More than 200 civilians killed in US Airstrike in Iraq

[Roaming East]

When you're on a public (non military) forum how about you go ahead and spell things out. I did 9 years in the Marine Corps and I don't know what half of that shit means. Still, a fortified position in a 2 story building is perfect for a bombing run... why the hell not? Unless you have direct fire assets readily available, ie Tanks, why not bomb the building? Lots of positions were setup as basically suicide IED traps. In Fallujah tons of insurgent positions were rigged to explode and bring the whole building down on top of people sent in to clear the building. It's the main reason why we (by we, I mean tanks) were given the order to start putting a few main gun rounds into each building before the grunts went into to clear the building.

lol, the alphabet soup. Im not criticizing the Iraqis on this one. People were asking 'OMG HOW COULD THIS HAPPEN?!' and i was simply replying that using air and artillery assets to remove defensive threats is not only widespread but generally the go to tactic. its why organic units exist. lot of JTACs and FACs exist as a platoon level asset these days so any group of soldiers would have the ability to call down indirect hurt on a mofo holed up in defensive position.

 

[usmctanker242]

lol, the alphabet soup. Im not criticizing the Iraqis on this one. People were asking 'OMG HOW COULD THIS HAPPEN?!' and i was simply replying that using air and artillery assets to remove defensive threats is not only widespread but generally the go to tactic. its why organic units exist. lot of JTACs and FACs exist as a platoon level asset these days so any group of soldiers would have the ability to call down indirect hurt on a mofo holed up in defensive position.

OK, yeah, your post was tough to follow with all that garbage in there. I agree with your sentiment though, air strikes are common for anything which would be difficult or injury/life costing to ground troops. I will say that airstrikes are unbelievably inaccurate and difficult to coordinate. I always thought they could hit anything pinpoint, and maybe in the open desert that's true, but in a city my experience with air was that they were incapable of hitting a desired target. We'd give a 10 digit grid, walk them on with a mapping system, and they would never hit the correct building. Gun line artillery was just as bad in my opinion, but I will say that mortars were like sniper rifles from the sky. In my time the only effective indirect fire I ever saw hit the actual target was mortars, and that was time and time again. We had a great Forward Observer with us who knew his shit, and he was also of the opinion that in a city setting mortars were the way to go.

 

[Diamond Jim]

Who, ISIS or Iraqi civilians. Either way you said the presidents mission statement was "Bomb the shit out of them." Please source.

He spent a year saying he was going to do it and criticizing the Obama admin. for restraint shown on bombing missions. So I'm not surprised when you put a more aggressive policy in place that these things happen.

 

[usmctanker242]

He spent a year saying he was going to do it and criticizing the Obama admin. for restraint shown on bombing missions. So I'm not surprised when you put a more aggressive policy in place that these things happen.

So you're not going to source President Trump saying what you claimed he said?

The reason I'm asking is because you said it was the presidents mission statement. Those words may have come from Trumps mouth during an election cycle, but there's no way in hell that's his established policy as the president of the United States.

 

[WiolentOne]

Iraqi officers, though, say they know exactly what happened: Maj. Gen. Maan al-Saadi, a commander of the Iraqi special forces, said that the civilian deaths were a result of a coalition airstrike that his men had called in, to take out snipers on the roofs of three houses in a neighborhood called Mosul Jidideh. General Saadi said the special forces were unaware that the houses’ basements were filled with civilians.

“After the bombing we were surprised by the civilian victims,” the general said, “and I think it was a trap by ISIS to stop the bombing operations and turn public opinion against us.”


General Saadi said he had demanded that the coalition pause its air campaign to assess what happened and to take stricter measures to prevent more civilian victims. Another Iraqi special forces officer, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the subject, said that there had been a noticeable relaxing of the coalition’s rules of engagement since President Trump took office.

Before, Iraqi officers were highly critical of the Obama administration’s rules, saying that many requests for airstrikes were denied because of the risk that civilians would be hurt. Now, the officer said, it has become much easier to call in airstrikes.


Some American military officials had also chafed at what they viewed as long and onerous White House procedures for approving strikes under the Obama administration. Mr. Trump has indicated that he is more inclined to delegate authority for launching strikes to the Pentagon and commanders in the field.
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https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/24/...-investigation-airstrike-civilian-deaths.html

This is what I suspected. I definitely support more authority being granted to our military, but the Iraqi military being allowed to call in air strikes? Yeah, that's not going to be good. There's going to be a clash of morals between the two cultures especially if the US military is carrying out their dirty work.

