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August 31, 2007

Our GIs fear lawyers more than death

The rules of engagement under which our troops fight represent the unrealistic -- some might say insane -- belief that wars can be fought in a surgical, antiseptic fashion. This expectation is risible, propounded only by politicans who have never served in harm's way and academics who have never studied military history.

Blogger Herschel Smith puts the current dysfuntional rules in historical prespective, before turning to a real-world example of how bad things have become for our fighting men.

A recent Washington Times commentary gives us food for thought concerning application of rules of engagement in combat action in Afghanistan.

Now that Marcus Luttrell’s book “Lone Survivor: The Eyewitness Account of Operation Redwing and the Lost Heroes of Seal Team 10″ is a national bestseller, maybe Americans are ready to start discussing the core issue his story brings to light: the inverted morality, even insanity, of the American military’s rules of engagement (ROE).

On a stark mountaintop in Afghanistan in 2005, Leading Petty Officer Luttrell and three Navy SEAL teammates found themselves having just such a discussion. Dropped behind enemy lines to kill or capture a Taliban kingpin who commanded between 150-200 fighters, the SEAL team was unexpectedly discovered in the early stages of a mission whose success, of course, depended on secrecy. Three unarmed Afghan goatherds, one a teenager, had stumbled across the Americans’ position.

This presented the soldiers with an urgent dilemma: What should they do? If they let the Afghans go, they would probably alert the Taliban to the their whereabouts. This would mean a battle in which the Americans were outnumbered by at least 35 to 1. “Little Big Horn in turbans,” as Marcus Luttrell would describe it. If the Americans didn’t let the goatherds go — if they killed them, there being no way to hold them — the Americans would avoid detection and, most likely, leave the area safely. On a treeless mountainscape far from home, four of our bravest patriots came to the ghastly conclusion that the only way to save themselves was forbidden by the rules of engagement. Such an action would set off a media firestorm, and lead to murder charges for all.

It is agonizing to read their tense debate as Mr. Luttrell recounts it, the “lone survivor” of the disastrous mission. Each of the SEALs was aware of “the strictly correct military decision” — namely, that it would be suicide to let the goatherds live. But they were also aware that their own country, for which they were fighting, would ultimately turn on them if they made that decision. It was as if committing suicide had become the only politically correct option. For fighting men ordered behind enemy lines, such rules are not only insane. They’re immoral.

The SEALs sent the goatherds on their way. One hour later, a sizeable Taliban force attacked, beginning a horrendous battle that resulted not only in the deaths of Mr. Luttrell’s three SEAL teammates, but also the deaths of 16 would-be rescuers — eight additional SEALS and eight Army special operations soldiers whose helicopter was shot down by a Taliban rocket-propelled grenade.

“Look at me right now in my story,” Mr. Luttrell writes. “Helpless, tortured, shot, blown up, my best buddies all dead, and all because we were afraid of the liberals back home, afraid to do what was necessary to save our own lives. Afraid of American civilian lawyers. I have only one piece of advice for what it’s worth: If you don’t want to get into a war where things go wrong, where the wrong people sometimes get killed, where innocent people sometimes have to die, then stay the hell out of it in the first place.”

It might have been that firing on the goatherds would have divulged their position to the enemy. But assuming the accuracy of the scenario given to us above, i.e., it is possible for Luttrell and his team to have killed the goatherds and avoided the combat caused by divulging their position, then a different choice should have been made in this instance.

Another complicating factor is that the Luttrells’s team could only surmise that the goatherds would give away their position. They could not know with absolute certainty. In the end, they were right in their suspicion, but either way, the moral of the story is that in such situations certainty is not possible and thus should not be required.

[N]o one wants to see teams of U.S. forces hamstrung by rules that are made out to be rigid and inflexible when taught to them, but which cannot possibly be applied that way in a broken and complex world. Latitude and professional judgment should be the order of the day.

Unfortunately, politicians and lawyers have forced the troops into the unbelievable position of choosing death and defeat over survival and victory. Because death in battle is preferable to dishonor in a court of law.

Posted by Mike Lief at August 31, 2007 12:32 PM | TrackBack

Comments

Although rules of engagement are certainly ridiculous in many circumstances, the mission in which Luttrell participated is not among them. There are no rules of engagement that would permit the intentional killing of an unarmed and unaffiliated civilian. And Luttrell's squad operated under fairly permissive ROE anyway.

The scenario Luttrell's squad faced is taught repeatedly in military leadership courses. The answer is always difficult, but the choices are always the same: You either kill the civilians or leave the area immediately. Luttrell's squad did neither.

Posted by: Billy Machen at August 31, 2007 06:16 PM

The scenario Luttrell's squad faced is taught repeatedly in military leadership courses. The answer is always difficult, but the choices are always the same: You either kill the civilians or leave the area immediately. Luttrell's squad did neither.

They did not leave the area because their entire raison d'être is to accomplish the mission. That they hesitated, failed to take the second, unpleasant-but-necessary course of action -- the one taught in those training cadres -- is entirely a result of lawfare waged with increasing vigor against our own troops, as our willingness to aggressively wage war against our enemies becomes ever-more attenuated.

I'd have preferred 19 of our fighting men survived the battle, achieved victory, even at the cost of civilian -- and unavoidable -- casualties.

Posted by: Mike Lief at August 31, 2007 09:03 PM

Not only did they fail to accomplish their mission, but Luttrell's squad also contributed to the deaths of 16 other guys. The mission was tactical recon. Stealth was the means. They blew it in many ways. Not all dead people are heroes or victims. Some kill themselves.

Posted by: Billy Machen at August 31, 2007 10:35 PM

You're an asshat, Billy. You speak with the unctuous pomposity that comes with accusing our fighting men of killing their own guys. Only a Jane Fonda type traitor could have the balls to make a statement like that.

That squad was guilty of nothing except following the ROE to the fullest spirit and letter. They blew it only because the way the ROE are taught doesn't allow for every contingency.

However, I don't understand why, since they knew they were risking being exposed by the goatherds, they didn't come to the conclusion that these locals were collaberating with the enemy, and thereby justify the killing? Maybe that's against the ROE, too.

Posted by: sonarman at September 1, 2007 08:09 PM

If the U.S. National interests were really at stake and the U.S. were in a fight to the finish, the rules would go out the window. The petty enforcement of rules of war offer proof that we should not be in Iraq.

Posted by: Brad at September 1, 2007 11:47 PM

That's just retarded - "The petty enforcement of rules of war offer proof that we should not be in Iraq."

That's like saying "The petty enforcement of traffic laws offer proof that we should not drive our cars."

There have been rules of war for centuries - the oxymoron of making killing massive amounts of people civilized.

These rules have gotten so out of hand (read politically correct) in recent years that the handwringers can't stomach any killing of the enemy, so they make it difficult to do so in a "civilized" manner. That leaves our guys standing on a corner waiting for someone to shoot at them, while their hands are tied. Then it becomes a vicious circle because our guys are getting slaughtered because they can't fight back. The handwringers then cry that our boys are getting killed, so we should quit. But they can't fight back because the ROE won't let them. It's madness that only liberals can understand.

Posted by: sonarman at September 4, 2007 09:57 AM

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