Collateral Murder

[Sqrl]

pastro243 said:

Sqrl said:

pastro243 said:

hobbit said:

The people that died were shooting at american soldiers. So no I don't care that they died. As for the children and reporters, they should have never been there; and thats regrettable but that happens.

USA soldiers shouldnt be there too.

That's a whole other thread of discussion, and equally (if not more) contentious as this topic.  So lets just stick to one thing for now, k?

Well, it was an on topic answer to that statement he made.

 

Well, the discussion is the validity of the soldier's actions, not the validity their presence.

Unless I missunderstand your point horribly (wouldn't be the first time I've missed something).  But as I follow what you're saying you're making a point about the war in a larger sense.  And while that is tangentially related it isn't actually on topic because it is presupposed in the effort of having a discussion about the validity of their actions, otherwise the video of their presence there would end the debate. 

The real issue is that there is a huge debate about the validity of this war that doesn't even need to touch on this incident to be had.  And that debate would overshadow the rest of the topic rapidly.  Thus while it is relevant tangentially, it's off-topic in that it would derail the thread.

In short, I get that you're trying to say this discussion is moot because the soldiers shouldn't even be there, but the only way to reply to that argument is to engage in a debate that is a whole other can of worms.  And opening that up here, kills any discussion about the validity of their actions in the context of their presence being accepted.  So the bottom line is they need to be treated as two seperate topics of discussion so that both topics can be discussed without one overshadowing the other.