 

[Jorge Luis Borges]

Honestly I don't think you can put this on just one administration, its American foreign policy that should be questioned as a whole.

Americans should be pushing for an non-interventionist policy immediately, they've been in the middle east for decades now, millions dead. I see alot of people on the right are pushing for eliminating muslims and stopping immigration, but rarely do I see them pushing for our troops to come back home and stop the campaign in the middle east. If anything they should be more angry at their own governments for not having hindsight.

But whether its Trump, Obama, Clinton or the Bush's. They are all responsible, the entire goverment needs to be held accountable.

As a right winger type, I'd be all for a non-interventionist policy in the MidEast combined with restricted Middle Eastern immigration.

 

[Roaming East]

OK, yeah, your post was tough to follow with all that garbage in there. I agree with your sentiment though, air strikes are common for anything which would be difficult or injury/life costing to ground troops. I will say that airstrikes are unbelievably inaccurate and difficult to coordinate. I always thought they could hit anything pinpoint, and maybe in the open desert that's true, but in a city my experience with air was that they were incapable of hitting a desired target. We'd give a 10 digit grid, walk them on with a mapping system, and they would never hit the correct building. Gun line artillery was just as bad in my opinion, but I will say that mortars were like sniper rifles from the sky. In my time the only effective indirect fire I ever saw hit the actual target was mortars, and that was time and time again. We had a great Forward Observer with us who knew his shit, and he was also of the opinion that in a city setting mortars were the way to go.

your FAC was a smart man. During Phantom Fury, we had units constantly trying to get A-10's released to them and the ATO (air tasking officer) would shoot them down because A-10's are a lot of things but 'precise' isnt one of them. No way the USAF was gonna take the hit having some Warthog shotgun a city block just to waste some shooters. Nowadays they got a lot of them upgraded to C standard with night and low light optics and sensor pods for precision strike but you're still talking dropping a 500lb bomb on a cluster of building with the expectation that only one of those building is going to get hit? good luck with that noise.

The only time i've ever seen field guns be super accurate is when the guy calling it has access to a Raven UAV. top view round correction and deviation control is amazing in that regard.

 

[7437]

Hard to win hearts and minds dropping bombs from 10,000 feet.

Im sure killing a couple fighters was worth it. No way that guy holding a bag that used to be his pregnant wife is gonna hate the USA now.

And the people who found half of their 7 year old. They will certainly not hate the usa. We said we were just doing our jobs.

 

[Sauron]

Did they expect the war to be fought with kittens and rainbows?

This is what happens when you embrace ISIS with open arms. I'm not for the targeting of civilians, and its entirely counterproductive. However, the moralistic outrage of those who supported ISIS in their psychopathic murder spree (when they were winning) falls on deaf ears.

 

[Diamond Jim]

So you're not going to source President Trump saying what you claimed he said?

The reason I'm asking is because you said it was the presidents mission statement. Those words may have come from Trumps mouth during an election cycle, but there's no way in hell that's his established policy as the president of the United States.

I forgot taking Trump's words as literally what he's says is something we aren't suppose to do here.

 

[7437]

How is this in the US? ISIS took positions in a packed neighbourhood and then Iraqis called an airstrike on them.

We dropped the bombs. We are ultimatly responsible.

This action created more terrorism. Period. Full stop.

If Iraq cannot give us targets that dont actively create more terrorists, then we should not be taking their targets.

 

[usmctanker242]

your FAC was a smart man. During Phantom Fury, we had units constantly trying to get A-10's released to them and the ATO (air tasking officer) would shoot them down because A-10's are a lot of things but 'precise' isnt one of them. No way the USAF was gonna take the hit having some Warthog shotgun a city block just to waste some shooters. Nowadays they got a lot of them upgraded to C standard with night and low light optics and sensor pods for precision strike but you're still talking dropping a 500lb bomb on a cluster of building with the expectation that only one of those building is going to get hit? good luck with that noise.

The only time i've ever seen field guns be super accurate is when the guy calling it has access to a Raven UAV. top view round correction and deviation control is amazing in that regard.

Nice, yeah, during Phantom Fury the only air we ever really saw was the AC-130's and they were shockingly aggressive. We had one, a female pilot (her voice just stood out) callsign : Basher. They were useful and reliable as all hell with their guns.... loved having them on site during long nights.

I don't know shit about UAV's as it was never my area, but I could imagine if I could see out the "eyes" of the drone then I could certainly use that to hit my desired target.

