Warbird Information Exchange

There have been cases of US bombings in Afghan where is claimed that civilians have been killed. The response has usually taken one or both of two forms, either claim that the "civilians" were really Tailiban despite some of them being children, or to blame it on the media ie propaganda.
The first approach got a little thin recently when the victims were British soldiers, but they could still point fingers at the media for reporting a story.
Today's paper has a story where the source is the United Nations, which says "American led operation" (whatever that means) in Herat on Friday killed 90 civilians, 60 of them children. The story is in the A P if anyone is concerned to read it. There's quite a few items that aren't real clear.

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Bill Greenwood
Spitfire N308WK

Unfortunately the Taliban do not put on red coats and march out on to the field shoulder to shoulder to fight us. They hide amongst the population, it is their only defense. In this area the people they are hiding with know who is Taliban. This escalation if fighting in this region has been going of for months. If I was just a law abiding Afghani I think it would behoove me to get out of dodge. Just because we can drop a bomb within a few inches of the cross hairs the bomb is not smart enough to kill only the "bad guys."

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Once you have tasted flight you will walk the earth with your eyes turned skywards... for there you have been and there you will long to return. Leonardo daVinci

Those supporting the Taliban, and Al Queda, or any of the others, by word or deed, or implied approval(i.e. not chasing them away with any means possible) are NOT civilians- they are combatant supporters: they should get what those they support deserve. They kill us without regard to man, woman, child, soldier, civilian, and we will never win if we keep making the distinction they refuse to.

I don't worry about it myself. If they want to be with their fighters, they deserve what they get.

As the famous, and oft misquoted(and probably hereso again) statement from the crusades goes, "Kill them all. God will take those he recognizes as his own."
Robbie

You guys have GOT to be kidding me. THe VAST majority of people in the world (even afghanistan) are just hiding in their cellars trying not to get turned into apple sauce. It's downright stupid, to say nothing of mean, to suggest that babies at their mothers breast or children playing in the street are somehow supporting terrorism.

I DO agree that what guys like Randy Haskins do is absolutely necessary. And the people who die so that our troops don't, well, "sorry about that."

But don't you for one minute believe that all or even most of the civilians killed in that blast want anything but to avoid the whole damned thing. You want to blame someone? Blame the bastards over there who would turn the world into their serfdom, a hegemony of the insane brand of Islam that is so uncommon, and yet so terribly destructive.

Those people are victims. No more nor less. They are victims of an evil group of men who don't value them beyond their PR value, when they die. To castigatete them for "supporting Al Queda" is to demean the sacrifice that our men and women make trying to help them, and the sacrifice the victims themselves have unwillingly made so that others might remain free.

It's a sugar choice: Do we let a few civilians die and win the struggle to make the rest free, or do we pull out, avoid our own troops deaths, and watch them live short brutal lives of terror? They haven't made that decision, WE have. And I won't for once let someone play that card without pointing out that it's wrongheaded and verges on evil to somehow claim that it was accidental. We know when we drop that there might well be casualties and there is an office in the Pentagon whose job it is to make that decision. We DO know, and we also know that it's wrong. But it's not so wrong as letting those bastards back into power.

Pilots like Randy never know what really happens down there, or seldom hear from the grunts they have saved. I for one am very grateful that I have had the chance to thank him. Guys like him have saved my ass several times, and I never got to. And while I am sure he and every pilot there knows and regrets that accidents happen, or that collateral casuaties are part of the game, they also know that this one is for all the marbles (for us and the Afghanistanis) and to play the game otherwise would result in more pain and suffering, and MORE CASUALTIES.

> chase them off< do you kiss your mother with that mouth?. Words like that demean the men out there doing the real work. It demeans the victims. And it implies that that YOU somehow have the right to judge them because in YOUR opinion they shoudl run away or run off their children, husbands and fathers. You wouldn't, and neither will they.

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"I knew the jig was up when I saw the P-51D-20-NA Mustang blue-nosed bastards from Bodney, and by the way the blue was more of a royal blue than an indigo and the inner landing gear interiors were NOT green, over Berlin."

Did the 9-11 terrorists say to themselves "There may be innocent women and children on this aircraft who might be killed? Are there people in those twin towers who are only trying to live their own lives? Maybe I shouldn't do this?" NO! They said "They are my enemy-man, woman, child- and I must kill them to go to heaven, see allah, and get my 72 virgins."

The Bible says "An eye for an eye" They started it without care for collateral damage. We need to take the same view- or they will always be able to play the "innocents killed" card. Until they fear for their families' lives as they have no fear for their own- they want to die- they will commit their acts of terror.

You may say "we can't stoop to their level" but remember- to fight a pig, you must get in the mud and fight dirty.

Robbie

That is the biggest load of crap I have ever had the honor to shovel my way through, Robbie. I fought in the mud, against these very same people at times. I have bled more than once in more than one place on the globe and to claim taht I had a right to do it for revenge is insulting at best. The moment we stoop to their level is the moment we begin to lose our own humanity. It's the moment we begin to cease to be America.To cite the bible as justificatio for killing innocents is just...Man, you are obviously not getting what Jesus was talking about. Civilization--honor and intergity and pity and mercy--even mercy- those are the things that make us great. Its not the guns, even though we have the most. It's not bombs, even though we can obliterate a city in the blink of an eye. It's our ideals that make us the greatest nation that has ever been.
Rome may have been powerful, but they were also evil. They did what they did because they wanted to and they could. To live that way is just plain evil.

