My argument would not have required that, and this is why we argue on here. I joke with you a lot, but I do respect that you try to keep your arguments based on paper. I prefer to hear arguments of experience. There’s plenty of things you post that I agree on but not this.
The military may seem rigid but there is a lot of room to, in either direction, when it comes to asking for approval and asking for forgiveness. This applies to both those on the ground adjusting fires/air, and those in the air.
You argue with such limited views on what you’re talking about. Of course you’re going to bump heads with people who do. You have no real reference other than reports that have been stripped, sterilized, and full of the most exotic “cover my ass” statements the world has ever seen.
You claim I have a limited view, yet your entire argument is literally "I was military so I know" even though you weren't there and can't point to a single report or eyewitness account justifying your claim for what happened there.
* You ignore the initial reactions by the analysts that were watching the drone while the bombing was carried out.
* You ignore the Air Force Intelligence Officer who officially reported the event as a potential war crime
* You ignore that the Air Force Legal Officer who attempted to follow through on that report was consistently stymied, not by officials claiming, "Nah, that's fine, it's not a war crime", but by officials who refused to complete the mandated investigations and refused to disclose the critical evidence, not at one level of oversight but at every one.
* You ignore the Inspector General investigator whose experience completely matches the Air Force Legal Officer in that he felt brass were actively blocking an investigation and refusing to disclose the critical evidence.
* You ignore the initial report by the task force that carried out the bombing which has multiple massive holes and bears no resemblance to your own justification.
* You ignore the final report by the DOD three years later that retains many of the same holes and similarly doesn't bear any resemblance to your justification.
* You ignore the Just Security responses criticizing these reports and questioning why the critical evidence that would justify the claims made still has never been released, and may not even exist.
* You ignore the refusal of the military to release the drone video which they claim justified the initial strike or ANY evidence whatsoever which allowed them to declare that there were 16 combatants killed or that 60 of the 64 women and children killed were not civilians
* You ignore that the official DOD reports from that year and the next completely omit any mention of the strike or to even include the count in its report of civilian casualties, even though even the bombing task force's own internal report justifying the attack says 4 civilians were killed and 8 injured.
* You ignore the DOD's own admission that they failed to carry out the required investigations at multiple levels.
* You chose to go with complete tunnel vision on this bombing alone, ignoring that it was just one of numerous incidents detailed in the intial article and part of a clear pattern of behavior by Talon Anvil that resulted in consistent civilian deaths and has been called out by numerous whistleblowers.
Damn that’s crazy! Apparently the military legal investigator’s WEAK ass arguments didn’t work either, otherwise you wouldn’t be the only other man on the planet that calls the bombing a war crime or gives a fukk.
That's an utter lie - that military legal investigator isn't even the eyewitness who reported the event as a potential war crime nor the whistleblower who went to the New York Times complaining about the military's refusal to investigate a war crime or any of the the additional witnesses interviewed by the NYT supporting his narrative (he himself refused the interview, probably because he didn't want to be forced out like the Inspector General's investigator was), so how the fukk can he and I be the only people on the planet who believe it?
And if his arguments were so weak, then why the DOD block him and refuse to investigate despite being mandated to do so by their own policy? Why did they refuse to divulge critical evidence that would have supported the bombing narrative? And why, when they finally responded, did their justification differ dramatically from the one that you've given?
If you have a leg to stand on, then play your cards. Don't just keep making definitive claims from your own authority with the slightest evidence to back them up. It's quite remarkable that this thread has become so "rah rah america' oriented that your straight declarations with zero evidence whatsoever are getting support even though they contradict every other piece of evidence and official narrative out there.
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