Robust discussion, but I am going to cut off comments. Sorry. I will make an update to this post in the coming days, and if you like, you can continue comments on the newer post.

Spam Karma II is not doing some things that I want: I am having to moderate comments that it should not be catching, and it is letting some things go through (e.g., trackbacks) that I don’t want. I cannot baby sit this any more. You don’t want to read some of the trackbacks I am getting.

I try to be automatic and open with comments and trackbacks, but I need to take a step back from this one for a while. If you want to make suggestions for an updated post, please send me mail. If you absolutely must update something that has been said here, or respond to something someone said to you, please send me mail and I will make it happen.

In the mean time, I need to go back to my day job.

We are talking across each other here. While the fifty pages of legal mumbo-jumbo that the SJAs have written, hoping to be able to make their bones by frying some infantry private, are indeed classified, it’s customary to provide a declassified ROE extract to the troops.

A staff weenie might not know or remember this from his youth when he served with, you know, troops.

There are innumerable examples of the chilling effect our legalistic military culture has on operations — some already have been cited. I’m not even a Marine, but I certainly haven’t forgotten how USMC lawyers went all-out to make an example of Ilario Pantano. Maj. Rentner may feel that this had no effect, because Lt. Pantano was not convicted and thrown in the brig… despite the best efforts of 8th and I, the Pentagon, and the news media (all of which should be considered in the “enemy” paragraph of your OPORD).

Of course, Pantano’s Marine career was over. His reputation was in tatters. His unit and his Marines were all defamed and slimed. And the aggressive JAGs just collected a commendation medal and moved on to the next target.

Let me step back from the Marines a bit, not (as I said) being one, and let’s look at another incident, from early in the war in Afghanistan. A key enemy leader was spotted by a Predator drone thousands of overhead. The Pred, operated at that time by another government agency, was one of the earliest armed UAVs. The end of this monster, who was responsible for atrocities of the grimmest bestiality (as well as repsponsible for the destruction of the Bamian Buddhas and other vital parts of the world’s cultural heritage) was only a keystroke away.

However, an SJA at CENTCOM threw a hissy fit and would not allow firing on the gentleman’s motorcade. He remains in the top three HVTs in that theater (stripped of acronyms, that means the sonofableep is still at large — thank you, military-legal community, al-Qaeda’s best ally since the Associated Press).

(I could also make an entire post on nutless commanders who let judge advocates dictate to them, but that’s another story).

Then there are the investigations. It definitely sends a message for troops to be told that the training-ammo account is scraping the bottom, while investigations — however farfetched — clearly have no budget limitations whatever.

It doesn’t matter that 98% of the time the investigation clears the soldier or Marine involved. It doesn’t matter that the innocent accused win acquittal at court-martial. While once it was possible to resume a military career after being cleared by a military court, that’s not the case today in the zero-defects atmosphere of the career military.

Nobody thinks: “Gee, if I cap these guys, my squad’ll be safe, and if I get prosecuted maybe I’ll beat the rap and get a book deal!” Instead, he’s thinking, “If I cap these guys, I might be hung out to dry.”

Then we could address the whole area of detainee rules and policy. Any prisoner you take can turn you into a prisoner instead — and, unlike him, you will be guilty until proven innocent. The consequences of this are predictable, and they are not good, but that is exactly what the JAGs have wrought.

Absent the full language of any such ROE change, I can’t know the context of the claimed quote, and I can’t judge how giving commanders the option to limit self-defense is intended. Nor is it possible for me to know the veracity of the claims in the quotes. I’ve gotten first hand experience at how the media invents quotes out of thin air, so I don’t ever assume that anonymous, or even named sources are reported accurately.

I could speculate that such an option would be intended for certain missions and areas where it is an appropriate rule. Say, you’re in the Green Zone (never been there myself, so this is wild speculation on my part) or in the Kurdish cities where there is little to no enemy activity. Perhaps it has gotten to the point that you don’t need all the admin clerks carrying rifles at all times, and there is enough security that any gun play is much more likely to be an accident than self-defense. Perhaps this is the intent, to allow local commanders some flexibility in the future. But we can’t know from these news blurbs what the import of this is, even if it is true. The rules are classified, and any mention of them in the media is going to be potentially misleading.

It’s good to have you participating here. You certainly sound like a former S6.

But could you comment on the bit in the blog article about the recently revised ROE?

You are misinformed. Congress does not make the ROE. The commander in chief does, and he typically delegates that to his commanders.

People who have never served in the line of fire are making the rules. If the Soldier or Marine breaks that rule and defends himself he may spend 20 years in a military penitentiary.

This is why they are afraid of pulling the trigger. They would rather die with honor than spend there life disgraced and dishonorably discharged.

Death before Dishonor

We are going down the same road as the Romans.

ROE.

Here are two simple pieces of evidence, sufficient to condemn our current rules as being beneficial to the enemy.

Maybe you should have read further up the post where Herschel acknowledged that he had talked to Mike via email. Implied from that was that he and Mike had talked and they had come to a new understanding that would allow for Mike to continue posting, since Herschel now understood more of his position.

I take it from your posting that you, of course, are a member of the Armed Forces and therefore understand the nuances of what is being discussed by two professional military officers. That’s how you determined Mike was “winning.” Otherwise, you were talking without knowing context or perspective, and I know you wouldn’t have done something so inane.

Mike,

The problem I have is not with the ROE, but maybe better phrased as being with the way the investigations are carried out. My incident was during the combat phase of the operation and made by a single soldier who was 50-75 meters away, and had no corroboration with it. The very heavy handed way that CID conducted itself made me view them in an extremely unfavorable light. They made numerous other allegations during the interrogations, like my soldiers were shooting up dogs on the way in, in an attempt to get my guys to confess to things they had not done. They seemed more interested in getting someone to confess rather than finding out the truth.

Combat is confusing, as you well know. Yes, there are soldiers who will act in morally objectionable ways, but they are the exception, and they should be treated as such. To investigate every shooting in an area full of shootings turns combat into an administrative police action. We are not, nor should we be treated like, the police. My opinion is that unless evidence comes forward that indicates intentional wrongdoing, nothing should be done. Again, that is giving the soldier the benefit of the doubt in every case. That might seem primitive, but soldiers WILL hesitate at the moment of truth if they fear consequences, real or imagined. 95% are good kids who know the difference between right and wrong.

There is also the “CNN factor.” A lot of these incidents, like the one in Fallujah last year, are picked up by the press who try and convict our soldiers w/o trial, which is damaging to both them and the Army. Do you think we should let American soldiers die b/c they reacted a second too late b/c they might have been worried how it looked on the news?

BTW, the CNN factor was part of why my guys were investigated so harshly – a reporter was around when the trucker made his allegation, and it got picked up by a few news services. Even when my guys were exonerated as having done the right thing, the news guys never printed a retraction.

So the ROE might not be the problem – the way it is investigated is.