Friendly Fire is a fact of war. It happens, when you have tens of thousands of soldiers all with extremely powerful weaponry, and extensive desensitization training. There are bound to be accidents, no matter how much technology/intelligence we manage to gather.
Since none of us here have served in the military I'd say none of us can really imaging what it's like to be truly in a combat situation. We have good guesses but think about it. There aren't any big flags above people's heads saying "I'M A GOOD GUY". A lot of battle tactics rely on using confusion.
mistake eh? NATO must be really bad at intelligence gathering.
I'd say unintentionally, if it was intentional, their comm chatter would be more like, "oh hey look civilians! lets shoot the hell out of them." I don't really trust the captions in that film as I couldn't tell what they were holding, and I have a feeling the people who published the video don't have any additional information than I do. I think in that video it's more of a case of unfortunate place at and unfortunate time. Even if there were innocent people in that film they were standing side-by-side with people that did have AK-47's. It is also out of context, I mean, why were there multiple gun ships in that area? Surely not to go harass civilians. Did the military follow one of the targets from an ambush on a convoy?
There is just too many unanswered questions in that, far too easy to sway people's opinion due to the shocking nature of the content of the film. I could just as easily take that film and make it look like the people who died were getting ready to go attack a school full of children. So without proper background it's meaningless to try and make conclusions.
Think of it this way, the people they are fighting have no problem using women and children as fodder. An example of this is I was talking to a soldier who had served over there. They had a small child with a black box go sprinting at the convoy he was in. There had been a history of people running at the convoy and suicide bombing.
They were going to have no choice but to shoot. Luckily before they engaged someone else in the convoy got a side perspective on the box and seen that it was empty, and called it off. A guy had intentionally sent that child running at the convoy to see if we would actually shoot the kid.
Terrorism is defined as people who use terror to gain political power/stuff/demands.
There are always people who will be like this. It's not like wiping out an entire race. People's minds will always think differently. There is no way for terrorism to go away.
You are very much correct, terrorism is a tactic that can be used to further a political agenda. In some cases it's very effective. Germany used it to great effect in WWII.
So if the war on terrorism meant getting rid of the tactic of terrorism, it would take more of a overarching change in thought among the people of the world to change that.
But in reality the statement "War on Terror" in a convenient marketing term similar to "Serious weight loss". It's handy because it is ambiguous enough that it can really mean whatever you want it to mean, while at the same time it still has a relatively specific point. It's definitely a poor practice to use but it is effective none-the-less.
So no we can't win it, and we can win it at the same time. The reason is the ending point is completely arbitrary. Technically we already won it, since the man who was widely associated with the term (G. W. Bush) announced that we "Won the War on Terror".
But we didn't win it since it's generally accepted that the war on terror continues.
So the "war on terror" really when you get down to it is a marketing buzz word, used to leverage spending and policy items.
Before you all go "OMG THE GOVERNMENT IS CONSPIRIFYING ME!!!" This is a common practice, it's used in almost every single industry on the planet. And the reason it is used is because it works.
Example,
What are you more likely to buy.
double data rate type three synchronous dynamic random access memory 1600 MegaHertz
or
Hyper Dominator Alpha 1600 MHZ HD OC DRAM
I went a little overboard but the second one is generally more appealing, as since most people are none techincal, all that technical mumbo-jumbo dosen't really mean anything. Then there are also words that people automatically have positive connotations with. So what sounds cooler DDR3 SDRAM, or HYPER AWESOME OMEGA 9000 DDR3 SDRAM
The same goes for government policy, whats more interesting.
Large troop deployment, reducing potency of risks to public safety and security, while simultaneously spurring economic development in key economic sectors.
or
The War on Terror.
It really is a beautiful marketing term, as exemplified by its success in changing policy and securing funding.
