"who do we believe?" Topic

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I believe nothing from the Murdoch press and tv organisation, not a thing. And if its on Facebook then you can be sure its fake nonsense, on any subject.

Perhaps. Be interesting to follow this story, if it develops. As usual, both sides have incentives to lie.

I don't believe anything about any drone strikes.
I don't care if it's Fox praising the Former Guy, or CNN praising the Current Guy.

I believe nothing from the Murdoch press and tv organisation, not a thing.

Fox News reports the New York Times has same info: link

What's most disgusting about drones is that even the most pacifist President (naming no names) gets a visceral thrill out of killing people on his Xbox.

If any of our Commanders in Chief tried to personally operate a drone strike they'd probably have taken out the A&A Used Car Dealership in Bayonne, New Jersey.

Awww,…did I do that?

The Palestinians are very adept at manipulating the western press. I have no doubt the Taliban will do the same whenever they can. I don't necessarily believe our government either.

Some of the reporting may be circular, but the more I read, the more it looks like we made a mistake. Wonder if we'll admit it?

It would not be the first time that US forces have executed a strike soon after a hostile event in order to be seen to be doing something. It would appear to be a credible event

Seriously? The Daily Mail? That rag is on par with the National Enquirer that, literally, tells potential contributors that stories don't need to be actually true, as long as it includes something that is true. Or did. For instance, chickens lay eggs therefore because someone ate an egg they, too, lay eggs. Stuff literally that stupid.

While it is always possible a drone strike will include collateral damage which might be against innocents, the intended targets will happily engage in PROPAGANDA for their own reasons (or their survivors), like keeping their deluded converts believing. And, yes, propaganda is used by all sides including ours.

That doesn't mean you take a very powerful weapon off the battle field – and I am aware of the profound moral dilemmas of using drones outside of a declared war zone. I guarantee the enemies of the west don't care. We are remembering 9/11 today. Did those attackers care? Clearly not.

And, again – I fully expect this part to be censored – what does this have to do with miniatures?

BB, the NYT is reporting it also. link

Not that I trust NYT, either. But perhaps others do.

Also: For discussion of military events within the past 10 years, including ongoing operations.

FOX has reported the possible CD caused by the drone strike. I saw it … I often post here that at times CD will sadly happen.

YouTube link

If you're willing to accept Collateral Damage, and an acceptable accuracy rate is around 50%, it seems to me that you're not quite into "winning their hearts and minds".

Oh, hell doc.
Editorial Staff has made it quite clear that the Recent Unpleasantness in far off Talibanistan is open season.

"winning their hearts and minds".

This is not Vietnam. Many hate us already. The VC/NVA posed no threat in the US or Europe. As I have said many times if the USA was not concerned about CD places on the Earth would be rubbled.

Or leadership is so concerned with imposing strict ROE. They forget what those on the ground's job is. Every time they denied support to the Grunts & Tankers on the ground. For fear of CD. I may have cost us and not them.

I was Rifle Ptl Ldr & Mech Co. Cdr. The lives of my troops would be very important to me. What kind of leader would I be if they became expendable because higher was playing hearts & minds? And I didn't try to do anything I could to limit my losses to as close to 0 as possible.

And I'm not so sure about 50% accuracy …

That was not what I was taught decades ago … I think this link is more "accurate" – link

If we're not trying to win their hearts and minds, what are we doing?
Just killing wogs? Well, if that's what you want, there are far more messy ways to do it.
We "occupied" Afghanistan for 19.8 years. Fine. Now what? There are easier ways to stamp out dissent. Less expensive too.

In other words… "What's the point?"

Has there ever been a war without Collateral Damage? Is it even possible?

Drones are used because it is safer for us. No body bags to upset people at home.

If we do not want wars were people and things get damaged, then we need to stop fighting wars.

The Western military thinking is now so risk adverse that winning is impossible. If you think that it took about 5 years for Allied power to defeat a near peer army in 1940s. Now 20 years can not defeat an enemy that has no air firce, no armour, no ability to produce weapons.

