My cousin's report from Iraq...

[Tear Down This Wall]

My cousin got some R&R time during the Christmas break and we discussed the Iraq situation on the ground during his visit home. What he told me was not encouraging, but not because of the troops or the President. He told me pretty much what I suspected, troops are sometimes hesistant to fire because of the hell they face afterwards from their own side!

The vast majority of Iraq is stable, he said. They know where the bad guys are and where the trouble areas are. It's no great mystery to anyone involved up and down the chain of command. The problem is that some people in the chain of command are...how do I put this delicately...trying to tell our soldiers and Marines to fight the battle with their heads up their as*ses.

The example he gave...
In his area, very near Baghdad, our Corp of Engineers will pave a road or fix a road. The terrorists will then blow a hole in the road with an IED. Our genius plan is then to send our guys back out to repair the hole with cement.

After cementing the hole in the ground, a few folks must be left behind to guards the repair while it dries. While standing around the drying repair, they come under fire.

Now this is where it gets batshi*t crazy on our military's part...

Get this...the terrorists have figured out that our military isn't allowed to fire if there are unarmed civilians nearby - or as my cousin put it, "Since we're the only nation on earth that follows the Geneva Convention...." So, the terrorists force (or not force) a bunch of civilians to stand around, so they can take pot shots at our guys.

Anyway, my cousin told me a group who got pinned down behind their vehicle in this situation, saw where the enemy fire was coming from, but couldn't return fire because there were unarmed civilians in the area! WTF!

So, even though the group pinned down knew where the enemy was, knew they had the fire power within their unit to take the enemy down, they couldn't do anything.

Now, here's the even crazier, f'd up part of the whole deal...

In this situation, they couldn't fire on the terrorists, but...after a certain point, they are allowed to call in air power (Apaches or whatever is nearby) to blow the crap out of the area the terrorists are fighting from!!!

Again, I say, WTF!?!? Our troops can't fire upon the enemy if civilians are standing around (voluntarily or involuntarily), but after a certain point, the helicopters and jet fighters can come in a blow the whole area to hell?

Also, if they ever fire upon the enemy, they have to write up a report and go before the military version of a police review board. So, my cousin says, sometimes they just don't fire because they are unsure. It's insane!

Can you imagine Patton or MacArthur with a damn review board? What in the hell is going on with our military bureaucrats and attorneys?

And we going to let the soldiers and Marines fight the damn war or not? If not, I'm getting on the "pull them the f*ck out of there" train. You can't send trained soldiers and Marines into battle, then send them before a f'ing damn review board when the do the damn job they've been trained and sent over there to do!

It's un-f'ing-believable how they expect us to fight. Our p*ssy politicians, lawyers, and bureaucrats back home are so damn worried about bad publicity that they have kids like my cousin out there second guessing themselves in life and death situations - and sometime telling them they can't make that decision!

Screw that bullsh*t. My cousin has seven more months on his tour. I pray to God our f'd up policy doesn't get him killed.

Also, he noted, not to my surprise, that many of the women in his unit make a conscious effort to get pregnant once they are deployed so they will be sent back home. What a bunch of crap. It's what we get for letting Patricia Schroeder and other leftist/feminist dykes impose their f'd up view of what the military should be back in the late 80s and early 90s.

What a damn joke. Leave the damn women back in the states where they belong! Anyone with a brain in their heads could see that having women out there on the front lines with men was going to be a colossal cluster f*ck.

It pis*ses me off to no end that our d*ckless politicians, bureaucrats, and attorneys back home have turned the military is to some p*ssified bunch of kids wondering whether or not they should fire their weapons when the damn enemy is firing on them!

Dammit, fight this damn war or don't fight it! But, for God sake's don't send those kids out there with one hand tied to their dick by some f'n bureaucratic lawyer/politicans back in D.C.!

