In the 2003 Iraq invasion, we killed about 12,000 civilians over 9 months.

The US tried VERY HARD to limit civilian casualties. Some of us are students of war.

1 hour ago, Toastrel said:

44% of the population is under 14.

 

Try again.

Then it’s more disgusting how they use their people as shields and their treatment of them prior. 

33 minutes ago, vikas83 said:

I've seen no actual evidence of Israel targeting civilians. If there is evidence of them targeting civilians, or not taking proper care to minimize civilian casualties, then charge them with war crimes. But the fact that there are civilian casualties is not proof that Israel is committing atrocities. Especially in an area with high population density and an enemy that hides among the civilian population.

If you have links to actual evidence of Israel targeting civilians, I'm happy to be educated.

 

31 minutes ago, vikas83 said:

And no, claims from Hamas don't count as evidence. We all saw how the hospital story turned out.

Absolutely this 1,000x. I’ve seen and heard a LOT of people saying that Israel hasn’t done enough to avoid civilian casualties. What I haven’t seen is any discussion of what measures they should be taken but aren’t. I have seen reports about Israel providing warnings before bombing specific areas, and a story about Israeli soldiers taking time to care for a young child to learn that the child had been sent out as a sacrifice by Hamas to determine whether the Israelis were on patrol. 
 

1 hour ago, vikas83 said:

Do I want kids to die? Of course not.

Your love of kids has been well documented

4 minutes ago, Toastrel said:

In the 2003 Iraq invasion, we killed about 12,000 civilians over 9 months.

The US tried VERY HARD to limit civilian casualties. Some of us are students of war.

What has Israel not done to minimize civilian casualties that they should be doing?  Surely a great student of war has specific examples. 

Are they counting the plastic babies in that count too?

11 minutes ago, Toastrel said:

In the 2003 Iraq invasion, we killed about 12,000 civilians over 9 months.

The US tried VERY HARD to limit civilian casualties. Some of us are students of war.

And some of us realize comparing the invasion of Iraq, where we were fighting the Iraqi army, is not even remotely the same as fighting a terrorist organization that hides among the civilian population in a very densely populated area. Making a comparison to the 2003 invasion of Iraq is completely ridiculous.

Looks like you need to study a lot harder, Mr. Student of History. 

41 minutes ago, vikas83 said:

 

Looks like you need to study a lot harder, Mr. Student of History. 

Stop trying to summon @Dave Moss

 

Just to put this in perspective, Gaza has a population density of 14,000 per square mile. That's about that same as London. If you were trying to root out and kill terrorists hiding behind civilians in London...just imagine the carnage. Philadelphia is ~12k per square mile. San Fran is 17k. LA is only 8k. 

You're fighting a war in a major urban center, not in the desert. 

25 minutes ago, vikas83 said:

Just to put this in perspective, Gaza has a population density of 14,000 per square mile. That's about that same as London. If you were trying to root out and kill terrorists hiding behind civilians in London...just imagine the carnage. Philadelphia is ~12k per square mile. San Fran is 17k. LA is only 8k. 

You're fighting a war in a major urban center, not in the desert. 

You're an idiot if you think most of the Iraq conflict was out in the desert. We did a lot of rooting out of terrorists in population centers. Some people never learn. Every dead civilian just adds to the problem.

 

You can go back to playing Jack Reacheround.

4 minutes ago, Toastrel said:

You're an idiot if you think most of the Iraq conflict was out in the desert. We did a lot of rooting out of terrorists in population centers. Some people never learn. Every dead civilian just adds to the problem.

 

You can go back to playing Jack Reacheround.

You quoted stats from the first 9 months. That was defeating the army and eventually capturing Hussein. The counter insurgency came later, in places like Fallujah. 
 

As can be seen here, civilian casualties ramped up in 2006 and 2007 as the war switched to a counter-insurgency battle against terrorists. 
 

https://www.statista.com/statistics/269729/documented-civilian-deaths-in-iraq-war-since-2003/

Comparing deaths in Iraq to deaths in Gaza as evidence of Israeli war crimes is ridiculous, lazy analysis. If there is ACTUAL evidence of Israeli negligence or worse, then punish them. But simply assuming their guilt based off stats from a completely different conflict is, to paraphrase another poster, something only an idiot would do.

 

I guess John Kirby isn’t a student of history. 
 

 

1 hour ago, Toastrel said:

In the 2003 Iraq invasion, we killed about 12,000 civilians over 9 months.

