Green Energy
The Captain's Journal has been running a series of posts on the moral abomination that are the US military's current Rules of Engagement. The latest entry has several must read quotes from American soldiers trying to fight a war in Iraq with "their hands tied behind their backs." Go read it now:
President Bush didn't mention in his State-of-the-Union address why websites such as this are necessary on his watch.
Crossposted at The Dougout
- We’ve Heard About The Military Forced In To Retirement. Here’s One Replacement - Gen. Nicholson
WFB: Marine: New U.S. Commander in Afghanistan Threw Us Under the BusThen-Col. Nicholson called unit wrongfully accused of civilian killings a ‘stain on our honor’ A Marine wrongfully accused of killing civilians says that President Obama’s new...
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Arutz Sheva: IDF Launches First NBC Defense Battalion by Gil Ronen The IDF has officially launched its first battalion specifically trained for dealing with the aftermath of nuclear/biological/chemical (NBC) attacks, named Yanshuf ('Owl'). An...
- Fighting With Both Hands Tied Around Their Balls
Washington Examiner: Troops chafe at restrictive rules of engagement, talks with Taliban By: Sara A. Carter National Security Correspondent October 19, 2010 KANDAHAR, AFGHANISTAN -- To the U.S. Army soldiers and Marines serving here, some things seem...
- New Rules Designed To Avoid Civilian Casualties Get 4 Marines Killed
Fuck the civilian casualties. They wouldn't give a fig about ours. This is a war, not a fucking pillow fight. CIVILIAN CASUALTIES ARE WHAT GOT US HERE IN THE FIRST GODDAMNED PLACE! You want to avoid civilian casualties? How about giving up the bad...
- Instant Morale: Four Paws And A Tail
I blogged about this issue last May, Michael Yon agrees as he notes in his latest post "Walking the Line 2007:" The Army has prohibited soldiers from adopting dogs since at least World War II, but I have yet to visit a base where combat soldiers or Marines...
Green Energy
Rules of Engagement: A Symptom of Why We Are Losing the War
The Captain's Journal has been running a series of posts on the moral abomination that are the US military's current Rules of Engagement. The latest entry has several must read quotes from American soldiers trying to fight a war in Iraq with "their hands tied behind their backs." Go read it now:
From a Marine in Anbar: “A lot of us feel like we have our hands tied behind our back,” says Cpl. Peter Mattice, of Bravo Company, 1st Battalion, 24th Marine Regiment. “In Fallujah, [insurgents] know our [rules of engagement] - they know when to stop, just before we engage.”
From a unnamed Soldier: “I’m hesitant to do the job I was trained for. I don’t want to return fire because I might be on CNN the next day. The hardest thing for a soldier to do, despite all his training, is to return fire when he is fired upon.”
From an NCO in Kirkuk: You make the wrong move and kill civilians though, you not only have to live with the mistake, but you will be ridiculed unmercifully by the media/big army. You will be buried in proceedings and paperwork the remainder of your deployment, and you will not be the same. Your buddies will be affected as well. Cpl. X will see how bad it could be to make the wrong decision, and will hesitate just a hair too long when there is a real threat… and more men will die. The fear of failure leads to hesitation, and hesitation in war is a lesser form of suicide.
From an NCO in Anbar: So yes, from the grunts on the field perspective … the ROE is vague and limiting. And every time “violations” of the ROE came up it caused our soldiers and marines to question their actions and sometimes cause casualties. If you look up the case of the [unit redacted] Soldier from the [location redacted] region you will see an excellent example. The [unit redacted] Soldiers started pulling back after that, and even though he eventually had the charges dropped it caused problems throughout the entire Battalion.
And without going into specifics if you look at [date redacted] incident when we lost two Marine pilots and an Army Lt north of [location redacted] you will see another example of how fear of ROE kept us from hitting an enemy until after he had fired at us (and led to a downed helo and an IEDed hummer). And it was almost much worse. We dropped two 500 lb bombs a little later and stopped the insurgents from a planned attack that might have led to even more deaths. And we almost didn’t do that because of ROE.
President Bush didn't mention in his State-of-the-Union address why websites such as this are necessary on his watch.
Crossposted at The Dougout
- We’ve Heard About The Military Forced In To Retirement. Here’s One Replacement - Gen. Nicholson
WFB: Marine: New U.S. Commander in Afghanistan Threw Us Under the BusThen-Col. Nicholson called unit wrongfully accused of civilian killings a ‘stain on our honor’ A Marine wrongfully accused of killing civilians says that President Obama’s new...
-
Arutz Sheva: IDF Launches First NBC Defense Battalion by Gil Ronen The IDF has officially launched its first battalion specifically trained for dealing with the aftermath of nuclear/biological/chemical (NBC) attacks, named Yanshuf ('Owl'). An...
- Fighting With Both Hands Tied Around Their Balls
Washington Examiner: Troops chafe at restrictive rules of engagement, talks with Taliban By: Sara A. Carter National Security Correspondent October 19, 2010 KANDAHAR, AFGHANISTAN -- To the U.S. Army soldiers and Marines serving here, some things seem...
- New Rules Designed To Avoid Civilian Casualties Get 4 Marines Killed
Fuck the civilian casualties. They wouldn't give a fig about ours. This is a war, not a fucking pillow fight. CIVILIAN CASUALTIES ARE WHAT GOT US HERE IN THE FIRST GODDAMNED PLACE! You want to avoid civilian casualties? How about giving up the bad...
- Instant Morale: Four Paws And A Tail
I blogged about this issue last May, Michael Yon agrees as he notes in his latest post "Walking the Line 2007:" The Army has prohibited soldiers from adopting dogs since at least World War II, but I have yet to visit a base where combat soldiers or Marines...