Do you think American soldiers are put on too high of a pedestal

[brewer]

Haven't been keeping up here and don't want to read.

Personally for me they need to go a pedestal of my own making. They were willing or forced to do something that I was not.

[FatAndFaithless]

I'm still rather surprised that people are actually advocating for ignoring civilian casualties here.  I'm not talking about vietnam in specific, I'm talking generally.

For the record, I'm not arguing that civilian casualties should be ignored.

Fair enough, but that's the sense of what I'm getting from other folks.  Maybe not "ignored" but certainly put on a lower priority than "doing what needs to be done," whatever that means.

[abaris]

Fair enough, but that's the sense of what I'm getting from other folks.  Maybe not "ignored" but certainly put on a lower priority than "doing what needs to be done," whatever that means.

What strikes me as odd and troublesome at the same time is that the more military technology advanced the more civilian casualties are taken in stride.

In WWI civilian casualties were still something extraordinary in most instances. In WWII they were outright targeted, and ever since then they may not be targets, but their casualties are usually much higher than on the frontlines. More than a million in Korea, more than a million in Vietnam and more than 100.000 in Iraq. Apart from the so called collaterals in drone strikes everywhere around the world.

[The Grand Nudger]

Part of that is the shifting face and place of conflict.

[Catholic_Lady]

I'm still rather surprised that people are actually advocating for ignoring civilian casualties here.  I'm not talking about vietnam in specific, I'm talking generally.

I definitely never said that. There were instances in Vietnam where pilots would see the enemy but weren't allowed to target them because of where they were or what they were doing.

[FatAndFaithless]

I'm still rather surprised that people are actually advocating for ignoring civilian casualties here.  I'm not talking about vietnam in specific, I'm talking generally.

I definitely never said that. There were instances in Vietnam where pilots would see the enemy but weren't allowed to target them because of where they were or what they were doing.

I'm not talking about vietnam....

I'm talking about your earlier points saying that the military should do whatever it takes to get things done...which is a scary-as-hell statement, if you care about human rights and stuff..

[Catholic_Lady]

I definitely never said that. There were instances in Vietnam where pilots would see the enemy but weren't allowed to target them because of where they were or what they were doing.

I'm not talking about vietnam....

I'm talking about your earlier points saying that the military should do whatever it takes to get things done...which is a scary-as-hell statement, if you care about human rights and stuff..

You're acting as if you missed entire parts of all my posts and only focusing on one sentence I said, and taking is completely out of context. 

If you really think what I meant by that statement was to just to go ahead and kill everyone in sight, then you really don't know me at all. Please go back and reread all my posts. I don't feel like repeating myself all over again here.

[FatAndFaithless]

I've asked a bunch of times what you mean with some of your statements. You said wars should go as quick as possible while affecting the lowest amount of innocent lives, but within reason. That statement..doesn't really tell me a lot. I think literally everyone would agree with that. I'm asking what kinds of things should the military be allowed to do/not to do, what kind of oversight do you think is too much, etc?

No, CL, I don't think that you believe that we should "kill everyone in sight."

[Autumnlicious]

Agent Oranges deleterious effects were the result of wilful neglect.

The dioxin concentrations that cause hideous health issues were easy to detect and remove, but neither Dow Chemical or the US Military cared to pay the additional costs. They also argued that any additional purification would delay shipments.

So US soldiers health and Vietnamese health was sacrificed on the altar of expediency, a sacrifice that was worthless considering we lost the war.

Is this is what is meant for "doing what needs to be done"?

[Catholic_Lady]

I've asked a bunch of times what you mean with some of your statements.  You said wars should go as quick as possible while affecting the lowest amount of innocent lives, but within reason.  That statement..doesn't really tell me a lot.  I think literally everyone would agree with that.  I'm asking what kinds of things should the military be allowed to do/not to do, what kind of oversight do you think is too much, etc?

No, CL, I don't think that you believe that we should "kill everyone in sight."

As I said, I don't know enough about this kind of thing to know exactly what the military should/should not be allowed to do.  

I was referring specifically to the Vietnam war, and that the way we fought it set too many unreasonable limits to the military for the sake of the politicians back home saving face. And in the end that just ended up hurting more lives, as the most innocent people among us are still suffering the consequences of how that war was fought, 4 decades later.