Quote Originally Posted by mmx1 View Post
In this case, the central issue is the ethical status of intentionally killing civilians. I firmly believe that it is wrong, regardless of the calculus of lives in the balance. You attempt to cloud the issue by painting them as spies. but the SEALS didn't know that and even in hindsight you can't say with reasonable certainty if they were willing collaborators with the Taliban.
This is the heart of the problem we are having at many levels in the military. One time there was a pretty broad ethical line that COULD NOT be crossed. Did it happen outside of the sight of higher headquarters, yes. Did it happen when overzealous officers took orders as authorization from higher headquarters. Yes. However my contention for the last seven years is that there is no authority to commit war crimes because the GWOT is considered (by guys like Douglas Feith) as "A new type of war." Hitler told the German Army before Operation Barbarossa that the German army had to abandon its usual adherence to chivalry and the laws of war. We cannot continue to go there. Al Qaeda terrorists and Taliban sympathizers are combatants when on the battlefield. Unarmed civilians who may rat your mission out are part of the game. In the first Gulf War several SOF OPs on key lines of communication were compromised by kids with goats or kids playing. We cannot get into the killing civilians game.

We cannot second guess their moral struggle on the battlefield but the fact that he said military training was not a factor in his reasoning for voting against killing the civilians is indicative that the system has gotten so far off the rails that we need to re-institutionalize our own sense of honor and chivalry.

I think the wild west like "War on Terror" has really badly damaged our image as professionals. Its being run too much like the Indian Wars where the indiginous population are considered non-humans. There have been too many incidents of murder (as many as 100 cases), abuse and random "screw it I'll just shoot them, its a different war and these aren't humans" have been seen and we will hear MANY more reported in the post-conflict period. This is an anathema to COIN. Paticularly in the Pashtunwali-soaked areas of the Lower Hindu Kush. Ask Kipling for examples.

Worst yet, there is also a visceral dis-respect of the enemy G's knowledge of his own game on his own home court. In this case the Gs adhered to Sun Tsu's "If you know the enemy and know yourself ..."

Before the first Gulf War General Schwarzkopf sent a message out to all unit ordering the ban on the use of Death Cards, which I had seen MANY guys carrying, all ready to play Colonel Kilgore. Schwarzkopf said we cannot debase ourselves and act like our enemies.

Should they have let the HVT get away and abort? Only they could make that call. However, I see it this way -we are the greatest goddamn combat power in the world ... we CAN re-sked missions without committing war crimes and we WILL get our target.

Someone in the next DoD needs to be tasked to bring the nation's Honor and adhering to laws and humanity back as a core value (AGAIN) at the troop level. God bless all of those team guys. They are asked to do hard things, but the issue is not about the ROE, its about the ROL, Rule of Law.

We have some major league recalibration to do after this war.