We had no such compunctions in WWII. Aside from the atomic bombs, the fire bombings of Dresden, Hamburg, Tokyo, etc. killed far more than the atomic bombs. True, but let me say this about that being from the Air Force...
The bombing we did in WWII was terribly inaccurate. We missed most of the time. And with 10 men crewing a B-17, and 8 on a B-24, we lost tens of thousands of good men over the war with not enough good results. Carpet bombing, fire bombing and all was done not because we didn't care about the civilian casualties, but because only such a aerial bombardment will destroy the target.
Over the years we have gotten better and better hitting the intended target, and especially thanks to modern computing and electronics. It costs a lot of money, but it is better than losing 1,000 men on one bombing mission, just to find out your enemy shrugged off any loses and was back in production the next day.
CEP stands for circular error of precision--means by how close you were (really, how much you missed by).
By the Gulf war our smart bombs--one bomb from one aircraft, had a CEP of 30 feet. Still, many of our bombs were plain old gravity "dumb" bombs. Now, in 2015, only a few are. I don't have accuracy info for those--it's classified, but let's assume better than the Gulf War.
So, to that end, I don't mind us being careful with collateral damage and civilian deaths, because generally speaking, when you've killed a lot of civilians it means you missed the target--unless the target purposefully surrounded itself with civilians. Then it's "Oh well, sucks to be you!"
The bombing we did in WWII was terribly inaccurate. We missed most of the time. And with 10 men crewing a B-17, and 8 on a B-24, we lost tens of thousands of good men over the war with not enough good results. Carpet bombing, fire bombing and all was done not because we didn't care about the civilian casualties, but because only such a aerial bombardment will destroy the target. Understood, but the reality of total war is that civilians are part of the war machine. They provide the support to the combat forces whether it is logistics or armaments. Churchill was criticized for the bombing of Hamburg knowing full well that many civilians had fled there from the countryside.
The carpet-bombing of Hamburg killed 40,000 people. It also did good We must face the horrors we inflicted on Germany’s cities in the later years of the war. But they were not futile crimes
From this perspective, it is possible to shift seamlessly from portraying the bombing of Hamburg as not simply wicked but futile. That, I think, would be a mistake. It’s true that the bombing didn’t have the hoped-for impact on the city’s contribution to the Nazi war effort: much of its port and industrial areas were up and running again by the autumn. Nor did it, as Harris hoped, provoke the populace into a revolt that brought the war to an early conclusion.
But however terrible Operation Gomorrah was, it did serve a purpose in the end. It changed the attitude of many Germans, who may hitherto have been unaffected by the war, discrediting a leadership which was unable to ‘protect’ the population. As tales of the bombing spread throughout Germany, it provoked something called the ‘November mood’ of growing antipathy to the regime. Operation Gomorrah and the devastation of German cities meant that there could be no ‘stab in the back’ myth, as there was after 1918 when it suited people to believe that Germany had not lost the war fairly, but had been betrayed by their own home front. In this sense, Germany’s modern democracy was built on the rubble of its cities.
Over the years we have gotten better and better hitting the intended target, and especially thanks to modern computing and electronics. It costs a lot of money, but it is better than losing 1,000 men on one bombing mission, just to find out your enemy shrugged off any loses and was back in production the next day.
I agree that more accurate weapons help save our lives and ultimately even costs depending upon the target. But greater accuracy doesn't mean that we must avoid all collateral damage because we have the technology to do so. Also, with the use of drones, fewer people on our side are put at risk.
By the Gulf war our smart bombs--one bomb from one aircraft, had a CEP of 30 feet. Still, many of our bombs were plain old gravity "dumb" bombs. Now, in 2015, only a few are. I don't have accuracy info for those--it's classified, but let's assume better than the Gulf War.
True. I was in Saudi Arabia for the entire Desert Shielf/Storm. You are correct that most of the bombs were dumb bombs. The technology has advanced significantly since then.
So, to that end, I don't mind us being careful with collateral damage and civilian deaths, because generally speaking, when you've killed a lot of civilians it means you missed the target--unless the target purposefully surrounded itself with civilians. Then it's "Oh well, sucks to be you!"
I do mind us using ROE that are more concerned about collateral damage than the risks they imposes on our own people. It is gotten to the point in Syria that our planes return from missions without dropping anything except leaflets. Are drivers of oil trucks selling oil for ISIS combatants or non-combatants? Why have we balked at blowing them up? Oil is funding ISIS. Only after the Russians started bombing the oil facilities and trucks did we start. According to DOD, we did not want to destroy the oil facilities held by ISIS because Syria could use this infrastructure in the future after ISIS was defeated. And there were environmental concerns. Hard to make this stuff up.
We are fighting non-state actors who use civilians as human shields. They hide in hospitals, schools, and mosques. The Israelis have had similar problems.
The guerrilla must move amongst the people as a fish swims in the sea.
Mao Zedong
We need to take the gloves off and fight to win. The way we are fighting now is really a luxury that only a Superpower can afford. We really do not consider ISIS to be a significant military threat. They are being viewed as more of a nuisance than anything else. What we are missing is the ideological war that is being waged between Islam and the West and within Islam itself. Until we understand and identify the enemy, we will not do what is necessary to defeat ISIS and all of its manifestations.