save it". By the way, it's a really crappy air force that can't do an air strike with sleeping-gas bombs.
        shabble 13y ago
        > By the way, it's a really crappy air force that can't do an air strike with sleeping-gas bombs. I daresay that would be a lot less effective than you might expect. See the Moscow theater hostage situation[1][2] for what happens when trying to use it on a fixed target with ground level access. Imagine how much harder that would be from an air-drop, and the concentration gradient you'd end up with. Individual dispensers, cluster-bomb style might help a bit, but I still think you'd end up killing anyone close-by if you wanted it strong enough to permeate buildings. Calling in a heavy smoke/CS drop and then retreating might be a sensible option, although I don't think there's nearly enough (public) information for anyone to judge definitively on the correct course of action in this instance. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moscow_theater_hostage_crisis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moscow_theater_hostage_crisis
        ucee054 13y ago
        The Moscow situation is not comparable to Afghan countryside. If "effective" includes "not killing innocent civilians" then sleeping gas would work much better than what they are dropping now. If smoke or CS would work better, well it's the military's responsibility, not mine, to the the R&D to pick the right tool to protect civilians as required by law. It doesn't look like they give a fuck.
        shabble 13y ago
        > The Moscow situation is not comparable to Afghan countryside. Precisely. If anything, it's a much more easily controlled environment for gas diffusion, and allowed almost immediate entry by the special forces to clear the area. Even then, there were significant hostage fatalities (although in a large part due to medical staff not being timely informed of the nature of the gas, or provided with the antidote) Achieving that level of consistency of dose (enough to work, not enough to kill) in a rural village environment, via air-dropped containers, is, IMO, utterly impossible. I'm arguing against your suggestion of 'sleeping gas bombs' only, not that the indiscriminate bombing is/was the correct choice. In addition, R&D only determines what you will have available maybe some time in the future. If you're in combat right now, you don't have the luxury of waiting 3-5 years for promising test-bench stuff to make it to your rucksack/support units. If all you have is high-explosives, eventually everything looks like rubble.
  - alan_cx 13y ago
    Ah, remember the NSA spying on civilians stuff? What was the weasel word google and facebook were, well, are relying on? Oh yes "direct".

They don't just give people military hardware and let them go nuts. Employees have to attack the targets they are ordered to.

twoodfin 13y ago
So, yes? Civilians were directly targeted?
- jlgreco 13y ago
  Somebody made the call to bomb the village. Either they knew it was a village, or they did not know it was a village. Therefore that person was either malicious or incompetent. Do we really care which? Mens rea isn't required for drunk drivers, why should we demand it for dropping bombs on villages?
  - smsm42 13y ago
    They knew it was the village. They knew there were Taliban there shooting on US and Afghan forces. They didn't know where the civilians were - because when there is shooting going around, civilians hide and it is very hard to see if there are any around, and how many of them, especially when you're being shot at at the same time. So they called an airstrike, and that turned out to be a big mistake. They could suspect that there might be civilians - since among Taliban, just like similar groups like Hamas or Hesbollah - hiding among civilians and using them as a cover is a common tactic, and since it is a village after all - but they did not know where, how many, etc. After many hours of fighting against hundreds of Taliban and after suffering casualties, the people on the ground made decision to call in air strike. Unfortunately, that resulted in tragedy, since the places where airstrikes were asked (presumably where Taliban forces were concentrated) turned out to be at or near the same places where the civilians hid. If the US soldiers on the ground knew that, they probably could do something else, but I don't see how they had to know it in the heat of the battle. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/15/world/asia/15farah.html http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/15/world/asia/15farah.html
    - ucee054 13y ago
      They could have run away in defeat instead of "destroying the village to save it". By the way, it's a really crappy air force that can't do an air strike with sleeping-gas bombs.
      - shabble 13y ago
        > By the way, it's a really crappy air force that can't do an air strike with sleeping-gas bombs. I daresay that would be a lot less effective than you might expect. See the Moscow theater hostage situation[1][2] for what happens when trying to use it on a fixed target with ground level access. Imagine how much harder that would be from an air-drop, and the concentration gradient you'd end up with. Individual dispensers, cluster-bomb style might help a bit, but I still think you'd end up killing anyone close-by if you wanted it strong enough to permeate buildings. Calling in a heavy smoke/CS drop and then retreating might be a sensible option, although I don't think there's nearly enough (public) information for anyone to judge definitively on the correct course of action in this instance. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moscow_theater_hostage_crisis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moscow_theater_hostage_crisis
        ucee054 13y ago
        The Moscow situation is not comparable to Afghan countryside. If "effective" includes "not killing innocent civilians" then sleeping gas would work much better than what they are dropping now. If smoke or CS would work better, well it's the military's responsibility, not mine, to the the R&D to pick the right tool to protect civilians as required by law. It doesn't look like they give a fuck.
        shabble 13y ago
        > The Moscow situation is not comparable to Afghan countryside. Precisely. If anything, it's a much more easily controlled environment for gas diffusion, and allowed almost immediate entry by the special forces to clear the area. Even then, there were significant hostage fatalities (although in a large part due to medical staff not being timely informed of the nature of the gas, or provided with the antidote) Achieving that level of consistency of dose (enough to work, not enough to kill) in a rural village environment, via air-dropped containers, is, IMO, utterly impossible. I'm arguing against your suggestion of 'sleeping gas bombs' only, not that the indiscriminate bombing is/was the correct choice. In addition, R&D only determines what you will have available maybe some time in the future. If you're in combat right now, you don't have the luxury of waiting 3-5 years for promising test-bench stuff to make it to your rucksack/support units. If all you have is high-explosives, eventually everything looks like rubble.
- alan_cx 13y ago
  Ah, remember the NSA spying on civilians stuff? What was the weasel word google and facebook were, well, are relying on? Oh yes "direct".