>>63969007I dont know why you think this is something unique to the GWOT, the US has a long history of applying retarded levels of force since pretty much forever.
When I was stationed in Germany I did some exploring and found a little town out in the middle of nowhere with the ruins of a little stone church built by Charlegmane in the 900s. It had survived all that time until the end of WW2 when a forward recon patrol from the US Army arrived and a kid from the Hitler Youth decided to climb into the bell tower and take shots at them, so the scouts fell back, called in a platoon of Shermans, and had them blow up the whole church for the lols.
Even back during the Indian Wars there are tons of accounts of the military rolling through and burning down whole ass tribes just because some pioneer's cow got killed.