Originally Posted by
satpak77
Today's society, with Youtube, email, twitter reporters, etc, is way different than Germany/Japan circa 1940s.
You should have stayed awake during your English class. Shakespeare is still remarkably valid in helping us understand the constancy of human nature. Human nature -- the force of society -- doesn't really change much over the centuries, even with twitter. By "Today's society", I assume you mean Youtubing one's beheadings:
SYRIA 18+ VERY GRAPHIC Video ? Muslims beheading Christians - YouTube
Originally Posted by
satpak77
Second, we go to war to defend our own nation
If by nation you mean our political doctrine, I agree. I took an oath to defend the US Constitution, and not our beautiful North American patch of dirt or our lovely US population. Many people may not understand this, but every US soldier takes the oath to support and defend the Constitution against all enemies foreign and domestic, and to bear true faith and allegiance to that Constitution. This inevitably makes one a defender of the ideology within our US Constitution.
Originally Posted by
satpak77
USA is not in the business of "spreading ideologies" or attacking other idealogies, because, by doing so, we have then decided (and who is USA to decide) that "their" idealogy is "bad" and ours is therefore "good." ... What you, my friend, are advocating, by attacking ideologies, and killing mass civilians in the pursuit of this strategy, is close to terrorism itself.
Freedom and liberty are what the USA has decided is "good". Like it or not, the US Constitution is pretty specific about liberty, what with all those individual rights and freedoms and all. That ideology is in direct contrast to a dictatorship, caliphate, or any other tyrannical ideology. We defend our constitution against any nation that has an ideology that is a direct threat to us. We use diplomatic, information, military, and economic means in that defense. We're truly sorry about any civilians that are harmed in the defense of that ideology. Sorry you slept through civics class too.
Originally Posted by
satpak77
In doing so, we try to minimize civilian damage and focus on military/combat threats... In addition, the fact that we killed mass civilians was not due to some brilliant strategy per se, it was more due to the lack of precision weapons/bombs that are available today. Today a remote controlled drone can kill one guy on a motorbike, and hurt nobody else. Today, a bunker bomb can be droppped and laser guided/GPS guided to a target.
In 1940, we did not have that technology. So obviously civilian deaths occurred as we bombed the he11 out of cities in Europe. A airplane factory, if the bombs dropped on it missed, and landed on a school or hospital, well, we tried. Next time we will try to do better.
You are very naive if you think better technology and more precise targeting will win this war. Our enemy is pretty low-tech, but he has exhibited intelligence and commitment that make up for it. He doesn't mind pointing out every single targeting error we make, while he is not held to any similar standard. Asymmetric warfare is a difficult problem not easily solved through improved technology. Robert McNamara was initially a firm believer in the power of technology, but lost that faith as the Vietnam War progressed. We had a low-tech but pretty intelligent and committed foe there too.
By the way, here is what our senators with access to intelligence think about the results of our "high tech, precise targeting" methods in this "War on Terror":
Feinstein: 'Terror is up worldwide' ? CNN Press Room - CNN.com Blogs
"FEINSTEIN: I think there is a real displaced aggression in this very fundamentalist, jihadist, Islamic community. And that is that the west is responsible for everything that goes wrong, and that the only thing that's going to solve this is Islamic Sharia law and the concept of the caliphate.
And I see more groups, more fundamentalists, more jihadists more determined to kill to get to where they want to get. So, it's not an isolated phenomenon. You see these groups spread a web of connections. And this includes North Africa, it includes the Middle East, it includes other areas as well."
But then,
who is the USA to decide this jihadist ideology is "bad"?