Operation Behold My Penis Results In Scorched Earth
"The fighting is still underway in the town of Marjah, in what is being described as the first battle in Obama’s War in Afghanistan, or alternatively as the biggest battle of the US War in Afghanistan. But already, the US has lost that battle.
It lost it from day one, when troops fired missiles in to a Marjah house, killing 12 civilian occupants--half of them children. And it lost it further when another three more civilians were blown away by US-led forces. Finally, it lost the battle as much of the town has been simply destroyed by the fighting.
It lost it from day one, when troops fired missiles in to a Marjah house, killing 12 civilian occupants--half of them children. And it lost it further when another three more civilians were blown away by US-led forces. Finally, it lost the battle as much of the town has been simply destroyed by the fighting.
The supposed goal of the assault on Marjah was to demonstrate that the US would bring the wonders of good government and peace to the Pashtun tribal people who have endured a generation or more of war, and who have been living under the “cruel tyranny” of the Taliban in recent years. The new strategy of President Barack Obama and his hand-picked military leader in Afghanistan, Gen. Stanley McChrystal, was to show that the US military could fight the Taliban without causing civilian deaths and casualties. Protecting civilian lives would be a priority, they claimed.
The problem with such a strategy (if Obama and McChristal were ever really serious about it) is that the whole reason American forces have been able to crush resistance, as they did in the lighting invasion of Iraq in 2003, or the overthrow of the Taliban government of Afghanistan in late 2001, has been their callous disregard for civilian lives, which have been coldly labelled “collateral damage.” It is not because Americans are uniquely capable soldiers that the US has managed to win battles in places like Panama or Iraq or Afghanistan. It is because our military is uniquely powerful in its weaponry, and uniquely bloodthirsty and indiscriminate in its use of that weaponry.
In the war in Iraq, and in Afghanistan until recently at least, the American war-fighting style has been for troops to go into an area, seeking to draw enemy fire, and then to call in long-range artillery or air support, and simply blow up the area with heavy explosives, devastating anti-personnel bombs that shower an area in flesh-shredding flechettes, burning white phosphorus projectiles, and a brutal rain of machine-gun fire from fixed-wing and helicopter gunships. Inevitably with such tactics, countless innocent men, women and children get killed and maimed.
In Iraq, US forces ended up killing far, far more civilians than actual enemy fighters thanks to this approach. While information about deaths in the Afghan War is harder to come by, it is likely that the same holds true there also. In addition to the well-known incidents, where air strikes have been called in which ended up butchering entire wedding parties in both Iraq and Afghanistan, or where farm families engaged in routine activties have been blown away thinking they were terrorists, US forces have for years thought nothing about assaulting compounds and killing the inhabitants, innocent civilians or not, children or adults, if it was thought that even one “terrorist” was in the building at the time.
Such tactics, reminiscent of what years ago used to be attributed to vicious military regimes like the German Nazis or the Imperial Japanese, have become the norm for US forces, as has the tactic of “spray and pray,” under which US forces, if they take fire or feel threatened, simply unload all their weapons in every direction, killing every living thing within range, including people who might be seeking shelter behind mud walls of their homes."
The problem with such a strategy (if Obama and McChristal were ever really serious about it) is that the whole reason American forces have been able to crush resistance, as they did in the lighting invasion of Iraq in 2003, or the overthrow of the Taliban government of Afghanistan in late 2001, has been their callous disregard for civilian lives, which have been coldly labelled “collateral damage.” It is not because Americans are uniquely capable soldiers that the US has managed to win battles in places like Panama or Iraq or Afghanistan. It is because our military is uniquely powerful in its weaponry, and uniquely bloodthirsty and indiscriminate in its use of that weaponry.
In the war in Iraq, and in Afghanistan until recently at least, the American war-fighting style has been for troops to go into an area, seeking to draw enemy fire, and then to call in long-range artillery or air support, and simply blow up the area with heavy explosives, devastating anti-personnel bombs that shower an area in flesh-shredding flechettes, burning white phosphorus projectiles, and a brutal rain of machine-gun fire from fixed-wing and helicopter gunships. Inevitably with such tactics, countless innocent men, women and children get killed and maimed.
In Iraq, US forces ended up killing far, far more civilians than actual enemy fighters thanks to this approach. While information about deaths in the Afghan War is harder to come by, it is likely that the same holds true there also. In addition to the well-known incidents, where air strikes have been called in which ended up butchering entire wedding parties in both Iraq and Afghanistan, or where farm families engaged in routine activties have been blown away thinking they were terrorists, US forces have for years thought nothing about assaulting compounds and killing the inhabitants, innocent civilians or not, children or adults, if it was thought that even one “terrorist” was in the building at the time.
Such tactics, reminiscent of what years ago used to be attributed to vicious military regimes like the German Nazis or the Imperial Japanese, have become the norm for US forces, as has the tactic of “spray and pray,” under which US forces, if they take fire or feel threatened, simply unload all their weapons in every direction, killing every living thing within range, including people who might be seeking shelter behind mud walls of their homes."
posted by nolocontendere at 4:08 PM
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