Posted on 08/20/2006 6:22:39 AM PDT by kellynla
We call it "the war in Iraq." But to many of the Marines here, it's not really a war – at least not on their side.
"They are fighting a war," a Marine from 3rd Battalion, 3rd Marine Regiment tells me – "they" meaning the insurgents lurking "outside the wire" of a Marine forward operating base in the Euphrates River town of Barwanah, in western Al Anbar province.
"But us?" the Marine goes on. "We aren't fighting a war. We're just doing a police action."
The young Marine is right. While the insurgents here and throughout Iraq battle American Marines and soldiers with deadly weapons of warfare – IEDs ("improvised explosive devices," or roadside bombs), sniper attacks, mortars, two of which exploded near this forward operating base just the day before – the Marines have to respond under "rules of engagement," or "ROEs," that would be familiar to any cop in America.
Are the Marines catching sniper rounds from a cluster of buildings in the city? In a conventional war, that would be reason enough to light up the buildings with suppressive fire.
But under the Iraq ROEs, unless the Marines get "P.I.D." or "positive identification" – eyes on a guy with a rifle, or a muzzle flash, something very localized and specific – they can't fire back.
Do the Marines see four young males fleeing the scene of an IED attack? The Marines can try to chase them down in vehicles or on foot – this while the Marines are carrying 60 or 70 pounds of equipment on their backs – but they can't even fire warning shots from their M-16s, much less lethal ones, to try to make them stop.
(Excerpt) Read more at ocregister.com ...
Under the rules, if the suspects are running away, if they pose no direct and immediate threat to the Marines, the most the Marines can do is shoot "pyro," small flares, as a warning – a warning that Marines believe simply leaves the fleeing enemy laughing.
The Marines here know they are under close scrutiny – by the press, by the politicians and by the often fickle American public. And that knowledge permeates almost everything they do. But no one should doubt that American Marines and soldiers are paying for their restraint, and for the American concern about civilian casualties.
They are paying for it in blood – their own blood."
Every American should have to read this! again and again and again!
Semper Fi, Kelly
ping!
Fact.
bttt
Ahh the joys of lawyers running a war!
"Unnamed sources" yet again. I would expect after being lied to by the junk media over and over and over, that the Usual Whiners would finnally learn NOT to take every word they read in the Junk Media seriously. I say your sources are pure fiction make up by an Anti War bigot pretending to be a "Journalists" prove me wrong.
Your tag-line is funny in context to the article, no?
One can only throw up their hands whenever they read a post by someone on FR commenting on how scandals such as Abu Gharib was much ado about nothing. It was not. Such bad press ensured the very harmful restraints on our troops that the above mentioned article details - all put in place in order to prevent any more bad news.
"But us?" the Marine goes on. "We aren't fighting a war. We're just doing a police action."
... Vietnam?
From the terrorist perspective, terrorism is war against democracies and life. It is meant to cause death, suffering and anguish among civilian masses in pursuit of political gain.
Given the chasm in values between mass killers and people firmly adhering to the right to life (and a lot of other rights), it seems the Patriot Act, National Security agency eavesdropping and restrictions on liquids aboard aircraft are minor indeed.
This conundrum of belief between terrorism and America -- in fact, the West -- must consequently alter how we view and wage this war on terror in the future. Before Iran has a nuclear weapon, we might rethink our values and moral restrictions or ask ourselves how many lives would we be ready to lose.
http://www.washtimes.com/commentary/20060815-094230-5612r.htm
Word up!
Actually, I've long thought that unless we take the gloves off, this is going to be much more of a struggle than it needs to be. The events in Abu Grahib, Haditha and Mahmoudiya have taught us, at the very least, that our side fights under tremendous "PC" handicaps. The other side has no such handicaps; to them, anything goes.
"But no one should doubt that American Marines and soldiers are paying for their restraint, and for the American concern about civilian casualties."
...with defeat!
Why are the vast bulk of the forces fighting and dying on OUR side are Muslim Iraqis?
Because we are fight the war smart instead of following the dogma of the "Nuke Fullgha Now" know nothings with their desperation to recreate the Soviet experience in Afghanistan for us in Iraq.
Conventional War and Anti Terrorist ops are completely different missions. Way past types FReepers come to grip with this fact instead of complaining endlessly about it
Let me be a little more clear:
VIETNAM... VIETNAM... VIETNAM... VIETNAM... VIETNAM... VIETNAM... VIETNAM... VIETNAM... VIETNAM... VIETNAM... VIETNAM... VIETNAM... VIETNAM... VIETNAM... VIETNAM... VIETNAM... VIETNAM... VIETNAM... VIETNAM... VIETNAM... VIETNAM... VIETNAM... VIETNAM... VIETNAM... VIETNAM... VIETNAM... VIETNAM... VIETNAM... VIETNAM... VIETNAM... VIETNAM... VIETNAM... VIETNAM... VIETNAM... VIETNAM... VIETNAM... VIETNAM... VIETNAM... VIETNAM... VIETNAM... VIETNAM... VIETNAM... VIETNAM... VIETNAM... VIETNAM... VIETNAM... VIETNAM... VIETNAM... VIETNAM... VIETNAM... VIETNAM... VIETNAM... VIETNAM... VIETNAM... VIETNAM... VIETNAM... VIETNAM... VIETNAM... VIETNAM... VIETNAM... VIETNAM... VIETNAM... VIETNAM... VIETNAM... VIETNAM... VIETNAM... VIETNAM... VIETNAM... VIETNAM... VIETNAM... VIETNAM... VIETNAM... VIETNAM... VIETNAM... VIETNAM... VIETNAM... VIETNAM... VIETNAM... VIETNAM... VIETNAM... VIETNAM... VIETNAM... VIETNAM... VIETNAM... VIETNAM... VIETNAM... VIETNAM... VIETNAM... VIETNAM... VIETNAM... VIETNAM... VIETNAM... VIETNAM... VIETNAM... VIETNAM... VIETNAM...
