apdst

A better perspective would be: they won't be on the enemy's side if we force them to.

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...you're the kind of man it's a pleasure to hang. If all you can talk is guff, you can talk it to the Devil. --Gus McRae

Agnapostate

There seem obvious ethical qualms in the destruction of numerous people even if it would ensure the safe release of one person. The fact that that is not a likely outcome, however, is a basis for even greater dubiousness of this strategy.

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The workmen desire to get as much, the master to give as little as possible...It is not, however, difficult to foresee which of the two parties must, upon all ordinary occasions, have the advantage in the dispute, and force the other into a compliance with their terms. -Adam Smith

jallman

Well that's a very "let me roll over and take it" attitude that Americans just don't have, Laila.

I am all for surgical strikes within a civilian population if they are known to be harboring the captors of an American soldier. I am also ok with going house to house within a village until we find him. And if we find him dead, we leave nothing breathing on the way back out.

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Prayer and blasphemy...the two are so narrowly separated in these trying times.

Agnapostate

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The workmen desire to get as much, the master to give as little as possible...It is not, however, difficult to foresee which of the two parties must, upon all ordinary occasions, have the advantage in the dispute, and force the other into a compliance with their terms. -Adam Smith

Red_Dave

Most of them arent. Thats why the voting for the goverment that we,re their defending. Jesus

jallman

If we can narrow intelligence down to knowing with 99.99% certainty that a hostage is being held in a specific village then I believe we should go into that village to get our guy out. It's not like these villages are metropolitan cities...they're frickin dirt road villages.

It would only take making an example out of two or three before the rest started to see the folly in harboring the Taliban.

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Prayer and blasphemy...the two are so narrowly separated in these trying times.

Red_Dave

Yeah cause that worked brilliantly in vietnam. If bombing civillians was such an effective way to win counter-insurgencies then you would have thought that, after the U.S used more bombs on vietnam then on the entire second world war, the U.S would have been more successful. If you want to know which approach works best then compare Vietnam to the Malayan emergency.

It wasnt commonwealth forces that defeated the insurgents in Malaya, [my grandfarther for example spent much of the conflict failing to find them] it was the Malayans who eventually got fed up and turned on them. We could easyly do this in Afganistan as the Afgans have been fighting the Taliban since the mid 90s. Historically they have no love for the Taliban but we seam determined to turn them against us.

jallman

I'm sorry. I fail to recall ever having used the word "bomb" in relation to this incident.

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Prayer and blasphemy...the two are so narrowly separated in these trying times.

Red_Dave

Well theres been many examples of this intelligence being wrong in the past and according to the article its not one village its two or three villages. Im sure we can assume that the captured GI is only in one of them.And even if the Taliban are there how are we to know its with the villages consent? Its fairly normal for insurgents to use peoples homes using force [we have family freinds who left northern ireland because the I.R.A had a habbit of doing exactly that]. If they have consented we have to ask why, could one of their young men have been abducted without trial? Could they already have been targeted in airstrikes?


And remember these villages are in a lose-lose situation here. If you watch footage of coalition forces searching villages the main thing their looking for is weapons. So if they arm themselves against the taliban they,re with the taliban, and if the taliban use their village, then the villages are with the taliban. They guilty untill proves innocent either way.

Red_Dave

Is that not what the article implies? how else could they be "targeted"?