[OklahomaRed]

Can you say liberal left wing media with an agenda? Can you say Democratic representatives (Nancy Pelosi)? I say get our troops the heck out of there if we are not going to allow them to fight a "war". To hades with all this "police action" BS.

[Tear Down This Wall]

It's not so much the media, although they are lying about the overall situation according to my cousin. It's the people - mainly non-military - who have imposed engagement rules on our soldiers and Marine that are not realistic.

Look, the Geneva Convention either applies to everyone or it doesn't. If the other side isn't following it, we shouldn't have to follow it either. If an unarmed civilian is helping terrorists, that civilian should be fair game.

This legal hairsplitting on the battlefield is wrong. It's keeping us from sweeping the known areas of bad guys and, in some case, from being able to chase them down. And, most of all, it's keeping our soldiers and Marines from defending themselves. In-f'ing-sane.

[RUSH LIMBAUGH is my clone!]

OklahomaRed, Your choice is exactly what the dims want you to make. Maybe you knew that already?

[TheHumanAlphabet]

I blame CNN and lawyers...

Prove to me I am wrong.

[Widescreen]

Amazing story. The democrats seem to think that Americans are opposed to the war because it's hopeless. I would argue that Americans are opposed to the war because it's not being fought to win, so why let our troops be in the line of fire? We no longer have the political backbone to win a protracted conflict and it's disgusting. I thought we had learned some lessons in Vietnam about letting our folks do what they need to do to win. Apparently not.

[Mjcpr]

I can't believe the dims have enacted this handicaping policy in the 11 days they've been in office. Those bastards are evil and they work fast. :mad:

[jk the sooner fan]

i'm told that the ROE has been changed......significantly

we'll see

[OklahomaTuba]

I hope so.

This country should NEVER go to war with our hands tied behind our backs. If that hasn't change, we should just follow the advice of JM and the other libz on this board and come home, dig a whole in the sand, insert our head, drop the trou, and let AQ and Iran anal rape us, cause thats what this type of thinking is going to get us.

BTW, that new General is interesting...


The new US ground commander picked by President Bush to direct the military “surge” into Iraq believes that the war can be won with a radical change of tactics: those used by the British in Malaya and Ulster.

Lieutenant-General David Petraeus, handed perhaps the toughest US military assignment since the Vietnam War — to stabilise Iraq and defeat its militias — is one of the Army’s premier intellectuals and a devoted student of counter-insurgency techniques used by the British and French during the last century.

General Petraeus, who has spent 2½ of the past 4 years in Iraq, has been one of the few officers advocating a troop surge into Baghdad. He believes that a new approach, based on soldiers living and patrolling amid the population and co-opting local leaders, can halt the slide into chaos. ...

A key lesson General Petraeus draws from Vietnam, compared to Malaya, is that the US Army is historically unprepared to fight insurgencies. The American military has overwhelming force for conventional combat but, without the British experience of empire, is intellectually unequipped to deal with the subtleties of guerrilla war.

The British, with their colonial history, are far better at combining local diplomacy with military force, a model General Petraeus wants to emulate.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,3-2541457,00.html#cid=OTC-RSS&attr=World

[dolemitesooner]

If what you say is true then I am truley sick

[fadada1]

i think i mentioned this before...

i have a cousin that was a fighter pilot in vietnam. did 3 tours: 1- as a flight instructor very early in the war to the south vietnamese, 2- off a carrier in a crusader. over 300 combat missions and a navy cross on his chest. retired with 2 stars on his shoulders.

we had to write a paper my freshman year at OU... interview someone that had been in vietnam during the war, in any capacity. anyway, i interviewed him and he wrote me a long letter explaining what he did/saw/felt. it closed with a very strong message - he fought with one hand tied behind his back, much like the men on the ground did. he went on to explain that when "my" war came (as he promised it would), he hoped the men in "power" would do things the right way and go in 100%.

looking back at his letter from 18 years ago, i see the same thing happening now that happened then. our men simply aren't allowed to fight to win. maybe it's different in some ways, but our men are being killed because they are afraid of the consequences. the consequences of war are death... and they are no doubt scared of being killed. they shouldn't be scared that they'll spend 10 years in ft. levenworth for trying to keep themselves alive.

best wishes for you cousin, TDTW. may he come home safely.

