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Rules of Engagement Say "No" to Killing Taliban at a Funeral
NBC news has released a report stating that Coalition forces passed on an opportunity to kill over 100 "high level" Taliban in July, when a Predator drone discovered a large group attending a funeral in Southern Afghanistan. US Army officers were initially "so excited; at the prospect of having so many high value targets in one spot, but excitement quickly gave way to frustration. Senior Defense Department officials aborted the attack, citing that a strike on a religious cemetery was against the rules of engagement (ROE). “Coalition Forces do not discuss rules of engagement" and "hold themselves to a higher moral and ethical standard than their enemies,” the military said in a statement. A U.S. Army Intelligence officer vented his frustration over the decision stating that the missed opportunity to neutralize so many of the Taliban leadership “potentially could cause harm to our soldiers, civilians, the population and the government of Afghanistan.” The internal DoD conflict over these rules highlights the difficulty in striking the proper "ethical" balance in war.
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The U.S. doesn't deserve to win by Anonymous
Making decisions like this convince me that the U.S. doesn’t deserve to win this war. We didn’t want to bomb a Taliban funeral!?! Are you friggin’ kidding me?? When did the Defense Department get taken over by the chicks from the View? What are we doing here people? Are we more concerned with winning or making people in the Middle East think we’re basically ok folks? Cause I’ll tell you that no matter what we do, they’re going to hate us, so you might as well lay the smacketh downeth. Doesn’t anybody realize that we bombed two entire cities to stop Japan? Two entire cities! And now we won’t even shoot a missile at a funeral full of utter scum.
Get out your turbans folks and start building your mosques, because America doesn’t deserve to win this war.
No Qualms by VnutZ
Personnally, I have no qualms with killing other people. Now if only I was a better shot at long distances ….
I agree with our anonymous friend that when it comes to the business of killing, you cannot make such decisions based on making people like you. That’s simply absurd. Wasn’t it the Godfather who established the precedent that "it’s nothing personal … just business." Perhaps we’ve been detached from true combat for such a long time that all of our present senior leadership are too far removed from the knowledge and experience of what must be done.
RE: No Qualms by varnerac
I have to disagree with the other posters.
There are constraints on how we kill an not all of them are dictated by international treaties. Exterminating our enemies at a wedding is not how we do business. We protect facilities of religious and cultural significance. It is reasonable (but not required) to extend special treatment to these events.
I guess my background in Snivel Affairs has ruined my killer instinct.
RE: No Qualms by VnutZ
There are constraints on how we kill an not all of them are dictated by international treaties. Exterminating our enemies at a wedding is not how we do business. We protect facilities of religious and cultural significance. It is reasonable (but not required) to extend special treatment to these events.
You’re right. That is how we currently do business. But that doesn’t necessarily mean its the right way to do this business. I believe we should allow our combat operations to be flexible and adaptable to the enemy. This is not an enemy that respects the norms/rules of war. We’re not dealing with a culture who’s hearts and minds are being won by our efforts. We’re not dealing with an international community or domestic public that approves of the way we’re doing it "by the book." Perhaps if we’re going to be in the doghouse anyway … we go in the doghouse for a good reason.
I know that’s poor logic. But if you’re going to be kicked, I think we should at least get something for it. Perhaps the counter-kick to the groin will be strong enough to change things rather than the series of kicks to the shins.
RE: No Qualms by romanizzo
War had an amount of civility to it in the past. Up to and including WWI, combatants would allow their opponents to recover their dead and dying from a battlefield under a flag of truce. There was even a modicum of civility in the ETO during WWII.
But in the past it was always a two way road. You cannot afford to be civil to an enemy that is purely ruthless. And an insurgency is always ruthless. In both Afghanistan and Iraq, the insurgents are nothing short of barbarian because that barbarism is an absolute necessity to maintaining the insurgency. And for us, the counter-insurgent, we must echo that ruthlessness in the actual fighting, while still capturing the will of the population.
No matter how many terrorists we kill in these insurgencies, the truth is that victory lies in convincing the populace that we can and will win the fight and keep them secure in the future. And that means bombing a funeral and killing 100 Taliban when we have the chance. If we don’t have the belly for it, the populace will see that, and will have a hard time believing that we will win.
In a high intensity conflict against an honorable opponent, bombing that funeral would be dead wrong. As a counter-insurgent, not bombing that funeral just bought us another 2 years of fighting because we have to convince the people that we are tough enough.
RE: No Qualms by varnerac
We’re not dealing with a culture who’s hearts and minds are being won by our efforts. We’re not dealing with an international community or domestic public that approves of the way we’re doing it "by the book."
I think you’ll find the bad publicity in domestic and international press is exacerbated when we "counter-kick to the groin" like Abu Ghraib.
The idea that we can be lawless when we fight the lawless is absurd. Since I am in Afghanistan, it would be reasonable for me to dress my female peers up like ninja-nuns from head to toe. Why not? It’s considered reasonable in Afghanistan and I am in Afghanistan.
The enemy in the examples we cite is Islamic Fundamentalism. If the argument is that we should be more like our enemy, I’d have to agree. They realize they bring more people to the cause by creating a religious fervor. We should realize like our enemy does that fueling a religous fervor brings more fighters to their movement.
From a strategic perspective, I don’t want more people to fight. I want to fight a smaller force. This is one of the two strategic reasons we do not torture. First, tortured subjects will give false information to stop torture, clouding the intelligence process. Second, if enemy combatants know they will not be tortured they are more likely to surrender. Again, my logic is that the fewer people I have to fight, the easier my side of the conflict is.