Wednesday, September 13, 2006
Paralysis
Remember that infantry LT in Afghanistan who got prosecuted for burning a couple of Taliban bodies for hygiene purposes?
Remember that tank officer who was prosecuted for administering a merciful coup de grace to a horrifically wounded insurgent?
Remember that Marine officer who was prosecuted for firing too many shots into someone who was dead set on killing him and his comrades?
Well, when you set a legal and ethical climate like that, where warriors have to be looking over their shoulders at every turn, and covering their asses against military lawyers and the commanders who let military lawyers dictate command decisions, then this is the result.
Note the reaction: They're more worried about the leaked photo than about a f*cked-up command climate.
There's the enemy. Kill him.
What's so f*cking complicated?
Splash, out
Jason
Remember that tank officer who was prosecuted for administering a merciful coup de grace to a horrifically wounded insurgent?
Remember that Marine officer who was prosecuted for firing too many shots into someone who was dead set on killing him and his comrades?
Well, when you set a legal and ethical climate like that, where warriors have to be looking over their shoulders at every turn, and covering their asses against military lawyers and the commanders who let military lawyers dictate command decisions, then this is the result.
Note the reaction: They're more worried about the leaked photo than about a f*cked-up command climate.
There's the enemy. Kill him.
What's so f*cking complicated?
Splash, out
Jason
Comments:
No arguments, no excuses, this is the same sort of foul up that happened at Tora Bora but the present administration has had ample time to fix things. They haven't. Something is seriously wrong with the system that is producing our rules of engagement.
The only cure is to provide serious career setbacks to the guys who didn't fix this. At what level was the problem. Whose head needs to be on a spike in order to fix it. The civilians need to know. An election is coming.
The only cure is to provide serious career setbacks to the guys who didn't fix this. At what level was the problem. Whose head needs to be on a spike in order to fix it. The civilians need to know. An election is coming.
Caught a segment about this one FNC this afternoon. These ROE are for Afghanistan only, not Iraq - because of some agreement between a high-level US official and President Karzi, because of how cemetries/funerals are viewed cultural in that country. I don't like it, but that's the explanation so far. Same ROE apparently DOES NOT apply in Iraq (noting that US forces have engaged, or even started engagements, in/from cemetries and on funerals).
Do women and children stand in precise formation at Afghan funerals?
Just askin'.
As for your other point, your suggestions are well-taken. However, I don't think there's any reason to believe that the motivation in declining to fire on this particular group was out of professional courtesy.
I've never known a soldier who believes that Al Qaeda and the Taliban warrant anything other than the consideration one gives a rabid dog in a pit.
These are not professional soldiers in the romanticized sense to which we westerners, so long raised on Tennyson poems, love to cling.
There is no code of chivalry or honor that we would recognize among these people. These people took a passenger jet and aimed it at an office building.
And did it again.
And did it again.
And did it again.
And did it again.
Even Rudyard Kipling knew the real nature of this enemy:
When you're lying, cold and wounded
on the frozen Afghan plain
And the women have come out
to cut up your remains
You'll roll to your rifle
and blow away your brains
And go to your God like a soldier.
The truces on western battlefields in WWI and WWII for the purposes of burying their dead are a poor analogy - in those cases, the ceasefire was mutual. Both sides gained from the chance to take care of their own.
Where is the reciprocity here?
Did Al Qaeda offer the U.S. a chance to bury our dead in one tower before knocking down the other one?
No.
Al Qaeda - and their supporters in the Taliban - are not an enemy to be respected with and negotiated with.
They are an enemy to be annihilated, like an infestation of rats.
Just askin'.
As for your other point, your suggestions are well-taken. However, I don't think there's any reason to believe that the motivation in declining to fire on this particular group was out of professional courtesy.
I've never known a soldier who believes that Al Qaeda and the Taliban warrant anything other than the consideration one gives a rabid dog in a pit.
These are not professional soldiers in the romanticized sense to which we westerners, so long raised on Tennyson poems, love to cling.
There is no code of chivalry or honor that we would recognize among these people. These people took a passenger jet and aimed it at an office building.
And did it again.
