Posted on 03/28/2017 9:04:58 PM PDT by Mariner
MOSUL, Iraq — A sharp rise in the number of civilians reported killed in U.S.-led airstrikes in Iraq and Syria is spreading panic, deepening mistrust and triggering accusations that the United States and its partners may be acting without sufficient regard for lives of noncombatants.
The increase comes as local ground forces backed by air support from a U.S.-led coalition close in on the Islamic State’s two main urban bastions — Raqqa in Syria and Mosul in Iraq.
In front-line neighborhoods in western Mosul, families described cowering in basements for weeks as bombs rained down around them and the Islamic State battled from their rooftops. Across the border in Raqqa, residents desperately trying to flee before an offensive begins are being blocked by the militants, who frequently use civilians as human shields.
Throughout his election campaign, President Trump pledged to target Islamic State militants more aggressively, criticizing the U.S. air campaign for being too “gentle” and asking for a reassessment of battlefield rules. The United States has denied there has been any shift and defended the conduct of its campaign.
But figures compiled by monitoring organizations and interviews with residents paint an increasingly bloody picture, with the number of casualties in March already surpassing records for a single month.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
Civilian casualties are a sad but necessary part of war.
I am happy that the good guys are winning, but I also know that there is and will continue to be a loss of civilian life.
That is a fact of life. Like Dresden, like Hiroshima, Nagasaki, like those little towns and villages in Europe during WWI and WWII that had citizens executed, like the prison and concentration camps that held and killed citizens, like the villages in the paddies of Vietnam, like the Killing Fields in Laos, like the millions upon millions who were killed in Russia and China, war is a terrible thing for the citizens.
That is why when some elements here start crowing about a civil war in this country, I caution them strongly. The suffering of a civil war will kill many citizens and bring this country to its knees. Just what the elites want.
...and if the morally bankrupt Sauds and the likes wont take in their fellow co-religionists, well, shame on them.
Just as land mines are “IEDs”.
Hate war, don’t want my grandchildren going. Fight to win if you go to war. ISIS hide in cities for this reason. People who stay there made a decision on how to be killed. I regret it happening but to win you have to push past, and say a prayer for their souls after.
Such are the trials of war. It’s how wars are won. They aren’t won by targeting only the military components of a population, but by targeting the population itself. This is done to avoid the formation of guerilla movements. When the civilian population feels threatened, they are less likely to harbor fighters. This is why we haven’t won a war since WWII. It sucks to have to do this, but it works.
“It is well that war is so terrible, otherwise we should grow too fond of it.” - Robert E. Lee
Of course, the terrorists are primarily to blame because of their long-practiced human shield tactics. But the world-wide media is likely to play it differently.
Dead Jihadis are immediately converted to Civilian.
“But I HOPE you guys don’t go by the name Christian because you’re the furthest things I’ve seen from what Christ was.”
You must of somehow confused what I said with what somebody else said. That often happens in old age.
At no point did I advocate the killing of civilians or state anything akin to them deserving to be killed.
The Christian thing for you to do would be to take that back and apologize.
I bet they are counting everyone not wearing a uniform as a civillian..oh, wait...
Was it the washpo or a similar rag that wtote an article complaing about the economic hardship endured by the drop in business of coffin makers when the casualties of the conflict in Iraq dcreased? Republican in office? They will find an angle to complain about. Democrat in office? Nothing bad that happens will ever be their fault...
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