No Bombs: We’re Praying.
By sideways | Related entries in Afghanistan, Bad Decisions, News, The War On Terrorism
You really have to read this to see just exactly why we are losing ground and may have lost the entire war in Afghanistan:
U.S. military officials tell NBC News they had “high-level� Taliban fighters in their gunsights during a July reconnaissance flight but decided not to fire. The decision to pass on the target angered some in the military, but commanders say they have “no regrets.�
Army intelligence officers confirm the grainy black and white aerial photo taken by a Predator drone and obtained by NBC News on Tuesday shows some 190 suspected Taliban militants standing in several rows near a vehicle in an open field in Afghanistan.
The military said Wednesday that the group seen in the Predator image was likely gathered for a religious ceremony.“During the observation of the group over a significant period of time, it was determined that the group was located on the grounds of a cemetery and were likely conducting a funeral for Taliban insurgents killed in a coalition operation nearby earlier in the day,� a coalition spokesperson said. “A decision was made not to strike this group of insurgents at that specific location and time.�
Even though U.S. military officials in Afghanistan had positively identified those gathered as Taliban fighters, including some “high-level Taliban leaders,� they told NBC News they have “no regrets� in refusing to give the order to attack the gathering.
You’re kidding me, right? We’re giving carte blanche to almost 200 dangerous enemy combatants because they’re at a funeral? What? Seriously, what? They’re praying over the bodies of guys who were just busy shooting at our guys and we have them right smack dab in our sights, and we don’t shoot?
What in the hell do we tell the families of the American or allied soldiers who get shot or blown apart by one of these 190 Taliban?
Does no one know how to fight a war?
(Cross-posted from Sideways Mencken)
This entry was posted on Wednesday, September 13th, 2006 and is filed under Afghanistan, Bad Decisions, News, The War On Terrorism. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
September 13th, 2006 at 9:52 pm
Wow, that’s crazy. What a wasted opportunity. Maybe they were afraid their intel was wrong.
My only question is why did they have no regrets. Those two things don’t jive at all. I’d like to know the answer to that question because I thought the whole point of the WoT was to, you know, kill these people so they don’t kill us.
And to answer your question…no, we don’t know how to fight this war. I certainly hope the next group does, because this one has been borderline incompetent.
September 13th, 2006 at 9:54 pm
Given the results we’ve gotten so far? No.
September 13th, 2006 at 9:58 pm
To answer your closing question: no, we no longer understand how to fight a war. People forget that there is only one purpose to war: to kill the enemy before they can kill you.
If that means you firebomb them in the middle of a “military” funeral you do NOT hesitate to do so. If that means you have to send in special forces to take out their command structure and leaders you do NOT hesitate because one of them happens to be on a family vacation or visiting their dead relatives at the cemetery (just as an example). If you find the enemy in a position of weakness you exploit it to the fullest of your abilities.
War isn’t civil, it isn’t pretty, and it isn’t nice. War is about making sure that at the end of the day your men and women can call their families and the other side’s soldiers can’t. Eventually either the other side gives up or they’re all dead, but either way you will have won.
There was once a time where armies musket-lined like “gentleman” and walked into a wall of gunfire because it was the “civil way” to fight; we do not live in those times. Our army has a moral code, but the Taliban exists and survives through dirty-trick guerrilla warfare where there are no ‘civil rules of engagement’ and where an American funeral is nothing more than an attack opportunity in the making. That needs to be remembered.
September 13th, 2006 at 10:47 pm
Justin: “Borderline”? What’s borderline about it?
defeating insurgency isn’t our job”
The lost province
Rumsfeld’s cognitive dissonance
And more
And that’s just in the last three weeks or so.
Sideways: I posted almost the same thoughts over at Midtopia. But don’t blame the soldiers operating the drone; blame whomever came up with such a rigid rule of engagement.
September 14th, 2006 at 2:54 am
I deleted Brian in MA’s comment, and will be contacting his university tomorrow in hopes that they can do something about posting on a site which has explicitly asked him not to.
September 14th, 2006 at 7:39 am
Unreal and so close to that 9/11 movie that had other examples of this exact thing. The Taliban is rejoicing over our weakness, folks and don’t think for a second that instances like this don’t embolden them. Something very bad is coming very soon, I’m afraid.
