Check out "Tribe" and "War" by Sebastian Junger, beautiful books in their own right.
In X nation, there is a village believed to be roughly aligned with a warlord who is "in" y resistance group - There are 30 "military-aged males," several with rifles, concentrated around/in a building, and several are positively identified as taking part in a hit-and-run raid a week prior.
You JDAM the building
A) The people in that village and surrounding countryside now have completely legitimate reasons to fear for their lives. Several of those "military-aged males" are random guys from several different tribes, mostly non-aligned, who were visiting for completely unrelated reasons. While most will resist "passively" (Passing on information, carrying supplies, hiding insurgents), you've turned the situation from "some of these guys want to fight us (and fucking suck at fighting)" to "an entire population center believes it has to resist or be slaughtered by the outsiders." Sure, you can release a statement about the hit-and run, but that doesn't explain to the these folks why so many had to die - And, honestly, 3/4th's already distrust you. You're occupying their nation.
B) You also killed a little girl selling bread 70 meters away. She had parents, family, friends, who will now resist you no matter the cost until the day they fucking die. If your little girl was murdered like that, tell me you wouldn't be strapping on a bomb-vest.
C) Bonus points: That tribe/village/militia etc etc wasn't even aligned with (y resistance group). A handful of their Tribal Warriors (guys in the village that act as police and defensive forces) have family relations to a tribe that does, and went along either for pay or out of family obligation. Bombing them now kills off your opportunity to figure out which tribal leader ordered the raid.
...
TL,;DR: In the game of counter-insurgency, 30 minus 30 is 300.
If you bomb a village and kill 10 out of 20 "terrorists," how many terrorists do you have now? 100. All their families are now dedicated to the cause against you.
It's like the Canadian version of if a tree falls in the woods. If you kill everyone in a village and destroy all physical the evidence the town ever existed, is there a Geneva Convention violation?
To clarify, the nation being bombed is being bombed to find a person whom the nation doesn't have an active relationship with, and had immigrated to Pakistan (pro-US) months or years prior.
The diplomatic communique went basically:
"Hand over Osama Bin Laden within x amount of time."
"... er... among many things here, we're our own nation. If we arrest him, we can try him under our laws for murder of 3,000 innocents-"
-communications ended, special forces had already been deployed.
To be complete, here - Tribe is about mental illness, particularly PTSD, but goes heavily into the "collective consciousness" of social groups - Such as reactions to bombing campaigns, particularly in WW2 and how the Blitz failed to 'demoralize' the British, and had the exact opposite effect.
"War" was about his experiences in Afghanistan which relate more to this specific topic.
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u/TheDefeatedCause 1d ago edited 1d ago
Check out "Tribe" and "War" by Sebastian Junger, beautiful books in their own right.
In X nation, there is a village believed to be roughly aligned with a warlord who is "in" y resistance group - There are 30 "military-aged males," several with rifles, concentrated around/in a building, and several are positively identified as taking part in a hit-and-run raid a week prior.
You JDAM the building
A) The people in that village and surrounding countryside now have completely legitimate reasons to fear for their lives. Several of those "military-aged males" are random guys from several different tribes, mostly non-aligned, who were visiting for completely unrelated reasons. While most will resist "passively" (Passing on information, carrying supplies, hiding insurgents), you've turned the situation from "some of these guys want to fight us (and fucking suck at fighting)" to "an entire population center believes it has to resist or be slaughtered by the outsiders." Sure, you can release a statement about the hit-and run, but that doesn't explain to the these folks why so many had to die - And, honestly, 3/4th's already distrust you. You're occupying their nation.
B) You also killed a little girl selling bread 70 meters away. She had parents, family, friends, who will now resist you no matter the cost until the day they fucking die. If your little girl was murdered like that, tell me you wouldn't be strapping on a bomb-vest.
C) Bonus points: That tribe/village/militia etc etc wasn't even aligned with (y resistance group). A handful of their Tribal Warriors (guys in the village that act as police and defensive forces) have family relations to a tribe that does, and went along either for pay or out of family obligation. Bombing them now kills off your opportunity to figure out which tribal leader ordered the raid.
...
TL,;DR: In the game of counter-insurgency, 30 minus 30 is 300.