 

[Cirris]

Shitty article is this in Baghdad or Mosul, kind of important

Baghdad street in West Mosul.

Which is kind of like saying New York Ave in Washington.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The sad reality is the civilians were either hiding with the ISIS snipers or being held by the ISIS fighters.

This is going to continue to happen as ISIS doesn't care about civilian deaths, and they know that Government forces will. They will continue to use humans as shields.

 

[usmctanker242]

I forgot taking Trump's words as literally what he's says is something we aren't suppose to do here.

Not trying to split hairs here, but you made a statement which was false. Why bother making such a statement when you know it's untrue and know that you don't have the gumption to back it up?

Again, what someone says during an election cycle is not the same as them saying it while in office.

 

[usmctanker242]

Im sure killing a couple fighters was worth it. No way that guy holding a bag that used to be his pregnant wife is gonna hate the USA now.

And the people who found half of their 7 year old. They will certainly not hate the usa. We said we were just doing our jobs.

We dropped the bombs. We are ultimatly responsible.

This action created more terrorism. Period. Full stop.

If Iraq cannot give us targets that dont actively create more terrorists, then we should not be taking their targets.

It's a tough call and I see where you're coming with this. It's the reason why I hate that we're still over there in any capacity. I think we did a lot of good our first few years over there, but now there's no way we can win. Like you said, with the Iraqi military essentially "running the show" we're now just playing a supporting roll in all their tribal bullshit.

 

[Diamond Jim]

Not trying to split hairs here, but you made a statement which was false. Why bother making such a statement when you know it's untrue and know that you don't have the gumption to back it up?

Again, what someone says during an election cycle is not the same as them saying it while in office.

So Trump's Isis policy is no different or less aggressive than Obama's? Because that's all I said using the man's own words. That in a more aggressive campaign these things accure.

 

[WiolentOne]

I protested (literally) the Iraq war during the invasion under Bush. I voted for Obama and supported his pull out. Despite warnings from military commanders about the negative effects of a pull out i, like Obama, still carried on believing that the most moral action was to pull the troops out. Unfortunately, the military was right, and our withdraw created an environment that allowed an unimaginable monster to emerge in ISIS.

I think if there's something to be learned here, perhaps it's that politicians and civilians should take a step back and let the military do what they do. We're at war. Let them war.

 

[oldshadow]

First this is a tragedy and is and should be investigated.

Let's look at the possible reasons this happened and this is only with what we know here.

First and most likely ISIS got just what they wanted. They packed the buildings with civilians knowing an air strike would be called in and kill the civilians. A form of sucide bombing.

Why? Because they are getting the shit kicked out of them and one of the main reasons is air support. They want the outcry of things like this to stop or greatly reduce the air support give them more of chance.

 

[Redux]

That is kind of the problem to be fair. The middle east is already one huuuge mess and in chaos, just calling back the troops will cause even more chaos there. Isn't that what Trump bashed Obama for? "Creating ISIS" because they just left the region against advices from generals?

At this point I'm not even sure if there is a realistic, good solution.

I disagree, just get the F out and let them sort it out, its none of the wests business. Maybe it takes them 100 years to sort it out over there, maybe less. Regardless, its their land and people and culture that have been there for 1000s of years, its their business. I have no grand delusions that America is there for freedom, they are there for oil, land and power.

These middle eastern nations can't harm you directly, the western militaries are too powerful for them. Just get out, provide some aid and limit immigration. But most importantly question your own government and put pressure on them to never do this again, its not worth it for either side.

 

[Cirris]

I protested (literally) the Iraq war during the invasion under Bush. I voted for Obama and supported his pull out. Despite warnings from military commanders about the negative effects of a pull out i, like Obama, still carried on believing that the most moral action was to pull the troops out. Unfortunately, the military was right, and our withdraw created an environment that allowed an unimaginable monster to emerge in ISIS.

I think if there's something to be learned here, perhaps it's that politicians and civilians should take a step back and let the military do what they do. We're at war. Let them war.

Sometimes diversity isn't the answer. Iraq had been a bloodbath for Kurds and Shiite minorities under Saddam. He gassed the Kurds and tortured and butchered many Shiites. Expecting a "unified" Iraq to survive with the sheer distrust between the groups was fool hardy at best. It was best to split the countries along ethnic lines and give each 3 regions a defensive force to hold their own.

US didn't want to do this because, The Turks are so scared of losing precious land to a possible future Kurdistan unification. And the US didn't want Iran to gain influence or even flat out annex the Basra/Shiite region.