• ArbitraryValue@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
    17·
    3 months ago

    The story is about a vehicle with three men in it that was fired on by a helicopter, killing two of them and seriously wounding the third. The Pentagon had said that the vehicle was attacked after ignoring warning shots, but NPR has evidence that there was not enough time between the warning and the attack for the vehicle to turn around, and that the men in the vehicle were farmers.

    NPR is not claiming that there was deliberate wrongdoing. This sounds to me like the sort of accident that can happen during the confusion of battle.

    • Cethin@lemmy.zipEnglish
      2·
      3 months ago

      I recommend everyone watch Generation Kill. It’s inspired by true events, and it’s reasonably accurate as it’s following a unit with an embedded reporter. Sometimes shit just happens. Sometimes that shit is avoidable and sometimes it’s just an accident and unavoidable and they did everything right. Sometimes people just want to do bad shit because they’re assholes or they were trained to hate the enemy and make the mistake of thinking all the people in the region are the enemy.

      War fucking sucks, and people should see the worst of it so they don’t beg for it. Most people never see the reality of war and are protected from it, with content warnings and other things. I’m of the opinion that, in order to vote, you should have to see the worst things that happen in war.

      • Flying Squid@lemmy.worldMEnglish
        57·
        3 months ago

        Yes, I’m aware of what I said. Are you aware of, like, the entire history of the U.S. military in, say, the last 25 years?

        • ArbitraryValue@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
          53·
          3 months ago

          Im aware that this battle was the one that led to the death of ISIS founder Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, a rather unsympathetic fellow.

          As for the last 25 years: American leaders (with the support of a majority of the American people) started wars that they regret starting. Any time a war is fought, civilians will suffer and die, but the American military fought those wars while inflicting remarkably few civilian casualties given the scale of the conflict.

            • ArbitraryValue@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
              21·
              3 months ago

              I think what many people, both those calling for war and those condemning it, don’t take into account is that a war against non-conventional forces in an urban area has never been fought without massive civilian casualties. I have read that in the battle of Mosul, about 10,000 ISIS fighters and 8,000 civilians were killed. This horrifying number of civilian casualties is actually unusual in that it is smaller than the number of enemy fighters killed. It’s about the best that any army in the world could have done in those circumstances. For reference, the Russian army during the siege of Mariupol killed approximately 8 civilians for each Ukrainian soldier, despite the fact that those Ukrainian soldiers were in uniform and did not deliberately hide among civilians.

              • TSG_Asmodeus (he, him)@lemmy.worldEnglish
                21·
                3 months ago

                For reference, the Russian army during the siege of Mariupol killed approximately 8 civilians for each Ukrainian soldier, despite the fact that those Ukrainian soldiers were in uniform and did not deliberately hide among civilians.

                Are you seriously trying to compare Russia with the US? Like congratulations, your My Lai past is fully behind you.

                • ArbitraryValue@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
                  2·
                  3 months ago

                  Who else is there to compare to? There haven’t been a lot of counties doing that sort of fighting recently other than Russia, the US-led coalition, and now Israel. We don’t have the numbers for Israel yet but my guess is that they’ll be in the range of 2 to 3 civilians per combatant, leaving the USA as the best and Russia as the worst by far. With that said, direct comparisons are a very oversimplified way of looking at this because, for example, Hamas in Gaza is better armed and more heavily fortified than ISIS in Mosul was.

                  As for My Lai: massacres like that attract the most public attention but they account for a very small fraction of civilian casualties. Most civilians are killed by routine bombings and artillery bombardments, not by infantry going on a killing spree against orders.