[tbl]

We need something really bad to happen... Like, really bad. Maybe then they'll see that *****footing around a FRIGGIN WAR ZONE is not the best course of action. I'm not saying I'm for or against the war, I'm just saying that if our boys are there, they need to be able to do what men do in war... stay alive and kill the enemy.

I find it insane that they can't fire on them and actually pick off the terrorists, but they can carpet bomb the entire area. The logic behind that is... well, there is no logic.

I also wholeheartedly agree about women in the field of battle. Makes NO sense. NONE.

[Vaevictis]

Get this...the terrorists have figured out that our military isn't allowed to fire if there are unarmed civilians nearby (...)

In this situation, they couldn't fire on the terrorists, but...after a certain point, they are allowed to call in air power (Apaches or whatever is nearby) to blow the crap out of the area the terrorists are fighting from!!!

Meh, what a bunch of crap. The default rule should be not to fire into civilians, but the local leadership should be enabled to use its own judgment in the field.

ROE that are too restrictive are a major leadership failure.


And we going to let the soldiers and Marines fight the damn war or not? If not, I'm getting on the "pull them the f*ck out of there" train. You can't send trained soldiers and Marines into battle, then send them before a f'ing damn review board when the do the damn job they've been trained and sent over there to do!

If they end up firing amongst civilians, they should go before a review board, but the focus should not be on punishment, but to:

1. Verify that they did the right or at least reasonable thing under the circumstances.
2a. Commend them if they did. Doing the right and/or reasonable thing under fire should be well documented, as it identifies the kind of people you want to promote.
2b. Correct them in a non-disciplinary manner if they didn't.

The only time punishment should follow is if they exhibited negligent or criminal behavior.

All IMO, of course.

[NormanPride]

Meh, what a bunch of crap. The default rule should be not to fire into civilians, but the local leadership should be enabled to use its own judgment in the field.

ROE that are too restrictive are a major leadership failure.



If they end up firing amongst civilians, they should go before a review board, but the focus should not be on punishment, but to:

1. Verify that they did the right or at least reasonable thing under the circumstances.
2a. Commend them if they did. Doing the right and/or reasonable thing under fire should be well documented, as it identifies the kind of people you want to promote.
2b. Correct them in a non-disciplinary manner if they didn't.

The only time punishment should follow is if they exhibited negligent or criminal behavior.

All IMO, of course.

Yet another instance where I agree with you. Here's hoping this new Brit-loving general doesn't have his head up his ***. :mad:

[Vaevictis]

Here's hoping this new Brit-loving general doesn't have his head up his ***. :mad:

Look at it this way: At the very minimum, he's smart enough to recognize that the Europeans had centuries of experience with similar situations, and that maybe there's something to be learned there.

[JohnnyMack]

I hope so.

This country should NEVER go to war with our hands tied behind our backs. If that hasn't change, we should just follow the advice of JM and the other libz on this board and come home, dig a whole in the sand, insert our head, drop the trou, and let AQ and Iran anal rape us, cause thats what this type of thinking is going to get us.


Yep. That's exactly what I said. Mmmm Hmmm.

[TheHumanAlphabet]

ROE that are too restrictive are a major leadership failure.



If they end up firing amongst civilians, they should go before a review board, but the focus should not be on punishment, but to:

1. Verify that they did the right or at least reasonable thing under the circumstances.
2a. Commend them if they did. Doing the right and/or reasonable thing under fire should be well documented, as it identifies the kind of people you want to promote.
2b. Correct them in a non-disciplinary manner if they didn't.