And did it again.
And did it again.
And did it again.
Even Rudyard Kipling knew the real nature of this enemy:
When you're lying, cold and wounded
on the frozen Afghan plain
And the women have come out
to cut up your remains
You'll roll to your rifle
and blow away your brains
And go to your God like a soldier.
The truces on western battlefields in WWI and WWII for the purposes of burying their dead are a poor analogy - in those cases, the ceasefire was mutual. Both sides gained from the chance to take care of their own.
Where is the reciprocity here?
Did Al Qaeda offer the U.S. a chance to bury our dead in one tower before knocking down the other one?
No.
Al Qaeda - and their supporters in the Taliban - are not an enemy to be respected with and negotiated with.
They are an enemy to be annihilated, like an infestation of rats.
I don't think the decision was entirely irrational.
If you agree that the war with AQ occurs as much in the hearts & minds of the west, and the east (something Clausewitze would agree to, as war is an expression of collective will in his book) then a commander must be concerned about maintaining a will to win.
Second, no matter how small the foulup, or how ludicrous the claim, the fauxtographers and gullible anti-western pawn reporters will use it to stir up the enemy's potential allies in the muslim world, to empower the left in the west, and to discourage the western people about continuing the fight against AQ.
Therefore, even fairly trivial possible screwups have to be avoided if possible.
Finally, outside of that argument, this is an entirely fouled up situation. This is where our corrupt, incompetent western MSM has brought us. Not only can they not be relied upon to telll the truth, the one thing we can rely on them for, is to tell the enemies lies. So you blast a "funeral" in an Afghan cemetary, and even if the "funeral" was "mourning" the death of Talibs with some SAMs and small arms fire, it will get reported as a massacre of mourning widows. Yeah, this is fouled up, but it's not a lawyerly decision about cemetaries, it's a political judgment based on how it will be reported in the media that causes such decisions to be made. It's not particularly gutless, it's not very brave either (hint: if you have a UAV overhead, you can document what's going on...) but it's not beyond the pale as some people seem to think. Given that we're up against a hostile fifth column in the media as well as the Islamacists, these are valid considerations. It's a damn shame, but being disgusted about it doesn't make it untrue.
If you agree that the war with AQ occurs as much in the hearts & minds of the west, and the east (something Clausewitze would agree to, as war is an expression of collective will in his book) then a commander must be concerned about maintaining a will to win.
Second, no matter how small the foulup, or how ludicrous the claim, the fauxtographers and gullible anti-western pawn reporters will use it to stir up the enemy's potential allies in the muslim world, to empower the left in the west, and to discourage the western people about continuing the fight against AQ.
Therefore, even fairly trivial possible screwups have to be avoided if possible.
Finally, outside of that argument, this is an entirely fouled up situation. This is where our corrupt, incompetent western MSM has brought us. Not only can they not be relied upon to telll the truth, the one thing we can rely on them for, is to tell the enemies lies. So you blast a "funeral" in an Afghan cemetary, and even if the "funeral" was "mourning" the death of Talibs with some SAMs and small arms fire, it will get reported as a massacre of mourning widows. Yeah, this is fouled up, but it's not a lawyerly decision about cemetaries, it's a political judgment based on how it will be reported in the media that causes such decisions to be made. It's not particularly gutless, it's not very brave either (hint: if you have a UAV overhead, you can document what's going on...) but it's not beyond the pale as some people seem to think. Given that we're up against a hostile fifth column in the media as well as the Islamacists, these are valid considerations. It's a damn shame, but being disgusted about it doesn't make it untrue.
I dunno, from the blurry-ness of the picture, for all I can tell they could just be sitting in rows. . . .which women and children DO do at funerals.
You have to admit, there's nothing besides the media's explanation of the photo that definitively shows these are Taliban fighters.
You have to admit, there's nothing besides the media's explanation of the photo that definitively shows these are Taliban fighters.
I wonder if the Taliban fire "salutes" at their funerals...at least they could have claimed that the drone was taking fire, like the infamous "(alleged) wedding party" incident.
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# posted by 
: 1:22 PM
: 1:22 PM
