"We're pinned down": 4 Marines die in Afghan ambush

[Danny]

Okay, so there were a lot of people preoccupied with other parts of the Kunar Province, including Kamdesh. So there were some moderately incompetent people in charge, or people who didn't man their jobs like they should have, and so on and so forth, or this or that, or something else, or whatever. This MC Times article is no different than the immediate reports of the AR 15-6 right after it came out. Yawn ...

What's important is what it doesn't say, and specifically what it denies. It denies the very specific claims made by the Marine Corps field grade officers and the McClatchy reporter on site at the time of the fire fight, to wit, that the officers specifically had to tell them that there were no noncombatants around, arty support was repeatedly denied because there could be noncombatants, they had to specifically say that there weren't any noncombatants around, arty support was denied because there could be noncombatants around ... wash, rinse, dry, repeat.

And even though they were all out for a smoke, or at the gym, or calling their girls or whatever the AR 15-6 comes up with, they had the time and presence of mind to use arty to fire white phosphorus smoke to hide their retreat ----- but not ordnance, um, well, because there could be nomcombatants around and the ROE prevented it, in spite of being told sixteen hundred times that the Marines needed arty and were going to die if they didn't get it. And to top it all off, the AR 15-6 concludes that while the 'perception' existed (and still exists) that ROE prevented the use of arty, we are to be assurred that this is all just 'perception'.

http://www.captainsjournal.com/2010/...unar-province/

Color me unpersuaded.