Discussion for article #241375
Well, that’s just great. Once again, the US military displays an utter lack of concern for avoiding civilian casualties.
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Who else is in the air over Afghanistan?
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For thousands of years now, one sure mark of how long a given empire has endured has been - is - how many times it invades Afghanistan.
Since every invading force loses there, it takes time to forget or get effectively vague on the costs before restoring the naivete sufficiently to go in again.
Lots have invaded there, including every empire with the least interest in the region. More often than many of us might imagine invade with some motive that could actually be argued as good intent. But once there, all invading forces fail - always - taking on staggering costs to their culture in lost people, resources & ideals.
Russia has been out of there for almost 2 decades now, yet Russia is still suffering massive devastating effects to their economy, national self-image, military morale and international prestige from invading and occupying Afghanistan. Tho of course it fails - it always fails - but recent Putin adventurism in Ukraine and in Syria can easily be traced back to efforts to overcome Russia in Afghanistan.
Being still there for closing in on 15 years now, we can expect to suffer at least something like the same long term effects as did Russia. The grosser ones are already evident: the dead, the forever wounded, the weakening and thinning out of our military forces, and hundreds of billions spent, most if not all wasted.
On just this event, SoD Ash Carter may have spoken today with best of intentions. If it turns out, as I think is inevitable, that the U.S. caused this, those good intentions will be degraded and sabotaged due to internal politics and fear of effects on domestic politics. And no matter what gets found out, there will be no reckoning.
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Ashton Carter is a card carrying NEOCON. This was an intentional strike to terrorize everyone even more. I’m betting on it. Why not? Seems fairly routine as the regime’s Crimes Against Humanity go. No holds are barred in world conquest, never have been, never will be. Remember, the hospital was in constant contact with their USA attackers for weeks before the strike, and during it. This was not a “mistake”. Don’t be fooled by anything this regime says. It speaks no truth, ever, none of them.
The attack by the US on this hospital was intentional. Remember, Obama / Carter tell us over and over again their strikes are “surgical”. Well, here’s another one. This is how a fascist terrorist regime operates - bloodthirsty to the max to terrorize everyone, create maximum chaos and suffering. This is advantageous in their attempt to rule the planet, and trivial in the eyes of the NeoCons / Obama / dubya et. al.
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Bombing a fully functioning hospital can never be justified.
U.S. Defense Secretary Ash Carter on Sunday promised a full and transparent…
When have we heard that before?
We need to get out of the Middle East totally or we will be playing these “games” for another 100 years or more. And nothing will be accomplished.
We can stay in Afghanistan another 5 minutes, 5 days, 5 years, or 5 centuries, and when we leave the same thing will happen; the pro-US government that we propped up will fall. The only difference is in how long we stay.
The best thing about hitting yourself on the head with a hammer is the moment you choose to stop.
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I get the feeling it won’t be as long and expensive as the “investigation” of Benghazi!
It will be interesting to see how “America, the Great and Powerful” whips up enough “magic” from behind the curtain to get itself out of this one.
Oh yeah, that’s right.
It can just fall back on the Military’s two favorite words during the reign of The Village Idiot (from 2001-2009, for those of you with “140 character memories.”)
“Collateral Damage.”
There now, don’t you just feel all better?
You may now return to “Emergency Kittens” while all of this is being done in YOUR names.
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“If” my pimpled white ass. These filthy sonsofbitches really take us for fools.
So the U.S. wants the world to know it is capable of bombing hospitals, and did this on purpose just to show what a mean motherf***r it is. Yeah, that makes sense.
“Hey guys! Everyone but me is a fascist dictator! Fortunately I see through it — my conscience is clear!”
The reason I hit myself with a hammer is because it feels so good when I stop.
BTW I’m not excusing the U.S. bombing of a hospital in any way, shape or form. There is no excuse and it’s just this side of a war crime, if not actually one (the difference comes down to avoidability and intention).
Where I think you’re over the top, and what I’m mocking, is where you say it was “intentional” or you throw “fascist terrorist” around like candy sprinkles or you say there’s NO difference at all between Obama and the neocon extremists who started this.
I personally see this hospital bombing as a reprehensible, sickening act of malfeasance that is nevertheless due to the fog of war (not “intentional”) — and thus a reminder that war leads to horrible outcomes no matter how noble your intentions going in. Maybe Obama should have known this and I wish he would act accordingly, but to equate this with fascism or cry “they’re all the same” — no.
The Air Force is still following a policy that bombing can actually win a war, history has a different conclusion, NOT! The pentagon investigating itself is like another term for white wash.
That’s a very bold statement and I suspect it comes from knee jerk Liberal thinking ragging on America is going to fix things. No one has claimed the USA DELIBERATELY struck that hospital or did so out of a lack of concern. 'Cept you of course.
The reason there’s an investigation is to prevent such a thing in the future. The TPM crowd ( as in posters ) can rag on and slam America but what the military is trying to do is stop this from happening. Unlike the folks in here they are acting not running their mouths.
This stuff is inevitable in a war like the one we are fighting. That’s why you don’t fight them unless you absolutely have to. We did not absolutely have to but the men in women of the American Military are stuck over there and I can tell you from first hand experience sickened by collateral death. It’s not what they want. It will haunt them for the rest of their lives and to be so cavalier as you are in saying they are just a bunch of wanton killers is really beyond the pale.
You can bet that every uninformed anti-American post on TPM will be used on GOP’er sites to prove that “Liberals hate America” and from what I often read in the TPM comments boards that may not be far from the truth.
So ace, since you are so adept with your mouth, how can we fight that war without collateral death and making wreckage out of the heads of our American soldiers? How can we alleviate a young man or women in uniform from a life of remembering the dismembered body of a child or the body of the dead mother who vainly tried to shield that child?
It wasn’t “bombing” buddy it was close air support. Tac Air whatever you want to call it. We don’t do Dresden anymore.
It’s only a war crime if it’s deliberate or done out of reckless negligence. But can I ask, how, given we don’t know shit how this happened or if it actually did, can you “see” so much into it?
“Fog of war”???..whatever gets you by.
Are they bringing back Stanley McCrystal back to do the investigation?
It seems to me that if they want a full investigation with all the thoroughness and integrity of the Pat Tillman investigation, they have to bring him back to do this.
For the sarcasm impaired: This is snark.
Some of the particulars Tillman death are still being covered up by the Pentagon.
You can take a look at the hospital from the air at:
If you like Google Maps, it’s at lat/long 36.7175474,68.8617857.
Looks to me like the (heavy) burden is on the U.S. to prove that the hospital wasn’t bombed intentionally.