Islam in Europe: perception and reality

[Thumpalumpacus]

I know that we're not the moral equivalent of ISIS, but I know that we have done our own morally-despicable things in that part of the world that have engendered hatred of and distrust for us.

THAT (in bold) has been the entire point of my argument here, despite others either disingenuously or ignorantly twisting my words to make me seem a champion of every foreign policy decision U.S. lawmakers have ever made (an obvious straw man). And how you would judge the difference between how we execute war versus those groups (such as ISIS), which in many ways are the very embodiment of evil, if not largely examining their stated and apparent intentions?

I would also assess it by methods. Assessing it by intent is tricky anyway because people can and do lie about their intent. Yes, this includes people in the military hierarchy.

US bomber crews in WWII were given alternate targets in the event their primary was clouded over. If their secondaries were also clouded over, they were permitted to bomb "targets of opportunity" which could and did simply list an entire city as a target.

Many were also given instructions to not bring bombs back to the base in such a case. (this info comes from Bendiner's memoir, The Fall of Fortresses).

However, to this day the USAF insists on using the term "precision bombing" in describing 8AF operations ... this when fewer than 20% of their bombs landed inside the target zone. Hap Arnold, Carl Spaatz, Ira Eaker, and Jimmy Doolittle all knew of this gross disparity between PR and actual facts, yet slept easily at night with their intentions being to minimize civilian casualties. Yet to the half-million Germans who died under RAF and USAAF bombardment those intentions were and are entirely irrelevant.