A very sad story.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/2952339.stm

For me the cost would be to great if this were to happen to my family.

"They attacked us just one day before Basra fell. They could have caught this man, not tried to kill him. Was it necessary to kill 20 people in our street for the sake of one bastard? "

[ 04-16-2003, 05:11 PM: Message edited by: pritchke ]

Understanding the real nature of war makes it a most undesirable course of action of a last resort. It is sad to hear of a whole family wiped out. Iraq has had alot of those in recent history, but this family was not wiped out by Saddam's oppresive regime but an errant bomb. Too think we had alternatives to war.

Well, hindsight is 20/20 is how the saying goes. This war is not far enough behinds us to see clearly yet the consequences that the war action will manifest, but one thing will never change, the people who die. They all stay dead.

"Free at last! free at last! thank God Almighty, we are free at last!"

You would be suprised how many times this happened in the war...and variations, bombing civilian cars, shooting at vans full of children...

Well Chewy, why don't you give us one VALID option other than war to remove this bunch of killers from power.

It is one thing to have a war but I do think we need better intelligence. Should we not try and find out who are in buildings and vehicles before blowing them up. Also Trying to target single people with bombs and other weapons of semi-mass destruction is not a good idea as you are more likely to kill 30 or 40 other people whilie missing the guy you are after. They could have easily sent in some tanks and a small group of marines to take out the house they were trying to get at.

But as they say all is fair in love and war.

<font color="#ffccff">Was the man they were "supposed" to catch and not kill, Just trying to catch them? or was he trying to KILL them? Easy to tell other people to put their life at risk. Tragedies happen....that is why the word exists. All I can say is that at least the US and British forces have gone further than anyother fighting forces in the history of man to avoid causing any more deaths than had to occur. (not to mention spent BILLIONS developing weapons that would allow them to avoid collateral damage)

Edit: As for better intelligence, I would be open to any suggestions you could make along these lines...seing as how the US spends hundreds of millions of dollars to get the best intelligence available....saying "so and so should have better intelligence" is pretty silly....like saying gee all those people should have known that the worst storm of the century was about to hit and prepared better.....</font>

[ 04-17-2003, 02:04 PM: Message edited by: MagiK ]

Everyone could tell you a much easier way to avoid collateral damage. Not have a war in the first place...

btw...BILLIONS is obviously not enough if a thousand civilians were killed...they should put more effort into avoiding civilian casualties...maybe TRILLIONS? After all, what price is a life?

[ 04-17-2003, 05:25 PM: Message edited by: Scholarcs ]

That story pisses me off to no end, of course. [img]graemlins/1pissed.gif[/img] While I support the war effort and the removal of Saddam, I do not understand why so many mistakes like this happened. There were just too many.

If I were that man's sons in Manchester, I would be making a bomb right now and looking for a very crowed area with many children. If I was that man's grandson, I would grow up and learn to make good bombs. Then I would look for a very crowded area with children.

It did not have to be this way. If our sound-byte impatient U.S. culture - and I include all of those "problems with the war" threads posted on here - had not demanded the war be over in 5 minutes, we could have taken the time to do it right, with less blood. MHO.

Better surveillance, send in a drone to check out the house. We have the technology why are we not using the intelligence gathering to the full extent on possible targets? What I think happened someone said "Concrete building, well fortified, high probability so and so is in the area", the decision making was OK send in the bombs, and if not they will not they will not be able to hide there later. Could also have waited until marines are in the area to raid and search possible houses. They have been risking there lives doing this thing throughout much of the war there was no need to bomb a populated area for 1 man. Sometimes I feel the bombing and shooting is being done blindly yet we boast of all kinds of technology to minimize death.

Now if they sent in a few drones to see who and what were in the buildings than this could have been avoided.

I actually agree with Timber on things being rushed but the whole thing was rushed from the start.

[ 04-17-2003, 06:06 PM: Message edited by: pritchke ]