Given the reported weapon used, a Ginsu-Hellfire missile, I find it hard to believe the driver, another adult, and 7 children were killed by it, unless they were packed in while practicing their "clown-car" occupancy routine.

It has no explosive warhead, but does deploy 6 x katana-like blades to take out the target.

As I recall from the original report, 2 people were reported to have been killed, and one escaped (possibly wounded).

If we're not trying to win their hearts and minds, what are we doing?

I said we attempt to avoid CD. We don't go carpet bombing, etc. It seems at times we are trying to win "hearts & minds", at the cost of our mission and troops.

But these may be enlightening on hearts & minds in Vietnam vs. Afghanistan – link

link

So yes, what is the point ? Many more with more knowledge & experience then I[ and those are legion!] believe the same hearts & minds concept used in Vietnam is not that applicable to A'stan. In many cases … E.g. Fanatical religious jihadis are different than the VC & NVA. The VC/NVA were not a threat at home … jihadis are …

there are far more messy ways to do it.

Yes that is why we use smart ordinance. Is it 100% … ? Nothing is … And again I'm not talking WMDs carpet bombing, send a flight of B-52s to level a village, etc. We still have to be able to engage those that want to kill us. When on the ground in the combat zone. Again all we can do is attempt to limit CD.

Fine. Now what? There are easier ways to stamp out dissent. Less expensive too.

Yes we do that too as part of the war on terrorists. And keeping us safe at home. For most/much of those 19.8 years we have accomplished that.

Has there ever been a war without Collateral Damage? Is it even possible?

Drones are used because it is safer for us. No body bags to upset people at home.

If we do not want wars were people and things get damaged, then we need to stop fighting wars.

The Western military thinking is now so risk adverse that winning is impossible

gunnerphil you are spot on. We were so busy not trying to kill people and destroy things. We put our troops at risk and accomplish 0 … Yes … so what is the point then ?

I find it hard to believe the driver, another adult, and 7 children were killed by it, unless they were packed in while practicing their "clown-car" occupancy routine.

Reports based on who is reporting are incorrect/skewed/biased, etc., at times. But in some cases it makes for good ratings …

Here's a way to avoid CD and all the bad publicity involved:

Don't get involved in stupid and pointless forever wars that don't really serve the national interest.

War should be the measure of last resort…and if you need to wage a war, then it's gloves off and you spill the blood of your enemies without mercy.

Now 20 years can not defeat an enemy that has no air firce, no armour, no ability to produce weapons.

You couldn't defeat the Vietnamese either and Korea was a stalemate nor could the French defeat the Vietnamese and Algerians or the Soviets the Afghans.

And note in all of those cases, the other guy generally lacked conventional forces.

Insurgency style warfare suits the insurgents especially when the conventional military is an occupying army and doesn't have any real support in the bulk of the population.

It's literally a waiting game where the insurgents win through patience, neutralising enemy firepower and have far more skin in the game.

+1 arealdeadone

Here's a way to avoid CD and all the bad publicity involved:

Don't get involved in stupid and pointless forever wars that don't really serve the national interest.

War should be the measure of last resort…and if you need to wage a war, then it's gloves off and you spill the blood of your enemies without mercy.

Okay….

Some questions on the ardo doctrine:

1) How do you know if the war will be forever?

2) How do you define stupid and pointless?

3) Is 'national interest' always clear?

4) How do you know whether or not war could have been avoided by just one more diplomatic effort – can't one always argue, "just one more effort"?

5) Gloves off and spill blood without mercy – does that include nuclear weapons? Biological? Chemical? Carpet bombing?