The only time punishment should follow is if they exhibited negligent or criminal behavior.

All IMO, of course.

Totally agree, but the hand wringing, back seat driving leftist and anti-war people wouldn't let this happen.

We have a military machine here, they are trained to take ground and kill the enemy. They shouldn't have to worry about collateral damage unless they have done something that is patently illegal. I don't think the islamists care whether there is collateral damage as they fire indiscriminantly and bury bombs in roads and drive bombs into traffic...

[yermom]

maybe they should be educating the bystanders? (either by speaking their language, or shooting through them)

if they are standing around as human shields they are helping the bad guys, if they don't want to die, they should disperse

i'm not exactly pro-war, but damn

[Vaevictis]

Totally agree, but the hand wringing, back seat driving leftist and anti-war people wouldn't let this happen.

Yeah, because clearly, Bush is a hand wringing, back seat driving leftist anti-war person.

Has Nancy Pelosi been the uber-secret-Commander-Commander-In-Chief all these years or something? Who exactly do you think it is that sets the policies within the military? Hint: It's the guy in the Oval Office, not the people on Capital Hill.

[OklahomaTuba]

ROE that are too restrictive are a major leadership failure.


OH PLEASE! What a POS statement coming from you!

Once those ROE's are lifted, no doubt we will hear from people like you and your anti/war leftest tinfoil wearing nimrods about how our "dumb nazi-like murderous" troops are needlessly "killing and terrorizing civilians and those poor innocent "freedom fighters", etc cause they are brown and they have oil.

:rolleyes:

[Tear Down This Wall]

Guys,
I don't think trying to pin blame on Bush or Pelosi is particularly helpful. My best guess is neither one of them knows the first thing about standing on a battlefield with bullets flying all around.

What shocks me the most is that military people for the last couple of decades (or more, citing Korea and Vietnam) allowed so much bureaucracy into the mix that we get ROE that sound more appropriate for SWAT teams back home converging on a crime target in a civilian area.

How did this happen? I know I'm not the only one in here with relatives over there in the fight. And, I know many of you know folks that fought in Vietnam and Korea.

I feel betrayed. For 50+ years we've been sending our kids off to war, but not letting them fight? Maybe I'm naive, but until my cousin's visit, I thought we just weren't doing enough or didn't have enough people on the ground.

It turns out, that's not the problem at all. The problem is, they won't let those who are already there simply fight.

Why, for so long, are we not allowed to win? And, if not to win, to simply defend yourself and your fellow soliders in your unit? Has the military complex become so political that it is now indistiguishable from the civilian politicians and bureaucrats?

God help us if that's the case. And, God help all of those kids over there saddled with these ridiculous rules of engagement. I hope jk, that you're right and the rules of engagement are changing.

And, let me end with this, if the rules of engagement do change, and those changes bring about order and stability, I'm going to be p*ssed off royally about the time and lives wasted under the old rules.

I mean, really. Anybody who's posted on here longer than a month knows I've supported this war to the hilt. But, dammit, if we've had the answer all along and simply been holding back for the sake of better news headlines, I am going to be really, really tempted to vote to throw some more as*ses out of D.C. in 2008.

My rep, Sam Johnson, is Vietnam vet who was held as a POW for years. I swear, though, I'd vote him out in a minute if I thought he and others sat on information that said a rules of engagement change would end the whole damn problem. I honestly don't think I've ever been this mad about something political in my life.

[RUSH LIMBAUGH is my clone!]

Has Nancy Pelosi been the uber-secret-Commander-Commander-In-Chief all these years or something? Who exactly do you think it is that sets the policies within the military? Hint: It's the guy in the Oval Office, not the people on Capital Hill.PLEASE, this is either incredibly naive, or deliberately manipulative, and DEAD WRONG! Why do you suppose the administration has been *****-footing? It's fear of the dim media and all the power they wield.
I'm thinking Bush has now got a new sense of courage, not fearing the media so much, and just wanting to succeed.

