[B]Afghanistan in particular seems more and more like a lost cause every day, and I’m tired of U.S. servicemen (as well as those from Britain and other ISAF member nations) being attacked/betrayed (& killed) by Afghanis that they are supposedly helping. .

that was a lost war the day before we went in the type of terrain and type of battle will never be won by outsiders with normal armies

outsiders never have won and never will do !!

the best we can hope for is admitting defeat come home and save lives , equipment and money

these countries have been like this for many centuries

we are fools to delude ourselves that the status quo will change in the next few years or months !!

unfortunately supermarkets greed and requirement for perfect looking specimens will only see more s**t hit the fan

we play god too much i pretty much refuse to buy any fresh ( fresh being an extremely debatable term ) produce from supermarkets ( it is all s**t ) i buy from our local market or farmers market

strange how breakouts are practicaly all supermarkets !!

what’s proposterous to me is , the forces were short staffed and short of equipment

yet we have made redundancies scrapped and retired required equipment

yet we are taking on another war

one day we will have to defend our own country again

probably with octogenarians with pitchforks and knives tied to broom handles again

we can no longer spend money on wars that are nothing to do with us

let them get on with it !!

as i said earlier if we in this country tried toppling the government ( with arms and force ) don’t think for one minuite that the crowd would not have large exit wounds were the millitary / airforce had machine gunned them !!

we may not like him and his methods but we make a rod for our own backs by helping we often make things worse than they were or would have been

The Germans do not (both the public and fuhrer)

oh no !! 😮 that’s the germans not playing out and taking thier ball in !!

I actually wrote “…IS NEVER the intention…..” not was. I am speaking of the present and present conflicts, which is what I thought the thread was about. Past conflicts have been debated elsewhere many times and will continue to be so.

it is an impossibility not to compare to past conflicts , if you don’t it is an impossibillity to come to any conclusions there have to be benchmarks to compare to

But in that case was it intent to kill civilians or an unfortunate accident? If your enemy choose not to wear uniform then civilian casualties become increasingly likely. PII was talking about intent.

Regards,

kev35

the trouble with intent is it has to be proven !! and governments ( no matter wich country ) are extreemely ecconomical with the truth

the plain truth with armies is they psychologicaly train the young to hate whoever the enemy of the moment was

whilst i was in it was paddys , commies , and argies with little sepperation between forces or civillians

there is a degree of seperation in air warfare that makes it a totaly difrent perspective to feet on the ground

as noted earlier there is a lot bigger picture on the ground than from the air

But surely that it is why it was done? The concept of mutually assured destruction was meant to be the great deterrent. An all out nuclear war would see everyone lose, thereby deterring everyone from using the nuclear option other than as a means of last ditch defence.

Regards,

kev35

trouble is there have been a few instances where it very nearly was reality and thank god it has never been put to the test but what if come the day one genuinely thinks there will be an advantage to launching first

the biggest laugh was the talks to destroy nukes

we all know the technology and materials will always be known and available

something that now its been here it will always be here !

How about Iraq, Afghanistan and Bosnia?

How about them?? I know of no instance in which Coalition (namely NATO) forces were ordered to engage civilians. Do you? If so the please cite an example and your source…

I’ve personally never been taught that it was EVER okay to target civilians intentionally, and I know of no one else who currently serves in the U.S. military who has….

Years ago, it was certainly more common, but recently? I know you like to play devil’s advocate, but I highly doubt British troops have been ordered to engage civilians in recent years either. (The same applies to all other NATO countries who’ve taken part in the campaigns against Milosevic, Hussein, or the Taliban.)

you don’t hear everything !!! by the very nature of terrorism and the type of fighting how can you tell terrorists from civillians ???

news has recently come out that an apache mowed down a group of civillians