Asking those questions for a friend… ;)

Some points of interest…

a) Some counter-insurgencies have been successful – although not a lot.

b) The Northern Ireland conflict – The Troubles – lasted 30 years. Fatalities were about 3,500 or 1 per 500 people – most (>50%) were civilian. It ended with a negotiated settlement. Was it in the UK's "national interest"? If so, should they have used a "gloves off and spill the blood of your enemies without mercy"? (For reference, the last 20 years in Afghanistan caused about 200,000 fatalities or about 1 per 200 people with about 25% civilian.)

c) On 9/11 the US lost about 3,000 fatalities in an attack against a major economic/financial centre, the Pentagon – national military HQ, and the Capital – the latter being a failed attack. Was it not in the US national interest to do something about Al Qaeda? I'm not asking if the response was right, but whether or not that fits the criterion of serving national interest.

d) The US lost less at Pearl Harbor – about 2,500. After Pearl Harbor, should the US have negotiated with Japan instead of going to war? Very possibly Japan would have been pleased with that.

Finally, in case you didn't look at the Uppsala database…do so now.

ucdp.uu.se/country/700

Note the low number of casualties from 2002 to 2005. Probably no one noticed at the time because of Iraq, but in those four years Afghanistan didn't seem so stupid and pointless. The question is what changed in 2006 that did make it stupid and pointless.

As Legion 4 has mentioned, hindsight is 20/20.

Shadoe,

We know insurgencies are generally "forever" wars – from Napoleon's Peninsular Campaign to Vietnam to LTTE to Iraqi campaign against Kurds (started 1960s or earlier, still going to this day) to Afghanistan in 1980s to Colombia etc.

Thus such wars are to be avoided.

As for pointless and stupid, if you have no clear national interests, no clearly defined goals and no strategy or even an understanding of what you are trying to do, then it's a stupid and pointless war.

National interests should be clearly identifiable and easily communicated and understood. Given the US intelligence, policy and other infrastructure, these should actually be able to be determined. Remember the US did it in the Cold War.

Anything else is just personal interest of whatever bureaucrat/politician/general is pushing it (says a professional bureaucrat who sees this all the time).

If you don't have a clear goal and associated metrics it's probably not worth the effort and it's probably not in your interest.

hindsight is 20/20.

It was obvious at the time too.

Samuel Huntington had already written extensively about clash of civilisations.

It was clear radical Islamism was growing – not just in Afghanistan but Egypt (terror attacks), Algeria (full scale civil war with fundamentalists), Israel (Hamas starting to overtake PLO/Fatah), terror attacks against western interests, terror attacks in France, radicalisation of Chechen resistance, etc etc etc. There was plenty of footage of Islamist preachers promoting sharia and overthrow of western societies in the west!

I was a 21 year old at university in 2001 and I was already aware of this and understood it's implications. 9-11 didn't surprises me, I'd been watching these guys get bolder and bolder (embassy bombings, USS Cole attack).

I was actually shocked the US just went into Afghanistan and not after Pakistan at least (and preferably KSA who was funding most of the militant madrassas at the time).

Gloves off and spill blood without mercy – does that include nuclear weapons? Biological? Chemical? Carpet bombing?

If need be and your populace will tolerate it and the risk is low (risk analysis and management is another dying skill set).

Every war against a determined foe requires a gloves off approach – WWI, WWII, Spanish Civil War, Russian Civil War, Sri Lankan Civil War, 1991 Persian Gulf War, Croatian War, 2nd Chechen War etc etc.

Even against Serbia, US civilian targets – bridges, utilities etc. It resulted in a Serb withdrawal from Kosovo.

Of course this is a simplistic statement and a generalisation.
Real life is more complicated – but we've been watching US/west make one mistake after another for decades now.

No lessons are being learned – the whole system is on repeat.

It's clear that western foreign policy elites are infested with group think and the only beneficiaries are the Islamists, the Iranians, Chinese, Russians and whatever other small two bit power has ambition such as Turkey.

Not all Insurgency Wars are forever. Check out Malayan Emergency, for a start. British and Commonwealth forces defeated Communist insurgents.

@gunnerphil,

Correct. Not all insurgency wars are forever and some that might have happened and people worried would happen never happened – e.g., post-WWII Japan.

@ardo,

The trouble with simplistic statements and generalisations are that they don't usefully inform decisions for the future and the are obstacles to learning lessons from the past.

