"The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers" - William Shakespeare
We'll never be successful in another "war" while we fight with a bunch of insane rules of engagement.
We have not been successful in any war since WWII and will not win in the ME with these INSAANE ROE. Korea was a truce, a stalemate, UN-sponsored, we played by their rules. We lost, but it was called a 'truce'. Vietnam: Our men fought not only the Communist NV but the great numbers of peasants forced into fighting or who volunteered to join the enemy. LBJ, MacNamara, & the JCF decided they knew more than the generals on the ground over there, or the troops. Nixon & Kissinger, same. They lost us the war; our guys were winning until Nixon caved in to rabble rousers and leftists here at home. 58,000 American men died and 2.5 million SE Asians were slaughtered by Pol Pot.
These wars now : I've been told the ROE are worse than ever, and one difference is the apparent massive brainwashing undergone by the generals--McCrystal, for example. Remember that the USS Cole was unarmed! Look how long ago that was, yet Pres. Klinton made no changes, he was as scornful of the military as the faker in the WH today. Both Bush Sr and his son? Certainly not scornful, but something seriously lacking in either man or they would have demanded change.
Incidentally, Klinton's War (Kosovo) was absolute slaughter of Christians using our planes disguised as "NATO". Klinton should have been hanged for war crimes.