Quote Originally Posted by Kiwigrunt View Post
A ‘shoot on sight’ policy is not necessarily the same as a ‘shoot to kill’ policy. In low intensity operations it is not about killing or wounding but about neutralising the treat. To paraphrase our shoot on sight policy in Timor 10 years ago (and we never needed to use it….once we had it):
• You must positively identify the target as being militia,
• He must be armed with his weapon ready for immediate use,
• He must be moving in a tactical manner,
• The situation must be such that giving a warning is likely to cause undue danger to yourself or to those you are there to protect,
• It must be a chance encounter,
• You (or his target???) must be within the maximum range of his weapon.

In anything beyond low intensity this kinda goes out the window. I suppose the trick for the policy makers is to determine this tipping point and to communicate that clearly to the troops. Kinda like the blind leading the experts?

Now where kids come into this, well, I think I’d have to agree with some above in saying that it ‘should’ be irrelevant. Technically and legally anyway. How we deal with it morally is less clear cut.

I should think that putting age limits in place is silly and counter productive. M-A Lagrange mentioned up-thread that a 7 year old is not supposed to be able to carry a gun. What if you encounter a 6 year old who is? Be forced to allow him to shoot you because he’s only 6? The moral issue remains. But taking it beyond that through ROE etc. may have an adverse effect in that it gives the enemy something to play with, as JMA point out.
Lets keep this in the context of a shooting war which is a more likely scenario to provoke a humanitarian intervention.

These RoE seem to be designed to make the soldier's work more difficult than it already is.

If he is armed... you shoot him. Those 6 points are the stuff that gets soldiers killed and teaches them to be passive. Can't believe any self respecting general would inflict that upon his soldiers. We spoke about this before. This kind of work is for police, military police and paramilitaries not soldiers.

One minute we were talking about 12-15 year olds and now we are down to 6-7 year olds. How do they get these kids to stay and fight? Drugs? So it would be difficult to walk up to these kids and give them a smack behind the ear and take their weapons away.

But what of women and girls? Bumped into a few of them in my time. So I guess it is all about age then we accept that women can be combatants (why we now have them ourselves).

Again there is a difference between returning fire or firing into likely areas and later finding you killed some kids and actually lining a kid up in your sights and pulling the trigger.

I hate it when people are unable to provide anything but some vague wishy washy answer so I will give it a try to do beter...

1. It makes a difference whether you come up against a unit which has a few kids mixed in or one totally made up of kids.

2. If battle has already been joined and it appears that the kids are also firing their weapons.

3. If you have some knowledge and understanding of what these kids have done or are capable/likely to do makes a difference. (Here I will differentiate between the German kid and his grandfather trying to defend Berlin against the Russian advance and some stoned kid in Sierra Leone wearing a necklace made from human ears - the Russians didn't care but we do - you go figure).

4. And unofficially you put the word out that if your forces come across a unit which includes kids it will be "unlikely" that any of the older soldiers and leaders will be taken prisoner. (let them figure that out).

Now to implement (broadly) what I state above you clearly can't use forces from most western nations. That is why I suggest that if progress is to be made use of proxy AU troops must be made. The UN agrees to the intervention and appoints the commander etc. No western angst and hand-wringing... you can just blame the UN for any excesses (like there certainly were under the Nigeria led ECOMOG intervention in Sierra Leone).

Sri Lanka understood this in their preparation for the final push. They got economic support from China (who doesn't give a rats a... about human rights anyway) as insulation from western criticism. They also know that when dealing with the West give it a year or so and then every thing will be forgiven and forgotten.