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How the U.S. hid an airstrike that killed dozens of civilians in Syria

nytimes.com

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Re: How the U.S. hid an airstrike that killed dozens of civilians in Syria

#121

Post by hiyer »

bettysdiagnose wrote: post #115
boomboomsubban wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>country that wouldn't come under US pressure Given the context of also asking for bombing to stop, that seems like they were trying to stop the US from using military pressure to force their will on Afghanistan. The deal wasn't even considered, who knows what they were actually trying to negotiate. >I don't see what's so unreasonable about handing him over to the US tbh History has now shown the US was willing to to…

Yeah and the Taliban were willing to protect the guy who committed one of the worst terrorist atrocities in memory. Funny how it's totally understandable according to you why the Taliban wouldn't trust America, but somehow America isn't afford the same understanding by people like you.... Utterly transparent from you I'm afraid.

Pakistan was willing to protect him too (that's where he was found at the end) but the US didn't invade them. Why is that? Because Pakistan has nukes?

Re: How the U.S. hid an airstrike that killed dozens of civilians in Syria

#122

Post by webinvest »

dd444fgdfg wrote: post #117

the US political system is completely broken, and it's destroying a great country. it's a leadership problem, and needs someone who is capable of detaching and acting in the best interest of the country, not themselves or their party. they need a complete reboot. rewrite the constitution (it's overdue). rebuild the democratic voting functions (they're a mess and don't work). time for democracy 2.0

I completely agree.

Re: How the U.S. hid an airstrike that killed dozens of civilians in Syria

#123

Post by dragontamer »

whakim wrote: post #89
dragontamer wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Given the official statements of the Taliban (ie: that Osama Bin Laden didn't cause 9/11), what exactly is your proposal? Taliban were protecting Bin Laden, period. Their official stance on the subject is clearly false, and they were willing to go to war to provide sanctuary to Bin Laden. The main worry was that any such delays at this point would give Bin Laden more room to get away (and Bin Laden did escape: all th…

> So if anything, we should have pursued Bin Laden even more vigorously back then. The Taliban were successful in buying enough time for him to hide with their false diplomacy. The problem was, real intelligence on the whereabouts of Bin Laden and Al Qaida in general was extremely rare. It was the vigorousness with which we pursued Al Qaida that helped really poison the relationship with local Afghans. You had local…

The Battle of Tora Bora, taking place in December 2001, has been subject to US Senate debate and discussion.

Bin Laden wrote his last will and testament on December 14, 2001, coinciding with the battle. The commandos who stormed Tora Bora were met with fierce resistance... not by Taliban, but by US Troops who refused to drop bigger bombs or deploy sufficient forces to attack the mountainous terrain.

--------

Donald Rumsfeld himself was worried that too many troops in Afghanistan at this time would fuel anti-American sentiment. Our problem was half-assing it in the early days of the war, when it mattered.

https://www.foreign.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/S%20Prt%20111-3...

When the Afghan forces complied with the Taliban / Al Qaeda cease fire, there was nothing for US troops to do anymore but let Bin Laden go. There wasn't sufficient strength to attack.

Perhaps intelligence on the ground was insufficient to allow a bigger military footprint at the time. But given the next 20 years of fighting and insurrection, a bit more force used in December 2001 could have prevented a lot of the force we used later.

Re: How the U.S. hid an airstrike that killed dozens of civilians in Syria

#124

Post by torstenvl »

adolph wrote: post #14
csee wrote: post #10

Highlights: - Special task force ordered strike. They didn't have to go through normal checks and balances because they were doing it under emergency provisions apparently due to an emergency request from arab allies on the ground. - They claim they didn't see the civilians because they were relying on SD quality drone feed. - The group is accused of falsifying log records afterwards.

Second paragraph: "Without warning, an American F-15E attack jet streaked across the drone’s high-definition field of vision and dropped a 500-pound bomb on the crowd, swallowing it in a shuddering blast." Who is lying about the surveillance quality?

I wouldn't necessarily assume it's a lie. I have no inside information and, if I did, I probably wouldn't be able to share it. However, based on my experience in Iraq, it wouldn't surprise me if 5th Group were relying on a previous-generation drone and didn't know an MQ9 or better class drone was watching the same AO.

We once had a TF call in requesting a strike on military-aged males carrying rifles. In the strike cell, we had a newer drone on station and checked out what they were calling in. I'm glad we did. With higher fidelity video, we could see that it was actually teenaged males with fishing poles. The strike request was (of course) denied. In our case, it worked out the way one would hope, but with aging equipment and poor networking, it's definitely a "there but for the grace of God go I" moment.

Re: How the U.S. hid an airstrike that killed dozens of civilians in Syria

#125

Post by pkphilip »

oh_sigh wrote: post #107
pkphilip wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You should travel more and ask people outside the US what they actually think about US military policy. Note, some people do distinguish between what the US establishment does and what ordinary American civilians do but that is not always the case.

On multiple occasions in my life I've needed to order extra pages for my passport because it was full of stamps. I've been to every continent except for Antarctica and 50 plus countries and have literally never had a negative interaction because of my nationality. Maybe you need to travel more? You hear "Americans are hated" by.... Americans mostly. And, I would guess, Americans of a certain political bent that say i…

Have you actually had a conversation with anyone outside the US about what they think about US govt/military policy? Most people are too polite to say these things unless specifically asked.

By the way, I am not an American and I don't live in the US. So I have a perspective on this which you probably don't have.

