Posted on 10/19/2007 6:51:06 PM PDT by RedRover
I think his point was when there is a threat, to make that threat go away, you use deadly force. There is no minimum deadly force. You’re either dead, or you’re continuing to threaten (you’re not dead). The conundrum is determining when deadly force (make the threat go away) is acceptable.
Collateral damage such as killing civilians in ridding a city of insurgents is a far cry from nuking that city. This is one reason we do have collateral damage. It is far less costly in civilian lives than just bombing the crap out of a city.
Let them go!!!!!!!I think they are also, getting the shaft.
STUPENDOUS!
Q. So you are telling me that in your professional judgment, and based upon the case law, that a cop on the street in Baltimore has more legal protections than a Marine in combat in Haditha discharging the foreign policy of his government?
A. That is correct. If one were to follow and apply a standard self-defense defense to that decision, that is absolutely correct. And the NCIS agent in Haditha, if she decided to use deadly force in that situation, would be provided all the protections for her line of duty decisions. "
I singled that out, also. I read that and couldn't believe it. I read it again. How mind-boggling is THAT??
Pamphlet, hell -- more like a short story. And a well crafted one at that!
LCol. David G. Bolgiano made a lot of very succinct points, but the most telling to me was the following exchange that, unless LCol. Ware follows through, will reoccur once more under the current JCS:
We finally get to the relevance to DoD. If we look at ROE, traditional modern standing rules of engagement, had their genesis in the late 1970's at the Chairman Joint Chief of Staff level. Unfortunately, at the time most of these were drafted, the Chairman was a Naval Officer. I don't mean that disrespectfully. I just mean it in the sense that the ROE was gauged towards carrier battle groups and large weapon systems, vice rules for use of force for the individual at the tip of the spear.
That is important for a number of reasons because the ROE for a carrier battle group -- a carrier battle group commander is somebody generally 50 years of age or older, been to all the senior service schools, has 25 years experience behind him, and hopefully has a great deal of judgment, wisdom, and life experiences to base threat assessments on; vice the recipient of our rules for use of force at the tip of the spear is generally an 18, 19, 20-year-old Marine with not a lot of life's experiences to make judgment under such situations.
The ROE for the carrier battle group is also predicated on the fact that the carrier battle group commander, due to our intelligence systems in place, the national intelligence estimates for CIC is aircraft above 300 nautical miles over the horizon, has a great deal of time generally, minutes, if not hours, to do threat assessments, even for attacking vampires or bogeys, which are airborne threats to his carrier battle group.
He has time to implement what are called special instructions or SPINS. I won't talk about the classified nature of them for a specific mission; but suffice to say they are essentially checklists for when you can employ certain weapon systems.
So that carrier battle group has the luxury of saying to a bogey out there, if they turn this many degrees towards our carrier battle group, increases speed to above 400naughtsknots, decreases altitude below this, that signals hostile intent, if not a hostile overt act, and we can splash him; vice the Marine at the tip of the spear, has mach one eyeball to do threat assessments and has about a second or less to make those decisions under the high stress they would encounter.
(I'm former Navy, so am well aware of the fact that the Battle Group works as a team. He further states that the Marine Squad should also be treated the same as a BG, wherein their collective responses and collateral damage should be judged the same way. He finds it telling that they are not.)
He was also, in my opinion, very dismissive of the positions taken by JAG and NCIS with respect to the Marines in a combat situation being treated
He made a lot of very telling instances from his own experiences, as well as those from cases he's investigated -- all of them leading to the basic underlying premise that a Marine or Soldier under fire is allowed and expected to respond with overwhelming force, in order to stop the attack. He specifically states that kill is not the operative tendency, but preventing further aggressive action is.
I trust/hope that all of the other Defense Teams have a chance to acquire this, and utilize it in their briefs going forward.
None of them should have been charged. Period!
Then you find the following:
If an agent shoots somebody in the line of duty, they are not to be interviewed by homicide investigators until at least 24 hours post-shooting until they have sat down and talked with their own lawyer, until they have talked to a chaplain, until they talked to a psychologist if they want. It is not because we're trying to play hide the ball. It is getting them the deference in a line-of-duty shooting. They are not treated like perps.
They are treated like fellow brother warriors. And law enforcement officers, the tie goes to them.
The problem is that when we drag young Marines and soldiers in to a criminally focused investigation, they have no idea how to define or tell what they did in laying out the threat assessment. They just start merely parroting back some of the stuff they remembered from their ROE briefings. That is why you end up with this [ unwarranted trial! -by ].
This is testimonial proof that the actions of Winter, JAG, and NCIS were criminal in the execution of the investigations of these Marines. Since Gen. Mattis had this from LCpl. Sharratt's hearing, he should have tossed the whole shebang.
Bump.
Excellent summary of keypoints, brit (better than I could manage).
BTW, I’ve got about three more witnesses to go and then all the testimony in the LCpl Sharratt hearing will be up at DefendOurMarines.com.
Sharratt said it best himself in his statement at his hearing:
“...There was a common saying amongst us, I would rather be tried by a jury of 12 of my peers instead of being carried by six of my friends in a casket....”
Enough said....then again, no. These Marines need our continual support. Lest slippery Murtha gets his way.
Excellent points to pull from Lt. Col. Bolgiano’s testimony, brityank. He makes a lot of sense.
Since LCpl Tatum is definitely going to trial, it would be great if Bolgiano is on the defense witness list. I imagine his impact on a jury panel would be significant. Same for SSGT. Wuterich if he must go to trial.
Direct hit! You nailed it, Brit!
Not I; rather LCol. Bolgiano.
Something else that he mentioned, but didn't really expound on, is the Public's Expectations that shooters are always cool under duress, and are all trained as Marksmen that can place their shots at will. I believe he called it "Hollywood conditioning". Sure would be nice if we had the luxury of a Director to yell "CUT! Retake that scene." when the battle doesn't go our way.
How many bleeding-heart column inches have you seen of Officer-involved shootings of an armed perp; whether by knife, gun, or other weapon; and the whole story is coloured and laced with comments like they should have just wounded the perp, or shot the weapon out of his/her hand? Philly just had a shooting ^ that was similar, and the family -- that called the cops -- will now sue the department, based on Hollywood. "Why didn't they taze him? Why didn't they pepper-spray him? They didn't have to kill him!" The cop shot at center of mass, to stop the intent and the action, as they are trained.
Succinctly put.
“There is no minimum deadly force. You’re either dead, or you’re continuing to threaten (you’re not dead). “
So the theory is “take no prisoners” ?
It seems to boil down to just what is to be considered a “threat”.
Obviously the person in the field makes that decision, but there must be a systems of checks and balances to weed out the inevitable abuses.
” Heard the sound of an AK racking” seems to be a threat identification that may be used a lot, but in this case alone it seems it led to ( 5,6 ? ) unnecessary deaths.
“If that is what they heard,... “
It appears in House 1 that is what they THOUGHT they heard.
Or in a worse scenerio, that is what they SAID they thought they heard.
Remember that this entire investigation started because what was reported to have happened was not what actually happened.
Girlene you are right on the money... split second decision between your life and your death. It’s a tragedy but it is war. Look at the events at Hell House and many many other ambushes throughout Iraq that have cost us lives of our military? LCpl Terrazas received a commendation for bravery during his first deployment after he helped stop an ambush by insurgents after the convoy was attacked by an IED. The other side doesn’t exactly follow ROE but we expect our Military to “ask 3 questions and check ID’s” before shooting?
Since our weak, big disappointment of a president hasn’t put a stop to this, I have to assume HE is behind it. He seems to be behind the prosecution of the border patrol agents.
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