[fadada1]

yup.

very frustrating. and if it's this frustrating from where we stand, think about what it's like for our men.

i'm a past sailor, and am proud of my time and will always support those putting themselves in harms way. i have changed my tune as to the validity and necessity of this war - there is none.

[Xstnlsooner]

REMFS!!!

Read some of Hackworth's books. Typical bureacratic bs!!

None of this surprises me, just p*sses me off!

[Widescreen]

This is exactly why Iraq has been run the way it has thus far. This is in regard to what's been going on in Somalia but it could just as easily relate to Iraq.

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/e629d56a-a18b-11db-8bc1-0000779e2340.html


The strike was criticised by the European Commission, as well as the Arab League which claimed it had killed “many innocent victims” and demanded that Washington refrain from further attacks. There were no accurate casualty figures.

[TheHumanAlphabet]

Like the EC and the A-Rab League know anything. I say screw 'em.

[soonerboomer93]

I think the problem is how the American public reacts to the death of civilians and how we view them. Personally, if they're standing around while a conflict is going on near them, they should know to get the **** out of there or they might get hurt/killed. I know I would.

We can learn a lot from the Isreali's on how to fight in this situation.

[RUSH LIMBAUGH is my clone!]

I think the problem is how the American public reacts to the death of civilians and how we view them. Personally, if they're standing around while a conflict is going on near them, they should know to get the **** out of there or they might get hurt/killed. I know I would.

We can learn a lot from the Isreali's on how to fight in this situation.Our dim MSM controlled public opinion in the last election, and they are flexing their muscles every day, doing every thing they can think of to persuade the American people that Bush is incompetent and a bad person.
They should be reporting our combat and humanitarian successes, instead of only reporting civilian and US casualties.

[usmc-sooner]

I think we've reached the point where we have been overloaded with politics, the media, school systems, have moved to far left. We're overloaded with PC crap. We've actually reached a point where we criticize our Marines and Soldiers for doing things that we glorify in our own streets. I know we've got some huge bleeding heart liberals on this board but things have got out of hand.

Personally my thoughts have always been you pop a civilian and come under a review you can walk away from it. You let a civilian come between you and death and you get popped, there's no walking away from it.

I had LCpl asking me a similiar question about when to shoot. I told him when you feel you need to. It was regarding standing guard duty. I'd rather take the heat for killing the wrong person than have the wrong person kill me.
Just me.
Honestly I think we should drop the righteous hammer of God on these people and see if Allah cares to weigh in. We can live with the Cal Berkley hippie/liberal protests but we win. But I'm not the one who makes the call.

[soonerboomer93]

Humanitarian success isn't shocking and only matters if a celeb is heading it

[Tear Down This Wall]

I'd rather take the heat for killing the wrong person than have the wrong person kill me.
Just me.


The whole problem isn't so much killing the wrong person. But, from what my cousin reported, they know, most of the time, where the enemy fire is coming from, so they know where the right people to kill are. The problem has been that if unarmed people are nearby, you can't go kill the right person.

Apparently, you must wait to be pinned down by gunfire, then call in whatever air support is nearby at the time to blow the whole thing to hell.

I don't understand it at all. It seems to me that if they'd just let the soliders and Marines go get the bad guys, they could simply by-pass the supposedly innocent bystander. They'd find out during the attack whether or not such bystanders were innocent or not.

As it stands, they don't know. They just have to assume any unarmed bystander is innocent with innocent motives and be pinned down. It's just nuts.

I personally couldn't do it. If I were over there and it was their as*s or mine, and I've got my wife and 10 month old boy at home, I'd be killing them all and letting God sort them out. I sure as hell wouldn't be worried about some review board. But, apparently, the review board has put more fear in them than the terrorists.

Just crazy.

[85Sooner]

I want to send our troops to washington for target practice!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Tear Down This Wall]

Agreed.