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Slowtwitch Forums: Lavender Room:
What an odd statement...

 
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Old and Haggard

Oct 8, 08 10:23

Post #1 of 6 (281 views)
What an odd statement... Can't Post
Seems that a bunch of Afghan civilians were killed in a strike against suspected militants. The initial investigation grossly underrepresented the number; a subsequent investigation apparently is closer to the original claims. That's not my purpose here: bad stuff happens in war. What I do wonder about is the final statement here (emphasis added):

Quote

U.S. Central Command was close to being ready to publicly release the results of the new probe, but its acting commander, Lt. Gen. Martin E. Dempsey, had not signed off on it yet, Whitman said.

Asked if the report will address where the initial investigation went wrong, Whitman said: ''I wouldn't necessarily characterize it as the initial investigation gone wrong, what I would say is that ... there was additional information that was obtained, there was further evidence that led them to question the results of their first investigation, that's why they launched the second.''

''As you learn more information, sometimes the truth can change,'' Whitman said.
 

Was he aware of what he said? I always thought the truth can't change. But I'm funny that way.

(edit)

Another side effect of going into Iraq before the job was done in Afghanistan: innocent Afghans die.

Quote

McKiernan has said there aren't enough U.S. ground forces in Afghanistan, so the military is relying more heavily on air power -- a greater risk in a conflict where insurgents don't wear uniforms and intentionally mix with the general population for protection.
  -----------------------------------
Ken Lehner

"reread klenher [sic] and pretty much skip the rest." - desert dude 5/25/2008

(This post was edited by Old and Haggard on Oct 8, 08 10:24)


sphere

Oct 8, 08 10:47

Post #2 of 6 (232 views)
Re: What an odd statement... [Old and Haggard] [In reply to] Can't Post
Speaking of the truth changing to fit one's needs...

I suppose we should be expecting a McCain ad calling McKiernan disgraceful for making such allegations. Holding my breath starting in three, two, one...


The ad asks, "Who is Barack Obama," then calls him "dishonorable" for supposedly saying that U.S. troops in Afghanistan are "just air-raiding villages and killing civilians."

Gov. Sarah Palin raised a similar charge during the October 2 vice presidential debate. The intervening weekend hasn't made the claim any more substantive. What Obama said – more than a year ago at an August 2007 campaign stop – was a criticism of administration military strategy and not a criticism of "our troops":

Obama (August 2007): We’ve got to get the job done there and that requires us to have enough troops so that we’re not just air-raiding villages and killing civilians, which is causing enormous problems there.


At the time, then-Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney attacked Obama for the remark. But Obama was on solid ground. As The Associated Press concluded: "As of Aug. 1 [2007], the AP count shows that while militants killed 231 civilians in attacks in 2007, Western forces killed 286. Another 20 were killed in crossfire that can't be attributed to one party." Even President Bush admitted that there were too many civilian casualties, saying: "The president [Afghan president Hamid Karzai] rightly expressed his concerns about civilian casualty. And I assured him that we share those concerns."




"The nice part about being a pessimist is that you are constantly being either proven right or pleasantly surprised." - George F. Will


spot

Oct 8, 08 14:59

Post #3 of 6 (158 views)
Re: What an odd statement... [sphere] [In reply to] Can't Post
I think that the problem many people (including myself) have with that quote is that it implies that's all we're doing (totally incorrect), and it also implies that we're bombing villages indisciminately, which is also totally incorrect. Every bomb dropped over there is a precision guided munition, or PGM. My guess is that 100% of the targets getting hit by airpower in Afghanistan are nominated by ground forces as close air support or maybe terminal guidance operations. Another thing that is misleading about this is that its fairly tough to discern folks who don't wear uniforms from civilians, and also the fact that Al Qaeda and the Taliban have purposely put civilians in harms way solely for the purpose of getting them killed by coalition forces in order to generate negative publicity for the coalition.

Another piece of this puzzle is that Afghanistan isn't supposed to be a US-only show anymore. Its a NATO-run fight. However, some of our NATO allies have many so-called "caveats" on their forces that it pretty much keeps them out of harms way (others, though, like the Brits and the Canadians, are doing their fair share and more, from what I understand).

Spot
Cervelo / Kuota Mafia Member
"Mine goes to 11...."


Tri2HaveFun

Oct 8, 08 15:55

Post #4 of 6 (114 views)
Re: What an odd statement... [Old and Haggard] [In reply to] Can't Post
''As you learn more information, sometimes the truth can change,'' Whitman said.
 


Was he aware of what he said? I always thought the truth can't change. But I'm funny that way.



Is it possible he meant that as new information is learned, what was thought to be true can change?
Don

Tri-ing to have fun. Anything else is just a bonus!


Brent F

Oct 8, 08 15:58

Post #5 of 6 (108 views)
Re: What an odd statement... [Old and Haggard] [In reply to] Can't Post
Truth is a fact that has been verified. The truth changes when the verification is found incorrect.


slowguy

Oct 8, 08 16:04

Post #6 of 6 (98 views)
Re: What an odd statement... [Old and Haggard] [In reply to] Can't Post
"Was he aware of what he said? I always thought the truth can't change. But I'm funny that way. "

I think he's just making the very obvious observation that what we believe to be the truth changes as we are given more information. In other words, just because we got it wrong the first time, that doesn't mean anyone was lying. It just means they gave the best info they had at the time, in good faith that they were telling the truth. Later on, they found out more, and revised their conclusions.

Slowguy

(insert pithy phrase here...)