We do this because we MUST. Because we are obligated to in order that our and their children might have a chance to live full and happy lives. Revenge is for children on playgrounds. We are the greatest nation on Earth because we believe that. We are the greatest nation because we are willing to fight and die for that ideal. And to kill for it when we must. That doesn't mean we should revel in what is clearly as terrible thing, but rather that we should look at ourselves as clearly as we can, without lustful feelings for a petty revenge, and to do only what we must as long as we must. There need be no fighting like a pig. I'm proud tha I refused and still refuse to act out of anything but decency and honor. It is not only possible to do so, it is necessary. I for one will not ever justify what I have done or we have to do with such a pathetic excuse as revenge. And I hope our nation never does.

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"I knew the jig was up when I saw the P-51D-20-NA Mustang blue-nosed bastards from Bodney, and by the way the blue was more of a royal blue than an indigo and the inner landing gear interiors were NOT green, over Berlin."

Carpet bomb all those savages... Why even pretend to sort e'm out. Their lives arn't worth sugar. We should have let the russians do the job for us years ago.

Can you name a war in which carpet bombing won the war?

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"I knew the jig was up when I saw the P-51D-20-NA Mustang blue-nosed bastards from Bodney, and by the way the blue was more of a royal blue than an indigo and the inner landing gear interiors were NOT green, over Berlin."

"They kill us without regard to man, woman, child, soldier, civilian, and we will never win if we keep making the distinction they refuse to."

I would like to know where it is written that we would win if we stop making the distinction...

It's not written down. Nowhere in the bible, or literature. Abe lincoln didn't say, Nor did George Washington or Thomas Jefferson.

This is what Jefferson said:

"An honest man can feel no pleasure in the exercise of power over his fellow citizens."

-Thomas Jefferson-

and he said this:

"Shake off all the fears of servile prejudices, under which weak minds are servilely crouched. Fix reason firmly in her seat, and call on her tribunal for every fact, every opinion. Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the
homage of reason than that of blindfolded fear."

-Thomas Jefferson-


How about Washington. You remember our founding father right? Our first president? That guy we all think set the tone for who we would be as a nation when he resigned from the mlitary and then retired afte rhis first term in oorder to set the precident that no man should retain office very long?

Anyway, he said this:
"Arbitrary power is most easily established on the ruins of liberty abused to licentiousness. "
-George Washington-

and this:
"Guard against the impostures of pretended patriotism."
-George Washington -

And something that some posters here never heard:

"Labor to keep alive in your breast that little spark of celestial fire, called conscience."
-George Washington-

But what did HE know about being an American? Obviously BW and Robbie know far more about being an American than the father of our nation

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"I knew the jig was up when I saw the P-51D-20-NA Mustang blue-nosed bastards from Bodney, and by the way the blue was more of a royal blue than an indigo and the inner landing gear interiors were NOT green, over Berlin."

[quote="muddyboots"]It's not written down. Nowhere in the bible, or literature. Abe lincoln didn't say, Nor did George Washington or Thomas Jefferson.

This is what Jefferson said:

"An honest man can feel no pleasure in the exercise of power over his fellow citizens."

-Thomas Jefferson-

and he said this:

"Shake off all the fears of servile prejudices, under which weak minds are servilely crouched. Fix reason firmly in her seat, and call on her tribunal for every fact, every opinion. Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the
homage of reason than that of blindfolded fear."

-Thomas Jefferson-


How about Washington. You remember our founding father right? Our first president? That guy we all think set the tone for who we would be as a nation when he resigned from the mlitary and then retired afte rhis first term in oorder to set the precident that no man should retain office very long?

Anyway, he said this:
"Arbitrary power is most easily established on the ruins of liberty abused to licentiousness. "
-George Washington-

and this:
"Guard against the impostures of pretended patriotism."
-George Washington -

And something that some posters here never heard:

"Labor to keep alive in your breast that little spark of celestial fire, called conscience."
-George Washington-

But what did HE know about being an American? Obviously BW and Robbie know far more about being an American than the father of our nation [/quote]

Here is some counter banter for ya. Bomb The savages
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pKFKGrmsBDk

here is a video of them bombing those savages http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sWS-FoXb ... re=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kv4s3fn8jDc
Just a reminder. 7 days till 7 years.

Breaks my heart watchin that video. I think it does for all of us.

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Keep Em' Flying,
Christopher Soltis
Dedicated to the preservation and education of The Sikorsky Memorial Airport

CASC Blog Page: http://ctair-space.blogspot.com/
Warbird Wear: https://www.redbubble.com/people/warbirdwear/shop

Chicks Dig Warbirds.......right?

If seven years of doing the same things over and over still haven't gotten us the results we want, let alone different results from doing that same thing over and over than we got in, oh, just picking countries out of a hat, say Viet Nam, then it just might be time to try a different approach...

Now, I know it's just me, but I'm just not understanding how we can expect different results by doing those same things over and over and over and over...is there a more enlightened wixer soul that can explain how??