Posted on 09/13/2006 6:13:58 AM PDT by pabianice
Haven't seen this posted yet. Fox is reporting that recently one of our UAVs filmed in live time a Taliban funeral in Afghanistan at which 190 Taliban leaders were shown lined-up in ranks. Fox is showing the photo and reporting that US policy forbids the killing of Taliban in cemetaries and thus the US watched the funeral but took no action to kill the 190 murderers attending. If this is true -- tough question here -- how is Bush any better than Clinton regarding the war on terror?
ROE for terrorists. I was told this has been in effect for years. I am passing on what I heard, and stated so. Screw klintoon! He is not worthy of anyone taking up for him about anything!
LLS
The "Rules of Engagement" appear to be designed to ensure we don't win. This is asinine.
If we can win with honor, why not? I'll always take the "high road" regardless of what my dishonorable and cowardlike peers might think.
Change "tough" to "dumb" and you'll have your answer.
Well, I have a daughter on the ground in Iraq and her husband isn't even 30 days back from his deployment to kuwait so I got a dog in this fight.
It's REALLY easy to talk about the "high road" sitting behind a computer. If you were on the ground, in the thick of the fight, I'm sure that those sentiments would disappear in less time than it would take you to blink.
America hasn't won her wars by taking the "high road". That's a late PC development foisted on us by Liberals. America has won her wars by becoming ruthless when the situation called for it.
Please spare me the "not me, I'm different" also.
COnversation over
So I guess we aren't really at war after all....
Honey, I was in the army during a war that wasn't in fashion. We took the "high road" simply because we are a moral people with a code of ethics. We also had a Code of Conduct specified by Congress. I also operated under a code of conduct specified by God. There is no reason whatsoever to conduct oneself in a manner that would trouble the conscience later in life. All soldiers suffer from non-physical wounds, so it is pointless to inflict such upon oneself beyond what is required for effective combat.
You would best be proud of your family members for conducting themselves in a moral fashion, even in the heat of battle. That would give them honor built upon honor.
Part of warfare is "winning the hearts and minds" of the enemy. That all-important tactic is seriously hampered whenever troops conduct themselves in brutal or nondiscriminatory ways.
Americans generally "take the high road" in warfare, because that is the nature of winners and a moral people. We have done so by training and command. Infractions that occured were never sanctioned or permitted. Immoral acts occur during berserker rages or lapse in morality due to extended exposure to carnage.
Totally incorrect. The CIA is an intelligence (information) gathering and processing entity. Assassinations are field expedients.
Take no prisoners? ;-D
There is a lot of printed matter on this topic. I've browsed DOD and Army sites for material; and, there is an enormous supply of stuff. The following link was provided on a US Army training site:
http://www.utm.edu/research/iep/j/justwar.htm
It is sound military policy to show mercy and select targets with care. It makes it possible to end the war.
Good point! Both get off scott free among their base supporters (along with OBL and the Taliban). Some on this board even blame "the officers on the ground" for not trashing their oath and disobeying the orders of the president and those appointed over them by going after the Taliban anyway. Bushbots and Clintonestas, it doesn't matter who wins the Global War on Terror so long their pretender-in-chief stays above the fray...sczeech!
Gee, I always thought the president was commander-in-chief of the armed forces...thanks for correcting the Constitutional error.
I quit wondering long ago! Just like LBJ, Carter and his "Read My Lips" old man was, Bush is a product of puppet handlers and, unlike Reagan or Truman or even Eisenhower for that matter, refuses to be an accountable leader.
Okay, well who runs the Pentagon then? Oh, yeah, Rummy does...and, BTW, I would deem it a rock-solid requirement for a commander-in-chief to carefully read the rules of engagement in war and if Bush didn't, he's exactly what the Dims accuse him of being: STUPID!
http://www.strategicstudiesinstitute.army.mil/pdffiles/PUB231.pdf
http://www.strategicstudiesinstitute.army.mil/pdffiles/PUB294.pdf
http://www.strategicstudiesinstitute.army.mil/pdffiles/PUB219.pdf
These issues are important; and, reflex action to "kill them all" is not a good way to find peace and stability in the future.
He is. So do you really think that means he spends all his time running the military? I guess we should just get rid of all the leadership in the military because the Commander in Chief does it all. No point in having decision makers in the military. The man in the Whitehouse can replace the thousands of people at the Pentagon. No point in having command staffs operating all over the world handling the wide variety of crisis zones we are currently operating in. We'll just have the Commander in Chief do all the work. I'm sure all the people we elect to run this country are absolute experts in the UCMJ, international law, military rules of engagement and the constantly changing environment in areas like Southwest Asia. Heck, next time I have a question regarding anything in my military job, I'll just call the Whitehouse.
Did you even think about what you typed before you hit the post button, or did you actually think you were making a useful point?
In the Navy I retired from, there is a principle called "ultimate accountability"! Whether he was ashore on liberty or at sea but asleep in his rack, many a skipper has been drummed out of the service when his ship suffered a major incident. If Bush did not carefully read the rules of engagement in the war or at least direct Rumsfeld to do so and advise him on the rules, then he's a fool!
Actually, ROE is determined at very high levels, and has NCA approval before it can be implemented in the field. Like everything else, the ROE is stated very broadly at the NCA level, and then defined more specifically at each lower level to conform to the intent of the CIC's approved ROE, while providing clear guidance to the warfighter. So in a broad sense, the President did approve the ROE, and his staff put it together.
That said, once the ROE is stated, field commanders should not need to ask higher ups for further approval to execute, unless such is required by the ROE.
It's still there. Are you really comparing the Commander and Chief of the US military to the Captain of a ship?! Are you suggesting the President of the United States should be fired every time a ship runs aground? Should we hold Bush accountable for every tactical decision made everywhere our military serves? If so, then I suppose you are a raging advocate of Whitehouse direction of every decision made on the battlefield. Sorry, but the Navy you retired from paid a price for that kind of idiocy several decades ago, and that's why we don't do it now.
You clearly have no idea what you are talking about when you talk about "rules of engagement". Do you realize, for example, that every theater we operate in has its own rules of engagement, and within each theater, there are different rules for different zones within that theater. And the rules for one service are not the same as the rules for another. The Army has different rules than the Marine Corps who has different rules than the Air Force. And those rules are hundreds of pages thick and change depending on the threat level and battlefield environment. Rumsfeld could brief the President 24 hours a day, 365 days a year and still not keep him current on all the ROE in all the areas we are currently operating in. In your time in the Navy did you even once operate in a combat environment? Do you know that in the course of a single mission, a Naval Aviator will probably have to operate under several different sets of ROE depending on where his aircraft is at that particular minute? Do you have any idea what you are talking about? You certainly aren't giving any indication you do on this thread.
And you call the President a "fool". It's almost amusing.
If you have to ask, you don't deserve an answer....
Good post........
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