Why aren't we carpet bombing the Sunni Triangle like we did in WWII, Korean War, & Vietnam?

Question

B-52s could end the war in Iraq in a month. It would destroy the insurgency, the terrorists, without any US troops losses and our troops would be home before Christmas.

Over 600,000 innocent Iraqi civilians have been killed since the start of the Iraqi war and over 600,000 (or worse) will be killed in the next 3 years. If we bombed ONLY the Sunni Triangle and it ended the war in one month hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqi civilians would be saved from death, there wouldn't be a civil war, the US troops could could home asap, and the insurgency would be over. Would there be some civilan deaths in the Sunni Triangle due to the bombing, yes but if the war continues for 3 years many of those same people will die. It is not a perfect plan by any means but if in the long run it saves many more thousands of Iraqi civilian and US troops lives and it ends the war quickly isn't that worth it?

Answer 1

Bound's hubby here:

If there was an active state of war in Iraq at the moment, carpet bombing could be a current military option; however, based on the stated military objectives for the current romp in the Middle East, the war is over.

Currently, our forces are currently assisting in the training of Iraqi forces to allow the institution of a democracy. You could say we are in the "win their hearts and minds" phase.

We are not necessarily fighting Iraqis, we are fighting Muslim radicals (probably Sunnis) that are being manipulated by Iran. Carpet bombing, while it would be effective, would have excessive collateral damage, and sway more Iraqis towards Iran, and actually prove detrimental to the currently stated democratic goals our forces are pursuing in Iraq.

Answer 2

Air power was relatively new in the 40s and 50s and carpet bombing is now considered inefficient, ineffective and somewhat barbaric (some histories note that the decision to bomb cities in WWII was somewhat accidental and then became the status quo)

Vietnam era Arc Light (B-52) strikes were primarily limited to known or potential high troop concentrations in the South and key industrial centers in the North.

B52s would definitely not end the war in a month but that sentiment around airpower has been around since the invention of the airplane. While airpower is a great asset and force multiplier, the air force has never -repeat never-done everything it claimed it could do. On the contrary bombing of civilians in the Sunni triangle would alienate other Iraqis and jeopardize relations with even close allies

Answer 3

"Great controversy emerged when no stockpiles of such weapons were found, leading to accusations that the United States, and in particular its President George W. Bush had deliberately inflated intelligence or lied about Iraq's weapons in order to justify an invasion of the country. While various leftover weapons components from the 1980s and 1990s have also been found, most weapons inspectors do not now believe that the WMD program proceeded after the early 1990s[1], though various theories continue to be put forward."

it is quite clear that the war in iraq was meant to take the focus off the attacks of 9/11. weapons of mass distruction never existed in iraq and still to this day have not been found. bombing the crap out of innocent iraqis make us no better than our own government sacraficing thousands of american lives on 9/11.

Answer 4

Yea, lets just kill every one! We could use the Marines favorite!!

One "favorite of the Marine Corps" in the Mideast, according to an anonymous Pentagon spokesman, was the BLU-82, known as "Big Blue 82" or "Daisy Cutter." Last used in Vietnam by U.S. Special Forces for clearing helicopter landing sites, the 15,000-pound bomb is filled with an aqueous mixture of ammonium nitrate, aluminum powder, and polystyrene soap. It can only be launched from a cargo aircraft, the MC-130 Hercules, by rolling it out the rear cargo door. The bomb descends by parachute and detonates just above ground, producing blast overpressures of 1,000 pounds per square inch and disintegrating everything within hundreds of yards. It can be used to clear minefields or against concentrations of troops, aircraft, and equipment. How many of these blockbusters were actually used is still unknown.

You don't like women and children, do you?

Answer 5

Carpet bombing is used to destroy large areas of enemy cities, factories, etc. It's indiscriminate bombing that doesn't target anything smaller than something on the order of a quarter square mile at best. It's wasteful, and it will potentially kill lots of civilians. That would be viewed as a bad thing if you're trying to convince the civilians that what you are doing is good for them. If we're trying to establish a government that's at least friendly towards the US, we shouldn't kill the citizens of that country without good cause.

Answer 6

What have you been drinking? have you seen what happens when you carpet bomb miles and miles of sand. NOTHING!!! All that carpet bombing in Viet Nam and what did it do. We lost that war in1975. Korea - we lost that war also, because we are still fighting there too as we speak, we didn't win just because the fighting stopped. Check it out, we never signed a peace treaty in Korea. Besides carpet bombing had no effect in Korea, I do not even remember it being used. Come down off your technology high and smell the rotting flesh. We are fighting insurgencies in the sand over there. They come out plant IED's and slither back into the sands again. This is guerrilla warfare and it should have been planned for before they ran in there with all their technology screaming "Shock and Awe." Check out the movie "Red Dawn" and see it from another perspective, you should enjoy it besides learning something. These conflicts are better settled at conference tables then at the battlefields. Ask the men and women who died in Viet Nam and Korea what carpet bombing did for them.

Answer 7

Politicians, politicians,politicians. They are what start a war and they are what keep us from fighting the war. Do you know that their rules say our guys cant use any enemy weapons or ammo if they need it. Do you know our men have to call in when being fired on to get permission to fire back. Congress should be on the front lines then maybe they will stop fighting among themselves and let us fight this war to win.

Answer 8

truthfully, Sparky, WE did no longer use "carpet bombing" in WW2. What america used became sunlight hours precision bombing raids. ok, so "precision" wasn't fairly as precise because it rather is at present, we nonetheless tried to hit purely defense force/commercial objectives. The British used night bombing raids utilising incindiary munitions so as to create super firestorms to wipe out as much as available of notwithstanding they hit. because of the fact of this that we had the intense attrition expenditures of bomber crews in the process 1943 and early 1944. We nonetheless had morals then, as much as is accessible in the process conflict.

Answer 9

i would have to say its because we are too worried about innocent people being killed. sure it would end the war if we just bombed the crap out of them, but most of the american people would not be able to stomach the amount of dead civilians

Answer 10

We're afraid it would halt the production of our oil, I think