Materially, there is no difference. Innocent civilians died in both instances. The difference lies in accountability and responsibility. The German pilot has to answer for his actions. Who's holding the faux-Islamic terrorists to account for their destruction of a nation?
I was comparing the two acts on a moral level, and not the subsequent investigations. It remains to be seen what punishment will be given to the pilot, but in my view it is manslaughter through recklessness or gross negligence at the very least. At most it is a war crime due to disproportionate force used against civilian areas. I would say the same thing about the taliban bombers who attack military or government targets in civilian areas. But it's hard to hold a suicide bomber to account after the event, for obvious reasons
The question is, what are alleged civilians doing in a river bed at 2:30 am? How should the pilots know that it weren't only Taliban there? And I can totally understand the order to bomb the stolen fuel lorries (in contrast to many other hypocritical voices in the West) when knowing about the fact that a possibly terrible suicide attack on the German camp in Kundus would have had fatal consequences not only for the soldiers but also for the public opinion in Germany (similar to the Madrid attacks). According to the latest "Spiegel" report, the Taliban might have forced some villagers to leave their houses at night and help them getting both fuel lorries out of the water bed. If that should be really true, I withdraw my accusation towards them of cooperating with the Taliban ... nevertheless, I still can't see how the NATO forces could distinguish between Taliban & civilians in such a situation. In any case, the incident will be investigated ... so we'll surely get to know more facts soon.
It's disingenuous to reach (and that's precisely the right word) for moral equivalence in these cases. The German pilot didn't get up that day and think "I'm going to kill innocent people today". The Taleban terrorist does, however. That's the crucial difference between the right and the wrong side of this conflict.
The 'rules' require targets to be properly identified and care to be taken. We routinely kill civilians, by targeting 'military' targets where civilians are bound to be killed. So while I agree that we don't go out to kill them - civillians deaths are in fact 100% guaranteed by our actions. Particularly when we do things like use drones to take out bad guys along with their wives kids neighbours etc.
Errr - I already did. They were civilians, and thus by definition not available as military targets. As such they are innocent of any activity which would justify killing them.
Errr - I already did. They were civilians, and thus by definition not available as military targets. As such they are innocent of any activity which would justify killing them. you are trying to pin some kind of guilt on them to back some half arsed justification for this
I don't think that alleged civilians are innocent if they run to a river bed at 2 am in order to help the Taliban. If they should have been forced by the Taliban to leave their houses and help them capture the fuel lorries, it's another story.
Sorry Borussia, I'm finding it hard to see your point. Are you suggesting that it is ok to kill villagers if they help the Taliban to unload a stolen truck? Cause that's what it sounds like. If NATO believe that they are building a state with the rule of law in place, it can't go killing people for handlng stolen goods, I'm afraid. I suppose you think it's morally ok to kill any civilians helping your enemy. Translators, for instance. Or reconstruction workers?
Not unless we've become the Viet Cong anyway For the me the hypocrisy is the huge outcry in germany over this - when these sorts of casualties are entirely predictable and expected - and actually the sort of civilian deaths the west has been causing for years.
I don't think it's hypocritical, I think it's a measure of the fact that the Germans haven't been involved in the sharp end of a military campaign for 60-odd years. Public opinion in the UK or the US, say, is inured to the grittier details. German public opinion is not.
No, I don't suggest that. But I think that it's unfair to blame the NATO forces for not being able to distinguish between Taliban fighters and civilians! How should the pilots know that there would be also civilians and not only Taliban around the stolen fuel lorries in a water bed clearly outside a village at 2 o/c am?? And now imagine what would have happened if the lorries didn't get distroyed in that night and the fuel got used for massive terror attacks the next day. Well, maybe there wouldn't have been any outrage like now...
To quote the Simpsons: You're damned if you do and you're damned if you don't... If these trucks would have been used to blow up stuff, more people would have been killed, most of which would be innocent. It was not just handling of stolen goods, it was handling of stolen goods that were potentially extremely destructive.