September 14th, 2006 at 8:49 am
According the latest ABC “docudrama” to be aired next week, the military guys failed to fire because they called Clinton for the “go” order…
September 14th, 2006 at 8:55 am
I’ve got no problem with M. Tak’s bitch on this issue. He’s been perfectly consistent in his view that a war should be prosecuted as a war, and that puling punches is unacceptable. I’m much less sanguine about those who at once criticize the failure to take out the Taliban Funeral Bunch while at the same time, criticizing the US and/or Israel for disproportionate military responses. Those folks have a political axe to grind. They damn the Administration if they do and damn them if they don’t. The correct answer here was obvious- take them out.
September 14th, 2006 at 9:15 am
So they didn’t want to fire at the funeral, as a military man I can understand that, BUT once they broke formation they are fair game!
And I would say that you don’t kill them all leave two or three to go get their other buddys to bury the bodies and start the cycle over again.
September 14th, 2006 at 9:36 am
As others have said above, this is insanity. I understand that we are trying to hold ourselves to a higher standard. Fine, we won’t purposefully bomb their mosques while they’re full of civilians and we wont capture their civilians, force them to make videos and then behead them. But this, is a clear military target. To see it and do nothing? Makes no sense to me.
September 14th, 2006 at 11:11 am
This is consistent with other tepid US military actions. For example, in the spring of 2004, the US High Command released Moqtada al-Sadr at the urging of Shi’ite leaders; al-Sadr’s militia has been a terror ever since. I also recall the first (abated) assault on Fallujah. It’s hard to achieve victory while being politically correct.
September 14th, 2006 at 1:23 pm
Believe it or not, even I, an avowed pacifist, find this action by military hawkish types a bit difficult to understand.
Perhaps they thought this would give them good press with the Moslem community (way too little, way too late). Or perhaps they knew the CIA had some sort of intelligence operation going that would follow these people back to their headquarters and reveal even higher level targets. Or perhaps some of the military’s own people had infiltrated the group and they didn’t want to blow up their own men.
Regardless of the reason, it still seems odd.
September 14th, 2006 at 2:45 pm
Did you ever stop for a moment and think “Hey, blowing away a pile of Muslim Soldiers during a funeral/church service would TOTALLY give them even more reason to nuke the US…”?
I know if I was in charge the order would be… wait em out and when they’re leaving make sand worm food out of them… but I wouldn’t have handed them such fiery ammo by killing them during a religious practice.
September 14th, 2006 at 3:02 pm
Now we know for sure that the US Military and the Bush admininistration is willing to trade US soldiers’ lives and destroy morale to save face politically. By not killing these Taliban terrorists they will have the oppurtunity to kill US soldiers: in firefights, planting roadside bombs, improving Taliban morale recruiting more Taliban, etc.
This also is evidence for the lack of resolve in fighting the war on terror. Bush is inconsistent, he says we are being offensive by fighting terror in the middle east, but this kind of lack of action and hamstringing of our military by these ridiculous rules of engagement is purely defensive. I say bomb them and then deal with the media and politicall fall out. We need to win the war first and then worry about political fall out and bad press later. What kind of better press is “US has killed 190 Taliban Terrorist Scum in one airstrike” It will save Soldiers lives and improve morale while killing Taliban, destroying their morale and making them hide in caves all the time for fear of attacks any where by these drones. Common sense right?
Many americans feel this way and I believe the Republicans are so out of touch with mainstream conservatives it is laughable.
September 14th, 2006 at 3:44 pm
I heartily commend your military for their restraint and for not perpetrating an act that could easily be interpreted by others as a crime against humanity, or war crime.
At least someone in the US military still has a modicum of common and humanity.
September 14th, 2006 at 5:11 pm
On the stand-down at the funeral: It depends on what our objectives are/were. Sometimes I think that all we’re trying to do now is foment as much continued destabilization as possible. Sometimes that means helping the opposing side to support their continued operations in order to bring about still more casualties on the opposing side. It weakens both sides, eventually. Maybe that’s the real objective. We aren’t at the policy table so we don’t know. But Cui bono is always a good question when we get to critique such a situation like this. The military must love to see us squabble over these ops. It helps me to remember that there is a War College for this stuff, and they are asking the same questions as we raise. I like to quote Sleipner when he says…
“Perhaps they thought this would give them good press with the Moslem community (way too little, way too late). Or perhaps they knew the CIA had some sort of intelligence operation going that would follow these people back to their headquarters and reveal even higher level targets. Or perhaps some of the military’s own people had infiltrated the group and they didn’t want to blow up their own men.”