The US tried VERY HARD to limit civilian casualties. Some of us are students of war.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8581199/

It is estimated that between 185,000 to 208,000 civilians died in the Iraq war, making up around 67% of the total casualties.  In the Persian Gulf War, it was 142,000 to 206,000 making up nearly 90% of the total casualties.   

Reality is, civilians typically make up somewhere between 50% to 90% of casualties in war. 

You say Israel hasn't done anything to minimize civilian casualties. This is false.  For starters, they gave warning ahead of time prior to any bombs being dropped to give people time to evacuate.  On multiple occasions they've told the world where they were planning to go next in order to give civilians time to get out.   They perform roof knocking when they are striking a military target that's embedded within a civilian building in order to give people inside the chance to evacuate.  In certain situations, they've used the R9X missile which doesn't have a payload and does not explode. 

They are fighting an enemy which purposely embeds military targets within civilian infrastructure, including schools and hospitals.   If any other military in the world was fighting this fight right now, they're probably already be 30,000+ civilian casualties if not more. 

1 hour ago, Toastrel said:

In the 2003 Iraq invasion, we killed about 12,000 civilians over 9 months.

The US tried VERY HARD to limit civilian casualties. Some of us are students of war.

Given the outcome, do we think it hindered our ability to execute? Guess it depends what the goal really was

1 hour ago, Imp81318 said:

What has Israel not done to minimize civilian casualties that they should be doing?  Surely a great student of war has specific examples. 

They could start by not bombing buildings/neighborhoods until they have visual verification that there are no civilians in the area. 

2 minutes ago, Tnt4philly said:

They could start by not bombing buildings/neighborhoods until they have visual verification that there are no civilians in the area. 

Well the civilians could just leave. 
 

Or Hamas could, you know, not hide behind women and children like little bishes. 
 

 

"Hey, sorry, we can’t bomb the Germans because they set up their military equipment factory in a city.”

Just now, Bill said:

Well the civilians could just leave. 
 

Or Hamas could, you know, not hide behind women and children like little bishes. 
 

 

"Hey, sorry, we can’t bomb the Germans because they set up their military equipment factory in a city.”

You can mock me all you wish but that was actually a part of our ROE in 05-06. We actually took more IDF after the change, but civilian casualties dropped enough that the people started helping us more. 

4 minutes ago, Tnt4philly said:

You can mock me all you wish but that was actually a part of our ROE in 05-06. We actually took more IDF after the change, but civilian casualties dropped enough that the people started helping us more. 

The populace helped because of the change in shape-clear to shape-clear-hold. Civilian casualties had nothing to do with it.

1 hour ago, vikas83 said:

And some of us realize comparing the invasion of Iraq, where we were fighting the Iraqi army, is not even remotely the same as fighting a terrorist organization that hides among the civilian population in a very densely populated area. Making a comparison to the 2003 invasion of Iraq is completely ridiculous.

Looks like you need to study a lot harder, Mr. Student of History. 

You do realize that OIF consisted of more than a just the 2003 invasion, and the enemy hid among civilians all the time? And that at some point during the war, that we stopped returning IDF until we had visual verification that there were no civilians at the POO. 

2 minutes ago, Tnt4philly said:

You do realize that OIF consisted of more than a just the 2003 invasion, and the enemy hid among civilians all the time? And that at some point during the war, that we stopped returning IDF until we had visual verification that there were no civilians at the POO. 

Look above dude. He was using the stats from the first 9 months of the invasion. I posted the data showing civilian casualties ramped up as it became a counter insurgency. I was responding to his stat and timeline. So yeah, I realize it. 

15 minutes ago, Bill said:

The populace helped because of the change in shape-clear to shape-clear-hold. Civilian casualties had nothing to do with it.

Shape, clear, hold, and build worked a whole lot better when we stopped killing civilians. Who do you think will help us more, a father with two living kids, or a father whose kids were killed by our bombs?

33 minutes ago, Tnt4philly said:

Shape, clear, hold, and build worked a whole lot better when we stopped killing civilians. Who do you think will help us more, a father with two living kids, or a father whose kids were killed by our bombs?

When did we stop killing civilians during the Iraq war?

https://www.iraqbodycount.org/database/

1 hour ago, Tnt4philly said:

They could start by not bombing buildings/neighborhoods until they have visual verification that there are no civilians in the area. 

I’m amazed that you actually think that is a reasonable expectation for response to a terrorist group purposely hiding among civilian infrastructure that just invaded and murdered random people indiscriminately and raped women. 

1 hour ago, Tnt4philly said:

They could start by not bombing buildings/neighborhoods until they have visual verification that there are no civilians in the area. 

Impossible criteria