On a different note, I don't understand the agenda of the US military here. What they did was clearly out of order. First of all, they released details that usually aren't released, they invited reporters to the preliminary investigation, and they generally blew this whole thing out of proportion. I mean it's not like NATO doesn't fight in Afghanistan. The question is why...usually the Americans criticize Germany for staying out of the fighting, for being in the more peaceful North and for keeping out of the real battles. They want more German involvement, not less. By playing this story on the media at a time like this when the general elections in Germany are very close, they'll get the exact opposite. The German population never liked the War and never wanted German soldiers to go there. Now the politicians come under a lot of pressure and if this story continues to carry some weight on the media, you can expect Germany to completely retreat from Afghanistan sooner rather than later. Even the conservatives who traditionally backed the Afghanistan war are now calling for an exit strategy and the Social Democrats have a real problem with their electorate anyway when it comes to this war. Originally, the German ministry of defense wanted to increase the amount of German soldiers in Afghanistan after the elections. This seems now very unlikely indeed. Even if Germany doesn't leave Afghanistan for good, a decrease in numbers seems to be much more likely now. The German parliament agreed to send 4500 soldiers and that agreement expires in December. It's hard to imagine that they'll prolong that agreement or even increase the number after the pressure they've come under from the public after the exaggerated news of the blown up gas trucks...
Err - that's the standard rules of engagement. This is the most ridiculous aspect of the whole thing.
Why? Have you never heard of suicide attacks committed with lorries? And now imagine that these 2 lorries were even fuel transporters... And even if the Taliban didn't manage to free the fuel lorries from the water bed that night, they could have still been able to carry out serious attacks with the large amount of fuel they obviously tried to remove from the tanks.
more: CLICK Pretty disillusioning article. If the NATO mission in Afghanistan fails, not only the billions of money would have been wasted & the soldiers/civilians would have died for nothing ... but we'll also face terror again. Not to mention the fate of those Afghans who believe in a better future. What a nightmare that would be.
Don't worry Borussia, if we do lose and our innocent civilians over here start dying instead of their civilians over there, I'm sure you'll think of some way to downplay our deaths. After all, you do seem to be quite good at minimizing the tragedy of civilian deaths.
Has this not happened in our own countries? Has this not happened as a result of deliberate enemy action in others? Theres a difference between minimising the tragedy and accepting that sometimes it will happen regardless. And you wonder why we are loved by the people there? Why people bother to cross the street to shake our hands? The simple fact is that civilian deaths are a part of war, whether we like it or not, what the Afghanis are clever enough to realise is that we will never hold a policy which targets them deliberately with the aim of spreading terror and allowing the revival of a group of extremists that executed more people than we'll ever kill in friendly fire incidents. For the simple reason that we have had a positive effect on the lives of Afghans, that we can re-open schools, provide medical care and infrastructure, sweep aside ridiculous laws that prevent girls going to school etc, I'm willing to go back there, and I'm willing to accept that ocassionally some civilians will be killed through error or through being in the wrong place at the wrong time. For all the official protests and outrage, I'd suggest the Afghans would prefer that as well.
Yeah, but that's just based on first hand experience. Umarfm reads stuff on the internet. So what the hell do you know?
i probably know more Afghans than most people posting on these boards. I am close friends with a number of parthans (pushtuns) who migrated to the uk, and also have family who live near the region. They disagree with Leedsunited. They want nothing to do with either Nato forces or the excesses of the Taliban. Unlike soldiers who have served over there, I have discussed Afghanistan with these friends and family over cups of tea, without carrying a gun whilst asking their opinions. But you are welcome to continue to hazard guesses as to how I form my opinions.
The Taliban (like the iraqi insurgents) have actual explosives and detonators. They don't have to muck about with ludicrous hollywood bombs. As you've already pointed out - they can already get any vehicle.