Posted on 08/04/2010 6:03:10 PM PDT by Pan_Yan
WASHINGTON -- Afghanistan commander Army Gen. David Petraeus has renewed orders to American troops to refrain from calling in artillery or air power when battling Taliban forces unless they're certain that no civilians are present.
The Aug. 1 order, Petraeus' first since he assumed command early this summer from ousted Army Gen. Stanley McChrystal, was an effort to fine-tune a McChrystal directive that had angered some U.S. troops, who said the restrictions on the use of artillery and air power exposed them to greater danger. Petraeus' order, unclassified portions of which were released Wednesday, seemed unlikely to mollify that complaint, however.
In his directive, Petraeus sought to strike a balance between protecting the population - the cornerstone of counterinsurgency - and minimizing the risks to U.S. and allied troops.
He wrote that protecting civilians "does not prevent commanders from protecting the lives of their men and women as a matter of self-defense where it is determined no other options are available to effectively counter the threat."
Petraeus, however, used virtually the same language as McChrystal to prohibit the use of artillery and airstrikes unless a commander knows civilians won't be wounded or killed.
(Excerpt) Read more at miamiherald.com ...
Obama IS the boss.
The United States has to literally bribe the civilians not to plant IEDs or other crude explosive devices because no matter how far we bend over backwards to show “kindness”, they hate our western Christian guts. It would be more efficient if brutality reigned, because that is how respect becomes “respected” over there (Just ask the Islamic Taliban). Of course that is not our style so the locals take advantage over the American taxpayer.
Yes, and it’s a lose-lose situation.
Use more force - kill more civilians - create more resistance.
Use less force so as not to kill a lot of civilians - increase losses for our own troops - increase the power of the enemy.
We should have bombed the mountainous border regions flat and then left. Once the troops were on the ground, the outcome was predictable. Invading Iraq and Afghanistan were the dumbest military moves since Custer decided to pimp with some Indians.
What is a win now? Keeping the crook Karzai in power? Does anyone really think we can turn this place into a civilized country?
Shades of Nam. We better get out of there Obama is Johnson all over again. After hearing this one it is time to get outta there.
I agree. There is nothing worse than an administration that is willing to let our soldiers bleed but is not willing to let them win.
Outrageous.
The traitor who ordered this
INFORMED the enemy how to avoid return fire.
Petraeus is a huge disappontment. Another political general officier who sees hmself as a manager first. The warrior part is a distant 5th or 6th in this man’s priorities.
His first priority is to please the boss—even it puts our solidiers at risk. He’s no better than McChrystal.
This idiot would have been fraged in Vietnam. In WWII he would never would have gotten to full col. let alone general officer. Those military leader’s only priority was to win the war.
In war there are never any good choices. Any decision you make to win the war will inherently result in American soldier deaths. It usually will produce collateral damage as well. Of course the Islamic terrorists up the ante on that by using noncombatants (or pretend noncombatants) as shields.
Islamoterroists have vowed to convert, enslave or kill infidels. Which part of that do you not believe? And there is no doubt they are doing it. Which part of that do you not believe. So, what exactly do we gain by restraining our combat power under the ludicrous belief that if we are nice to these idiots they’ll return the favor.
Oh, and lets not forget that the absolute lack of any meaningful rejection of the jihadis by the larger Muslim population.
So its not a question of finding “good” choices. It’s about employing winning tactics and strategies to win. It really is as simple as that.
People like Petraeus and McChrystal are part of the problem. Oh, and if’he’s going to resign why not do it now?
So you think it’s just a mattter of walking away do you? Do you have any idea what will happen if we do?
We went in with the intention of crushing the Taliban and removing them from power. We did that quite easily with very few casualties because when we went in, our rules of engagement were clear and did not hamstring our troops. During our attempt at "nation building" we have lost our resolve and the Taliban has taken that loss of will to rebuild and to concentrate their efforts on using terrorist tactics and our own rules of engagement to pick off our troops one by one and to slowly but surely regain power from a ground roots effort which consists of terrorizing the populace and undermining our presence.
Now that the brass has taken the position that they do not wish to actually engage the enemy when they are hiding among the civilian populace that they are terrorizing we are now in a position where not only is victory out of reach, but defeat is assured.
So if we are not willing to fight the war as if it were a war, we have no business being there or pretending to be combating the enemy when we are doing nothing more than giving our enemy the opportunity to make widows and orphans out of the wives and children of our troops.
We can always go back, but only if our resolve is clear and our mission well defined with the object being victory and nothing short of that.
We are currently on a pathway to defeat. Leaving Afghanistan now would be, IMHO, a tactical retreat. We can always go back. But not unless we intend to accept nothing less than a "military victory" a phrase that Obama does not have in his vocabulary
Where on earth did you come up with that? Not only did you read far more into my post than was actually there, but you also invented an entire viewpoint and projected it onto me. It would also appear that you either didn't read or didn't understand the conversations on this thread before you kicked in the door and started indiscriminately shooting.
As much as I hate it (because my son is a career soldier who is about to be deployed a fifth time) I would rather we stay there until we get Onada out of the WH. It will be much harder and costly (casualty wise) to retake ground we had been controlling. Leaving only gives the IslamoTerrorists free rein to subjugate the population and dig in.
We’re all frustrated, but we must not let that drive us to making bad decisions that will make the future more difficult. We are where we are today precisely because politicians made expedient, but not correct choices.
“We should level the place, do it quickly and be done with it and send a very clear message to the world - you enable people to hurt our interests and people and you will be dead - PERIOD.”
How about the Saudis? They provided most of the money and most of the lunatics who carried out the 9/11 attacks. Should we bloody them a bit as well?
So we can not shoot or kill the Taliban. Such insanity !The Taliban are civilians.
Works for me.
Good point.
“We should have bombed the mountainous border regions flat and then left. Once the troops were on the ground, the outcome was predictable. Invading Iraq and Afghanistan were the dumbest military moves since Custer decided to pimp with some Indians.
What is a win now? Keeping the crook Karzai in power? Does anyone really think we can turn this place into a civilized country?”
Talk about hitting the nail on the head. Well said!
I for one am for killing millions, hell tens of millions of moslems. They killed US on 9/11, we have to create a mathematical equation that will convince them that attack US is the worse thing they could possibly do.
They kill 3000, we kill 30 million. 10,000 to 1. At that rate they lose. You see.
Because let me tell you that when the moslems get the capability to put US on the losing end of this equation they will, and then the question will be.....
would THE MULLAHS advise THEY pull all of THEIR terrorists out and indiscriminately kill a few million AMERICANS from afar? ... AND THE ANSWER WILL BE ALLAH AKBAR!!!
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