Quote:
Originally Posted by Cali Coug
You are advocating the exact opposite approach of hitting the enemy with a blunt instrument (i.e., carpet bombing entire cities). Not only would that be murderous with today's capabilities, it would only turn the survivors even more against our interests.
|
I never advocated that. I simply responded to Mike's question about why we didn't carpet bomb the Afghan/Pakistan border. In fact, if you read the original post, you'll see I specifically said I do NOT advocate the approach.
My point on civilian casualties stands though. Not the blunt instrument, but that we seem as a country to weep and wail entirely too much over the inevitable civilian casualties.
An example that comes to mind is when a bomb hit an Iraqi market during the air campaign at the beginning of the war. The market was not targeted but it was an errant bomb. The media made the US military out to be war criminals. And the expectation was that our bombs should be so "smart" so that something like that would never happen. An unrealistic expectation IMO. As weapons get more and more sophisticated, collateral damage will be less and less. But less <> 0.