Re: How the U.S. hid an airstrike that killed dozens of civilians in Syria

#126

Post by whakim »

dragontamer wrote: post #123
whakim wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So if anything, we should have pursued Bin Laden even more vigorously back then. The Taliban were successful in buying enough time for him to hide with their false diplomacy. The problem was, real intelligence on the whereabouts of Bin Laden and Al Qaida in general was extremely rare. It was the vigorousness with which we pursued Al Qaida that helped really poison the relationship with local Afghans. You had local…

The Battle of Tora Bora, taking place in December 2001, has been subject to US Senate debate and discussion. Bin Laden wrote his last will and testament on December 14, 2001, coinciding with the battle. The commandos who stormed Tora Bora were met with fierce resistance... not by Taliban, but by US Troops who refused to drop bigger bombs or deploy sufficient forces to attack the mountainous terrain. -------- Donald R…

Yes, we narrowly missed Bin Laden at Tora Bora in 2001. But "just send more troops" and "use bigger bombs" betrays a lack of familiarity with combat in the mountainous and inhospitable parts of Afghanistan. There's only so much air power can do in these places. It's incredibly hard to insert troops into places like these. You need to be able to medevac the WIA and KIA when things go wrong. There were no roads. In 2001, we were often literally using Russian maps. The history of these big mountain operations in Afghanistan is basically one of "let's send more troops/use bigger bombs/etc. etc." and it never got us anywhere. These operations pretty much always failed and we almost never got whoever we were going after.

Re: How the U.S. hid an airstrike that killed dozens of civilians in Syria

#127

Post by hunterb123 »

hiyer wrote: post #121
bettysdiagnose wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah and the Taliban were willing to protect the guy who committed one of the worst terrorist atrocities in memory. Funny how it's totally understandable according to you why the Taliban wouldn't trust America, but somehow America isn't afford the same understanding by people like you.... Utterly transparent from you I'm afraid.

Pakistan was willing to protect him too (that's where he was found at the end) but the US didn't invade them. Why is that? Because Pakistan has nukes?

We should have imo. Possibly we didn't because of nukes, but not quite the argument though is it?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism

I believe the above post wanted to drill down why it was hard for Afghanistan to give him over.

After that the Pakistan discussion can happen if energy exists.

Re: How the U.S. hid an airstrike that killed dozens of civilians in Syria

#128

Post by oh_sigh »

pkphilip wrote: post #125
oh_sigh wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On multiple occasions in my life I've needed to order extra pages for my passport because it was full of stamps. I've been to every continent except for Antarctica and 50 plus countries and have literally never had a negative interaction because of my nationality. Maybe you need to travel more? You hear "Americans are hated" by.... Americans mostly. And, I would guess, Americans of a certain political bent that say i…

Have you actually had a conversation with anyone outside the US about what they think about US govt/military policy? Most people are too polite to say these things unless specifically asked. By the way, I am not an American and I don't live in the US. So I have a perspective on this which you probably don't have.

OP is speaking about Americans, not the American military.

Re: How the U.S. hid an airstrike that killed dozens of civilians in Syria

#129

Post by celloductor »

photochemsyn wrote: post #20

The US record in Afghanistan is arguably even more ridiculous (and psychotic) than in Iraq. We went in with a pretty good justification (Taliban refusal to hand over Osama bin Laden for his central role in 9/11 terrorism) - although to be honest, the argument for doing the regime change op in Saudi Arabia was far more robust, as members of the Saudi government aided the hijackers and Saudi Royal family members were a…

you can't justify going to war with a country just because they refuse to extradite an individual. that is what a bully does.

Re: How the U.S. hid an airstrike that killed dozens of civilians in Syria

#130

Post by dragontamer »

whakim wrote: post #126
dragontamer wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Battle of Tora Bora, taking place in December 2001, has been subject to US Senate debate and discussion. Bin Laden wrote his last will and testament on December 14, 2001, coinciding with the battle. The commandos who stormed Tora Bora were met with fierce resistance... not by Taliban, but by US Troops who refused to drop bigger bombs or deploy sufficient forces to attack the mountainous terrain. -------- Donald R…

Yes, we narrowly missed Bin Laden at Tora Bora in 2001. But "just send more troops" and "use bigger bombs" betrays a lack of familiarity with combat in the mountainous and inhospitable parts of Afghanistan. There's only so much air power can do in these places. It's incredibly hard to insert troops into places like these. You need to be able to medevac the WIA and KIA when things go wrong. There were no roads. In 200…

> The history of these big mountain operations in Afghanistan is basically one of "let's send more troops/use bigger bombs/etc. etc." and it never got us anywhere.

Except in the Battle of Tora Bora, where the commanders on the ground said that the 100 troops deployed to the area were insufficient to push into a heavily fortified mountainous region.

And they're right. If those 100 troops pushed in, they would have been massacred. More troops absolutely would have helped at that time.

Plenty of airplanes dropped plenty of bombs. But the use of air-deployed land mines was not authorized, which could have also helped (GATOR mines self-detonate after 15 days, to minimize risks to the local population after battle. They are further battery-operated, and are designed to run out of battery in case the self-detonation fails)

The gloves were still on. We could have easily used more force in that battle, but decided against it.

---------

Traditionally, you need to outnumber your opponent 3 to 1 if you wish to lay siege to an enemy in their home territory. At some point, just raw manpower is what you need.

As you said: we dropped plenty of bombs in that battle, but bombs aren't boots on the ground. You need people there to know if the bombs are in fact hitting their mark.

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