Who Wrote These Rules?
Our government would have you believe that the United States is “at war” in Afghanistan and Iraq, but I am having trouble with that! In war, the rules are very, very simple, the enemy tries to kill you, and so you try to kill them before they succeed! It really isn’t rocket science!
Our sons and daughters are “fighting” these so called wars, and they are doing a great job; but far too many of them are coming home maimed and injured, while far too many yet are being killed! My position on war is also very simple, and quite easy to explain: first of all, if you can see the enemy, and he is not in “surrender” mode, kill him! Next, if our government commits our troops to fighting a war, then it should allow our military to do whatever is necessary to win that war!
Before any bleeding hearted liberals get their panties in a snit, no, I don’t mean committing war crimes, such as mass executions of prisoners. What I do mean is this: keep the lawyers and the media out of the conduct of the war, and that is why we have General Officers!
Right now, at this moment, your son or daughter, or mine, who is “fighting” in Afghanistan or Iraq, may come under enemy fire. Under the present Rules of Engagement, once they spot the enemy who is firing upon them, and the enemy realizes that “it” has been spotted, all that the enemy needs to do is to put down their weapons and walk away, unmolested! And, that enemy is doing just that, but they are adding the insult of waving “goodbye” to our troops as they walk away laughing their terrorist asses off, at our stupidity! They are using our ridiculous Rules of Engagement against us!
Whomever the idiots who formulated these impossible Rules of Engagement are, whether they are military or civilian, they need to be charged with gross incompetence, fired, charged, and jailed! Their “Rules” are treasonous, because they are giving aid to an enemy in the field!
The idiotic defense of this absurdity is that we should place our sons and daughters, who are already in great jeopardy, in greater jeopardy, to prove that the United States is “above” committing war crimes. “They”, these idiots who set this policy, have redefined warfare, so that an enemy ceases to be an enemy by setting down their weapon, waving goodbye, and walking away! I have a flash for them; we will never “win the hearts and minds” of those people, which is another illusion! Those “elders” hate us, and that will not change by offering up our children to appease that hate! The people in those countries who actually want to live free, understand and support the United States, and they can’t understand the idiocy of this outrageously damaging policy; they are puzzled as they watch our troops let the enemy walk away!
Pliny
February 28th, 2010 at 6:23 pm
America has had a dilemma for some time regarding using military personnel in “Police Actions.” Since I’m retired from the US Army I sort of understand this issue from a different perspective than my civilian friends. My background also makes me entirely biased. With that said…
Look back to WW2. During the weeks prior to America’s use of the nuclear option against Japan our aviation assets in the Pacific Theatre flew mission after mission, night after night, dropping incendiary bombs over “civilian” targets. These targets were crowded cities full of civilians living in mostly wooden structures. These wooden homes full of men, women and children were ideal targets for incendiary bombs that caused firestorms to annihilate 100,000’s of what we would declare non-combatants in today’s jargon. Then, of course, we dropped a couple of nukes to seal the deal.
Similar stories can be told about the European Theatre and Germany in particular. These two examples describe the true horror of declared war. Since my war, Vietnam, we have ham-strung our military forces with rules and procedures that do not allow for the proper conclusion of hostilities. We expended nearly 60,000 American lives and many, many more severely disabled men and women in a fruitless war. Congress and the American people simply didn’t have the guts to fight to win.
Now we administer Non-Judicial Punishment against our special operations personnel because they were considered to be too rough while apprehending terrorists in a combat theatre. An Article 15 for what? Doing their job in the manner in which they were trained? Our namby-pamby ideology has infected not only our Federal Government in Washington, but also our military.
If anyone believes that there will be a satisfactory conclusion to Iraq, Afghanistan, Palestine, Iran, or any other terrorist stronghold in the world, I’d certainly like to hear their diatribe. We will spend money and lives in the pursuit of … Of what, exactly?