And Barry D. Witt…
“This also is evidence for the lack of resolve in fighting the war on terror. Bush is inconsistent, he says we are being offensive by fighting terror in the middle east, but this kind of lack of action and hamstringing of our military by these ridiculous rules of engagement is purely defensive. I say bomb them and then deal with the media and politicall fall out. We need to win the war first and then worry about political fall out and bad press later. What kind of better press is “US has killed 190 Taliban Terrorist Scum in one airstrikeâ€Â? It will save Soldiers lives and improve morale while killing Taliban, destroying their morale and making them hide in caves all the time for fear of attacks any where by these drones. Common sense right?”
I still ask Cui Bono?
September 14th, 2006 at 5:26 pm
Dear probligo,
You think that the Taliban is humane you must have lost your capacity for rational thought. The facts are clear. The Taliban regime is known for their inhumane treatment. During their regime they had public executions in soccer stadiums, condoned the mutilization and brutilization of their women, tortured and murdered any one who dissents, harbored and allowed Al Qaeda to plan the logistics for terrorist acts against the west. We already know of their tolerance of buddism and other religions they destroyed ancient buddist statutes murdered any Afgani citizen who was not a Muslim or those who convert outside.
This is the enemy the rational world faces, the islamo-facists. These crimes against humanity need to be punished. Once these madmen are on you doorstep what will you do? Let them kill your family and rape your wife while you try and reason with them and tell them how much you tolerate them and how you are willing to have diologue with them and put them on the same moral ground as you. They will laugh in your face before torturing and killing you. I shall hope the US will not be defeated as you hope they will.
September 14th, 2006 at 7:40 pm
“People forget that there is only one purpose to war: to kill the enemy before they can kill you.”
No, that is just the primary tactic of war. Our goal is not to kill people – our goal is to establish a stable state in Afghanistan, and to cut down overall terrorism.
Most likely, we wanted to avoid bad publicity, so as to not look like a bunch of Godless butchers, and maintain more support among Afghanis and the rest of the Islamic world. That support is important in this war as well.
Now maybe killing these people would have been a net gain – but apparently, the Military didn’t think so.
September 16th, 2006 at 12:35 am
We are fighting an enemy that already loaths us – we can’t lower their opinion of us by killing them where and when we find them. The same people that would decry a successful strike against these warriors are the same ones that remain curiously silent, or simply shake their heads over the bombing of rival Mosques, the mass murder of religious pibrims, and the beheadings of innocent civilians. To the person above that stated our military ‘deciders’ were sticking to a higher moral standard and should be commended, I doubt if he would feel the same if his family members were torn apart by bombs set by some of these reprieved Jihadists. The men we fight against are diametrically opposed to our very existance, and the only way they will allow us and our children to live in peace is for them to be on the other side of the dirt. We can’t coexist – THEY have already said that. Their alternative to us winning is us all becoming “good Muslims” or all of us becoming dead, which I don’t intend to do. As the old saying goes, “I don’t mind dyin’, baby, but I wanna die LAST.”
September 19th, 2006 at 6:59 pm
This is just another example of our wonderful and trustworthy government of our great country. The same government that we are pushing upon other countries in this great world we live in. Perhaps, we are saving some elite “targets” on the war on terrorism for President Bush’s brother, Jeb. How can you give up a chance to destroy such target, and for what possible reason could they have. I cannot, in my heart believe that what was done, was done for good reasons, other than polictal. Our governmental leaders better get their head out of their rears and think about the true “Homeland Security!” The true war on terrorism can not be won, if we don’t truly “seek out” and “destroy” all targets pertaining to this world wide threat. Maybe it’s time we elect a female president, maybe then, and only then will America be safe.
September 20th, 2006 at 8:26 am
Dear Barry Witt,
You think that the US army is humane you must have lost your capacity for rational thought.
September 26th, 2006 at 1:17 pm
If you kill them dead enough,
who’s gonna be left to talk about it?
If there’s nothing but a crater instead of a cemetary….
Well, look at it this way, who cares what the enemy thinks,
If we kill all of them, it wont matter, now will it?
The military doesn’t need more tactical fighters, now they
need 1000 C130 gunships. Steel Rain!