At some point, the chair warmers and lawyers will have to give way to warriors, and the Dogs of War will be unleashed.
'Til then, our brave Marines and Soldiers will be wounded and die under these ridiculous RoE. Whoever came up with them should be awarded the Al Quaida Medal of Honor.
This is exactly what I have been told by several area soldiers who have come back from Iraq. Sickening, isn't it???
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Two Marine Corps
by William S. Lind
by William S. Lind
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Since sometime before Caesar was a lance corporal, the United States Marine Corps’ greatest fear has been becoming "a second land army." It has long believed that if the country perceived it had two armies, it would require one to go away, and that one would be the Marine Corps. It is therefore ironic that the United States now finds itself with not one, but two Marine Corps, and the final result may be that both disappear.
Almost any Marine knows the two Marine Corps of which I speak. One is the heir of the maneuver warfare movement of the 1970s and 80s, of Al Gray and Warfighting, of free play training, officer education focused on how to think, not what to do, of the belief that the highest goal of all Marines is winning in combat with the smallest possible losses. This is the Marine Corps that led the advance to Baghdad in the first phase of the ongoing war in Iraq. It is also the Marine Corps that recently "fought smart" in Fallujah by not taking the city.
The other Marine Corps’ highest goal is programs, money and bureaucratic success "inside the Beltway." Its priorities are absurdities such as the MV-22 "Albatross" and reviving the 1990s "Sea Worm" project under the label "distributed operations," which are referred to openly at Quantico as "putting lipstick on a pig." This Marine Corps is anti-intellectual, sees the First Generation culture of order as sacred, believes that sufficient rank justifies any idiot and regards politics, not combat, as the "real world."
Regrettably, in the war between these two Marine Corps, the second one is winning. I recently encountered a horrifying example of its success at the Marine Corps Command & Staff School at Quantico. At the end of this academic year, the Command & Staff faculty simply got rid of 250 copies of Martin van Creveld’s superb book, Fighting Power. This book, which lays out the fundamental difference between the Second Generation U.S. Army in World War II and the Third Generation Wehrmacht, is one of the seven books of "the canon," the readings that take you from the First Generation into the Fourth. It should be required reading for every Marine Corps and Army officer.
When I asked someone associated with Command & Staff how such a thing could be done, he replied that the faculty has decided it "doesn’t like" van Creveld. This is similar to a band of Hottentots deciding they "don’t like" Queen Victoria. Martin van Creveld is perhaps the most perceptive military historian now writing. But in the end, the books went; future generations of students at Command & Staff won’t have them.
A friend who attended the last Marine Corps General Officers’ conference reported the same division between the two Marine Corps. The officers from the field, he said, had completely different concerns from those stationed in Washington. They were ships passing in the night. But it is the interests of the Washington Marine Corps, not those in the field, that determine Marine Corps policy. And that policy is affected little, if at all, by the two wars in which Marines are now fighting.
Throughout my years as a Senate staffer, the Marine Corps’ clout on Capitol Hill was envied by the other services. The Marine Corps then had little money and not much interest in programs. Its message to Congress and to the American public was, "We’re not like the other services. We aren’t about money and stuff. We’re about war." That message brought the Corps unrivalled public and political support.
In the mid-1990s, the Marine Corps changed its message and, without realizing what it was doing, abandoned its successful grand strategy for survival. The new message became, "We are just like the other services. We too are now about money and programs." And that new message is what now dominates Headquarters Marine Corps and Quantico. Thinking about war is out; money and stuff is in. In effect, the Marine Corps has sat down at the highest-stakes poker game in the world, American defense politics, with 25 cents in its pocket. It simply cannot compete with the Army, Navy or Air Force at buying Congressional and public support. But it is determined to try.
If the dumb (and increasingly corrupt) "Washington" Marine Corps finally triumphs over the smart, Warfighting Marine Corps, in the end both will disappear. And that will be a shame, because the smart Marine Corps, Al Gray’s Marine Corps, really had something going. It was on its way to becoming the first American Third Generation armed service.
Maybe Martin van Creveld’s next book should be The Rise and Decline of the United States Marine Corps.
June 5, 2004
William Lind [send him mail] is Director of the Center for Cultural Conservatism at the Free Congress Foundation.
Copyright © 2004 William S. Lind
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BTTT
Politicians are not generals. Thus we are likely to make the same mistakes that were made in Viet Nam. We all know politicians never learn, and definitely never change.
I really hope we are making a difference. The different messages we are getting from the front are confusing. No wonder the war on terror in iraq is losing support.
Just like Viet Nam, the enemy is winning the propaganda war with the help of a willing and complicit news media.
How many years will it be before Americans are evacuated from the Embassy in Baghdad by chopper as Hezbollah and Al Queda militia march into the city? The ideological clensing is already taking place. Killing innocent Iraqis with car bombs and the kidnapping of pro government officials is scaring the people into subservience with the terror islamofacists.
We can kill the cockroaches. But there are millions more being brainwashed every day.
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