Precision munitions do not exist to make "surgical strikes"

[benburch]

It seems to have escaped people's awareness, but precision munitions were not invented to reduce collateral damage; They were invented to reduce the number of sorties required to destroy a target, and constitute a "force multiplier".

So, yes, you often can drop your bomb within fifteen feet of the aim point. And yes, this reduces the number of bombs you need to use and the number that drop on things that were not the target, but when a 500 pound high explosive bomb goes off, it destroys everything for hundreds of feet around. When the target is something like an aircraft on a tarmac, this is not an issue. When the target is a safehouse in a residential area, however, not only that house but every house for hundreds of feet around will be destroyed, including all of the peaceful, innocent adults and children who might live there.

As long as we are using bombs to fight this war, we will keep killing the innocent. When we kill the innocent we make it very likely that their survivors will join the resistance.

[killbotfactory]

1. Nonsense! Our weapons are very humane!

What no one is telling you is that the Iraqi terrorist insurgency keep literally hundreds of dead bodies from on hand. After one of our precision, surgical strikes they literally wheelbarrow hundreds of dead civilians and mix them in with the rubble. They are quite astute at the propaganda war, and the liberal media filter is more than happy to oblige them. Things have never been better in Iraq. Freedom is on the march.

[unblock]

2. at least to some extent, this suggests that the 500lb bomb is the problem

and perhaps it's overkill for safehouses, and should be reserved for hardened or in any event, bigger/tougher targets?