"Every attempt to make war easy and safe will result in humiliation and disaster."
Posted on 12/23/2009 7:37:58 AM PST by yoe
Five years ago, a particularly gruesome image made its way to our television screens from the war in Iraq. Four U.S. civilian contractors working in Fallujah were ambushed and killed by al Qaeda. Their bodies were burned, then dragged through the streets. Two of the charred bodies were hung from the Euphrates Bridge and left dangling.
This barbaric act left an impression that our military did not forget: In a special operation earlier this year, Navy SEALs captured the mastermind of that attack, Ahmed Hashim Abed. But after he was taken into custody in September, Abed claimed he was punched by his captors. He showed a fat lip to prove it. Three of the SEALS are now awaiting a courts-martial on charges ranging from assault to dereliction of duty and making false statements.
This incident and its twisted irony takes me back to an oddly serene setting many years ago. When I was in college, I joined my parents on a trip to retrace my father's wartime experience in Europe. We drove from France, through Holland and Belgium and on to Germany—the same route he had taken with the U.S. Army in 1944-45. At a field outside the Belgian town of Malmedy, we got out of our rented car where my father described something I had never heard before.
During the Battle of the Bulge, in the bleak December of 1944, the Germans had quickly overrun the American lines. They took thousands of prisoners as they pushed through in a last chance gamble to turn the war around. One unit, part of the First SS Panzer Division, had captured over a hundred GIs. They were moving fast, and they didn't care to be burdened by prisoners. So the SS troops …….
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
Rule 1. Fight to win
Rule 2. See: Rule 1
War is Hell. Sherman knew it. Make the other side wish they had never been born. That will stop the killing quicker than anything. Rules are a joke.
The Geneva Convention DOES NOT give any rights to terrorists. As far as the Geneva Convention is concerned, terrorists can be shot when captured.
Excellent article. Thanks for posting it.
Rules of War are simply rules for defeat.
Geneva be damned.
War has one rule: win.
It certainly is. Most of the WWII veterans don’t talk about the war. My dad flew the Burma Hump and wouldn’t eat rice after the war. I can’t even begin to imagine what he experienced.
My Grandfather told me war story concerning a unit he was in during the D-Day landings.
After several days of heavy fighting in which no one ate and or used the toilet(stuck in a foxhole for 36 hours), there was finally a break in the action.
His unit was preparing to eat and the Sargent called everyone over to enjoy a well deserved meal.
One of the soldiers said he was ordered to guard 4 German POW’s and could not leave them unattended.
The Sargent took his pistol, shot all four POWs in the head and said, WE EAT NOW!!!! No one knew when the next meal might arrive or the fighting to restart.
My grandfather said the only rule to war was to survive, and win at ANY cost.
According to my very wise grandfather,The rules made by the Geneva Convention were for the lawyers and elites, not for those ACTUALLY fighting the war.
National Geographic had a documentary on the Iraq War. If you didn't know better you would conclude that Hussein was still in power based on their coverage of how the war went.
A full third of this nation seems intent on destroying itself.
zer0 need’s to see this, His mouth has been running non stop
Such policies save American lives because the enemy is more likely to surrender sooner when the tactical situation is not in his favor.
Americans have a reputation of treating prisoners well and this reputation helps our soldiers. We do not want the enemy to fight to the last round or try to break out from a surrounded position which they likely will do if they think that they will be tortured and killed if captured.
There is some independent corroboration. General Omar Bradley said, at one point, that he was sick and tired of reports of surrendering German snipers. This would seem to be an implicit order to shoot surrendering Germans, making him a war criminal. There is also the story of the American troops who shot a black uniformed railroad worker in Remagen who was trying to surrender himself and a bunch of other civilians holed up in a tunnel. When the Americans were asked why they shot him, they replied that they thought he was SS.
Our enemy fights with everything they've got - and will nuke us the day they get a nuke. We are the other hand are playing dress up soldier in some make believe world with lavender skies. Our men can do the job - but not with idiots calling the game.
"Every attempt to make war easy and safe will result in humiliation and disaster."
I agree. Hitler actually issued a special Fueherbefehl (Order from the Fuehrer) just prior the to the Ardennes Offensive ordering the German Army to show the enemy no mercy. He clearly intended for the level of savagery on the West to match that on the East.
It had become apparent to the German soldier that he was probably better off surrendering to the Western Allies than fighting to bitter end. The German soldier by this time had no particular fondness for the political leadership and many on the Western front were too well aware of the lopsided Allied material advantage to hold out much hope of victory. They fought on more out of dogged loyalty to their homeland.
For the most part, much needless bloodletting was avoided on the Western Front and Germans did not generally fear surrendering to Americans or British troops and treated prisoners as decently as conditions permitted, despite Hitler's efforts. (Many of their comrades were Allied prisoners and it was a prospect they all faced.) Even for the SS, Malmedy seemed more an aberration than the norm.
For what it’s worth, the film Saints And Soldiers opens with the Malmedy Massacre and is available on Hulu.com. I will point out that the Nazis killed the survivors of British air crashes as a matter of course after the early raids on Germany. Supposedly, Hermann Goring heard of this and ended it. It was partly out of respect for aviators (Goring was a World War I ace) and partly because Goring knew that the British would retaliate in kind if they found out.
Sorry ... had to correct that for you.
This says it all. Thanks for posting!
Outstanding article. Thank you for posting this.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.