Posted on 09/11/2009 5:35:02 AM PDT by reaganaut1
Well, it happened. Or, rather it happened and was reported, which is something else again. I will wager it has already happened, unnoticed, unrecorded, totally ignored.
But on this occasion, there was someone to witness it, write it down and publish it. I refer to death by rules of engagement. Specifically, the deaths of four U.S. Marines seemingly by the new rules of engagement (ROE) in Afghanistan. They took place on Tuesday in an ambush against Afghan forces and their U.S. trainers around the village of Ganjgal. There, journalist Jonathan S. Landay of McClatchey Newspapers lived through the deadly firefight to write the following:
"U.S. commanders, citing new rules to avoid civilian casualties, rejected repeated calls to unleash artillery rounds at attackers dug into the slopes and tree lines — despite being told repeatedly that they weren't near the village."
What Landay describes sounds like a disastrous manifestation of what Afghanistan commander Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal talked about all summer — what I've called our war on civilian casualties. It is being waged, the hallucinatory thinking goes, to win Afghan "hearts and minds" and thus the "counterinsurgency" against the Taliban.
McChrystal and this strategy currently enjoy the support of both the Obama Left and the surger-cons on the Right, who, under the auspices of a new conservative think tank, the Foreign Policy Initiative, recently wrote an open letter to President Obama specifically applauding the president for choosing the McChrystal team, and expressing confidence in its new strategy.
This infidel pursuit of Islamic "hearts and minds" is a wild yak chase that begins with ever-stricter rules of engagement (ROE).
(Excerpt) Read more at jewishworldreview.com ...
“Death by obama ROE” - new classification for combat casualties
We still need a good definition of the US goals in Afghanistan and how to distinguish a civilian from a “Taliban”, Al Qaeda, or Jihadists.
This will generate hate for our politicians by our true military...
... and I would expect a significant increase in filings regarding zero’s qualifications.
Let’s hope they get vocal. However, the Senate backs Zero on all these rules of combat.
I have said this for a long time...Zero is sending more troops over there so he’ll have an excuse to build up his “Brown shirts” here!
Sadly, I think believe he does not have our military’s best interest at heart...if you know what I mean.
obama should resign. These deaths are directly on him: needless and preventable, directly attributable to his decisions. obama, I call on you to do the right thing. Surrender your office to someone who can truly protect American lives, both civilian and Military.
This is no longer a War Against Terror. it is self-slaughter that exalts the terrorists and ensures their complete and utter victory. Time to bring our troops home.
Winning the hearts and minds of muslims has become more important than allowing our soldiers to save their own life.
A soldier’s life is worthless to this administration.
As it should! Obama is marching our men and women into ambushes with orders to hold their fire! And he expects them to mindlessly follow? At some point the military will be his breaking point.
One of the four was a sailor.
Everyday I am more convinced he IS a manchurian candidate. Someone once said “He can’t be a muslim, he is so staunchly pro-abortion and even infanticide”. My response is ‘how many muslims are having abortions? It is jihad by abortion’.
History has proven there are NO innocent civilians in Afghanistan. None of those people are interested in being civilized. They only want blood, which is just what we should give them.
“History has proven there are NO innocent civilians in Afghanistan. None of those people are interested in being civilized. They only want blood, which is just what we should give them.”
Here’s my quandary: do we give them blood or do we leave them to their own devices? Giving them blood on the basis that there are “no innocent civilians”, taken to its logical conclusion, means we kill them all. What then?
Colonel, USAFR
Without leadership, this mission is threatened. I got a very bad feeling when I read that they were thinking about making the female military wear hijab.
The next two-bit country thinks twice about screwing with us?
I don’t mean kill them all, but if we are going to fight there, we should fight to win, all out, until they surrender. If we aren’t willing to do that, we shouldn’t be there.
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