David Bolgiano, a retired Air Force lieutenant colonel who served as a command judge advocate in Iraq and Afghanistan in the early 2000s, said too many military commanders and legal officers have held their soldiers to an "untenable" standard in these conflicts.
Bolgiano is the author of a 2007 book called "Combat Self-Defense: Saving America's Warriors from Risk-Averse Commanders and their Lawyers" and co-author of a 2011 book called "Fighting Today's Wars: How America's Leaders Have Failed Our Warriors." He now works as a use-of-force consultant and writes about ethical, legal and tactical dynamics of deadly force encounters.
Bolgiano said that the rules of war that govern the actions of U.S. soldiers are fine, but they've been interpreted too rigidly in many cases by commanders worried about their own careers and by over-zealous military legal officers.
"They're demanding that decisions in combat be right, not reasonable," Bolgiano said. "It's a very critical point. They are just refusing to acknowledge this problem."
Bolgiano said the U.S. military also has failed to train soldiers adequately on discerning what represents a threat.
But the overwhelming problem, he said, is that they've been placed in a situation where they're not being legally allowed to defend themselves in combat situations that require split-second decisions.
Bookmarks