[Thanos]

Anyone heard from Zipperfish lately. I hope that notoriously weak bladder of his (*cough* has to go at least once an hour *cough*) hasn't gotten him all up and involved in this international incident.

[PublicAnimalNo9]

Gunnair Gunnair:

Lemmy Lemmy:

Combatants who resort to cowardly acts, like the setting of IEDs, have no just claim to protection under the articles of civilized warfare.

I'm curious here...

Outside of the obvious dollar figure, technological sophistication, and training required, what would you say is the moral difference between blowing up a military vehicle with an IED or blowing up a combatant vehicle with a Hellfire missile fired from a Predator?

IED's are indiscriminant.

[andyt]

PublicAnimalNo9 PublicAnimalNo9:

Gunnair Gunnair:

Lemmy Lemmy:

Combatants who resort to cowardly acts, like the setting of IEDs, have no just claim to protection under the articles of civilized warfare.

I'm curious here...

Outside of the obvious dollar figure, technological sophistication, and training required, what would you say is the moral difference between blowing up a military vehicle with an IED or blowing up a combatant vehicle with a Hellfire missile fired from a Predator?

IED's are indiscriminant.

And Hellfires only take out the bad guys? Hell, sometimes they take out anybody but the bad guys. Or were you being sarcastic?

[PublicAnimalNo9]

raydan raydan:

saturn_656 saturn_656:

raydan raydan:

It's just that when I see them doing this, I see weakness, not strength.
Would anybody here be proud to see their son in this video?

Sorry, I'll leave now.

Sorry, my pool of sympathy for the Taliban is very shallow. 157 Canadian soldiers came back to Canada in boxes due to them.

I'll say what the Marines did was in poor form and unbecoming of a proud force like the United States Marine Corps.

My criticism will end there.

Just to make things VERY clear... I have absolutely no sympathy for the Taliban and I'm not defending them at all. If you don't know, my son almost came back in one of those boxes.

The US armed forces, and especially the marines, are supposed to be the best and BEST TRAINED in the world. They should be showing that to the rest of the world at all times.

This is something we can't understand until we see it in context. While this is certainly "bad form", it could have been a particularily nasty firefight that led to this act.
In WW2 for example, there were quite a few German soldiers that never made it behind Allied lines after surrendering simply because despite being in a no-win situation(a half dozen SS vs a couple of platoons for example), they didn't surrender until they ran out of ammo. And if they had managed to kill anyone before that point, their odds of survival dropped pretty much to zero.
I haven't watched the video because I don't really wanna, so I don't know how long after the battle this happened. So without some pre-context, I'm not going to be so quick to condemn them.

[PublicAnimalNo9]

andyt andyt:

PublicAnimalNo9 PublicAnimalNo9:

Gunnair Gunnair:

I'm curious here...

Outside of the obvious dollar figure, technological sophistication, and training required, what would you say is the moral difference between blowing up a military vehicle with an IED or blowing up a combatant vehicle with a Hellfire missile fired from a Predator?

IED's are indiscriminant.

And Hellfires only take out the bad guys? Hell, sometimes they take out anybody but the bad guys. Or were you being sarcastic?

Tell ya what andy, when there's a moratorium to ban Hellfires come talk about this. Hell good old fashioned bullets have killed others than just "bad guys".
Protip: IED=Landmine=banned.

[andyt]

So killing our soldiers with an IED is morally more reprehensible than with a Hellfire? I wonder who has the greater toll of indiscriminate killing, IED's or Hellfires? And what does indiscriminate mean, killing of civilians?

[PublicAnimalNo9]

andyt andyt:

So killing our soldiers with an IED is morally more reprehensible than with a Hellfire? I wonder who has the greater toll of indiscriminate killing, IED's or Hellfires? And what does indiscriminate mean, killing of civilians?

Christ andy, sometimes it's like yer 10. Indiscriminate means it don't care what runs over it.
When you crank off a hellfire, you fire at a specific target. When you plant an IED/landmine, it blows up the first thing to trigger it, unless they're using radio controlled detonation.

And I'll guarantee you, the hellfire death toll has got NOTHIN' on world wide landmine deaths and maimings.

[desertdude]

Yes ! Winning the "hearts and minds", the next NATO or ASAF causualty should be accredited to these fools.

[Gunnair]

PublicAnimalNo9 PublicAnimalNo9:

Gunnair Gunnair:

Lemmy Lemmy:

Combatants who resort to cowardly acts, like the setting of IEDs, have no just claim to protection under the articles of civilized warfare.

I'm curious here...

Outside of the obvious dollar figure, technological sophistication, and training required, what would you say is the moral difference between blowing up a military vehicle with an IED or blowing up a combatant vehicle with a Hellfire missile fired from a Predator?

IED's are indiscriminant.

So are landmines.

[Gunnair]

PublicAnimalNo9 PublicAnimalNo9:

andyt andyt:

PublicAnimalNo9 PublicAnimalNo9:

IED's are indiscriminant.

And Hellfires only take out the bad guys? Hell, sometimes they take out anybody but the bad guys. Or were you being sarcastic?

Tell ya what andy, when there's a moratorium to ban Hellfires come talk about this. Hell good old fashioned bullets have killed others than just "bad guys".
Protip: IED=Landmine=banned.

Landmines are not banned in many countires... including the US.

[GreenTiger]

I'm not a military person, but I think that in the history of warfare a lot of things happen that are bad form. War does bring out the best and worst in people.

I don't really think the Taliban goes to extremes in honouring the western dead but they do have the intelligence not to film it.

Wars these days are reported in real time and events like this get exposed to the entire world in minutes.

I don't pretend to understand what it is like to be in a fire fight or the emotions one experiences in combat. My understanding is limited to history books and talking to people who actually were there but this behavior is atrocious.

It shows us at our worst when we should be doing and showing our best.

[BartSimpson]

desertdude desertdude:

Yes ! Winning the "hearts and minds", the next NATO or ASAF causualty should be accredited to these fools.

Seriously, were it up to me I'd tell the Chinese that they can have Afghanistan and then let them exterminate every last one of the vermin. Frankly, it's a bloody shame that wasn't done thousands of years ago. That bunch has been nothing but trouble to everyone.

In short: I could care less about their hearts and minds and I'd be satisfied just to see that bunch of pederasts and pedophiles wiped from the face of the earth.

[PublicAnimalNo9]

Gunnair Gunnair:

Landmines are not banned in many countires... including the US.

True, but in their defense, the US did ban themselves from using persistent landmines as well as undetectable land mines, the Korean border notwithstanding.

To further answer andy's question about hellfires and IEDs, there is one especially significant difference. When a war is over, the hellfires no longer kill people. However, persistent landmines including IEDs continue to kill civilians long after a war is over.

[andyt]

None of that addresses Gunnair's question about the relative morality of killing combatants with an IED or missile.

[BartSimpson]

andyt andyt:

None of that addresses Gunnair's question about the relative morality of killing combatants with an IED or missile.

For the record, I've never said one thing up or down about the guys who use IEDs.

*However* when I've been in a place to observe such a thing going down then the guy who emplaces the IED has had a very short interlude between taking his hands off of the device and then finding himself in front of Allah.

And I would not care about peeing on him if there were enough left to pee on.