For sure, plenty of mistakes (bad decisions) were made and some good decisions don't turn out well – which is why wargames randomize outcomes.

I don't think Huntingdon's thesis is very useful and possibly even dangerous – call it the 'Mother of All Generalisations'. It is widely criticized – logically, historically, ethically, etc.

The challenge is what would have happened if you did something else or not – e.g., if the US invaded Pakistan the outcome isn't clear to me and at least one possible outcome is a much worse world today.

Re: gloves off and spill blood without mercy…."and the risk is low".

That is the challenge – the world cannot afford a war between the major powers. Watch this video – if you haven't already:

YouTube link

FWIW – this philosophy amounts to powerful nations thumping small, weak nations for 'national interests', which can cover a wide range of things – e.g., scarce natural resources.

"No lessons are being learned…" I don't entirely agree. The trouble is history has no 'end state' (unless we have a Global Thermonuclear War). One 'state' merges into another and another and…so on. National objectives need to shift – sure, often those objectives are better suited to the 'state' that is passing and not the 'state' that is emerging, which is why there's this wonderful thing called 'politics'.

FYI – on Sept 11, 2001 I was a 47 year old NATO defence planner (co-chair of the land and amphibious requirements team) in a room with three officers (UK, Dutch and US) discussing NATO 'initial entry doctrine' when the news came. We were all depressed – because of the tragedy but also because we knew that this would set the world on a new, unpredictable and dangerous trajectory.

Also, note that the 9/11 attack was counter to the usual insurgency approach which is to wear down a larger opponent until that opponent is war weary and quits. But that wasn't Bin Laden's aim – he wanted the US to declare war (i.e., a big reaction – one might say one aligned with Huntingdon's Class of Civilizations world view) and that this US reaction would mobilize the Islamic world to his cause.

As this is off topic from the OP, I won't post anymore on this divergent topic.

On the OP topic – I've looked at the material – videos, photos of the damage, etc. My guess is that the attack was in error and targeted an innocent person.

Don't get involved in stupid and pointless forever wars that don't really serve the national interest.

Yes that is all well and good … and I agree totally. But troops don't make policy, etc. When we are told to deploy by the POTUS, etc. We took an oath to do so. I don't know what some don't get? By the time you are on the ground in the enemies' sights, etc. You can't decide the POTUS should not have sent you there. You do your duty and try to survive. What's not to understand ?

War should be the measure of last resort…and if you need to wage a war, then it's gloves off and you spill the blood of your enemies without mercy.

Yes that was even Gen Grant's idea. Go to war get it over as soon as possible. In the long run it saves lives & money.

That being said … in later wars IMO you can't or should not use WMDs. That is a no win situation. You can't effectively do a limit nuclear war … besides the fallout. Today the USA is not the only one with Nukes. MAD is bad … It's not 1945.

As far as killing your enemy without mercy … I'm all for that especially for terrorists/Jihadis. You can only make deal with them with massive firepower. Then repeat.

We saw a similar with the WWII IJFs. But even they were eventually defeated. At a very high cost for all involved. You won't see anything like that with fanatical, radial Sharia law, religiously inspired jihadis. They want to go to paradise. We should give them their wish at every chance, often and in large numbers.

I don't think these types will go back to being peaceful goat herders. But just to make sure kill them when ever the chance presents itself. My weapon choice of – the Reaper drone. And yes we already be the CD conundrum to death. 'nuff said …

It was obvious at the time too.

To some … not all …

Shadoe & phil +1 …

+1 arealdeadone

"Forever" war is really just an expression for a limited and extended conflict, is it not?

The Philipine American War was pretty gruesome and expensive in blood and treasure. The incursion into Mexico to get Villa, not only failed to get him, it created long term anti American sentiment there. We occupied Nicaragua several times I believe?

This is not something new for us.

Sadly you are correct. You can't rewrite history. But it seems some don't learn from it.

Original story confirmed. Sad.

I believe nothing from the Murdoch press and tv organisation, not a thing.

Even when they report on Australia spiraling into an Orwellian nightmare? You might want to pay attention … just a little.