6 ms·

One thing I think should be made clear, that I don't think the author spells out for people who just know war by book, is that enemies frequently don't respect

by kodah 5y ago

One thing I think should be made clear, that I don't think the author spells out for people who just know war by book, is that enemies frequently don't respect that red cross. In fact, like a swinging radio antenna from a backpack, it is a target and tactical advantage to pin ambulatory vehicles - whether they be airborne or land-borne. Some of this probably has to do with some knowledge that foremost military institutions will prioritize evacuation of injured and casualties at a high threshold in the face of their own safety.

KennyBlanken 5y ago
Our military has no grounds to complain about people "not respecting" rules of war. A lot of online commenters make a big deal out of the military's rules of engagement and how they're "more strict" than police. What they don' tell you (or don't know) is that in Iraq, US soldiers were often given engagement rules like "from this point on the map onward, shoot anything that moves." In Afghanistan, through 3-4 different administrations, drone rules of engagement have been a joke.
- kodah 5y ago
  I wasn't in Iraq so I can't speak to that. > In Afghanistan, through 3-4 different administrations, drone rules of engagement have been a joke. I can speak to this though, I was in Afghanistan in 2011-2012. It was my job to aid troops in getting drone and air support. Can you be specific about who operated the drones you're mentioning? In the DOD we required three levels of verification to occur; every request started with "troops in contact" which requires that not only are troops engaged, but they have to be able to demonstrate that they cannot move (eg: "we are dead in the water if we sit here.") In the midst of this they had to be able to concisely define the target, usually with a building grid, but also describing the target with orientation (trees, other objects, etc), and third someone like me had to verify all of those facts by feeds, radio, binoculars, or sight on seen to pass order to an Air Officer who would design a proposal, which usually got passed all the way up to regimental office. As far as I know, for CentCom under Mattis this was not unusual - if provably difficult. With respect to ROE, the ROE in Iraq and Afghanistan were different. The one in Afghanistan required you be shot at in order to engage. This resulted in an abundance of injured or mamed troops, because the way the military does operations require them to blanket and leaflet towns they're going to invade. So yes, the Taliban usually knows you're coming weeks in advance, and the townspeople who aren't Taliban affiliated have left. That's not to justify, "This area is a free for all", and doesn't sound much like the military I know. Edit: I do highly support the idea of boots on the ground over drones. We never had any missed targets that I was aware of and BDAs (battle damage assessments) were always accurate to our desired outcome in my experience. That said, the reliance on drones in areas where we couldn't bring artillery created a real race for resources, which is where you get stories like Dakota Meyers. Edit: Last one, I promise. > Our military has no grounds to complain about people "not respecting" rules of war. This is junk. War is messy, it's the byproduct of deplomacy breaking down. It's on everyone who has experienced the theater of war to talk about how the rules were or were not applied. Sometimes you may not like the answer that results in an exception, but it's useful for warrior to understand the baseline reality that they will face and expect - I say this on either side, whether you're a US troop or a warrior in the Taliban. These laws come into conflict in complicated ways many times. One classical example: When I first learned to shoot the M2 (which is a 50 caliber machine gun) I learned you cannot shoot them at people. You can, howver, use them to assault vehicle born targets, targets with necessary distance, targets behind cover, targets using armor, etc... When you have a vehicle loaded down with explosives racing through a winding ingress point, knowing in all likelihood of they succeed that another attack is imminent, do you debate the law of land and warfare or do you zero in on the engine block and let fate take it's course?
  - zimpenfish 5y ago
    > The one in Afghanistan required you be shot at in order to engage. But then you get things like this which seem to be operating under different rules. https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/20/us/airstrike-us-isis-dam.html https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/20/us/airstrike-us-isis-dam.... "In fact, members of a top secret U.S. Special Operations unit called Task Force 9 had struck the dam [...] despite a military report warning not to bomb the dam, because the damage could cause a flood that might kill tens of thousands of civilians"
    - kodah 5y ago
      This is why I asked who was operating the drone. Too frequently people wave their hands and say "drones" or "military" in reference to whatever they're disatisfied with. US SOCOM does not follow the same rules or procedures line companies do.
      - throwanem 5y ago
        From a policy perspective, or even a civilian one more generally, is this all that unreasonable? It's not as if SOCOM is not military, and while I agree it's risibly stupid to slander all for the actions of some as I often see people do on the internet, I'm not sure why the distinction matters in the context of asking whether US military forces in general may violate, or are directed to violate, what some international bodies hold to be laws or conventions of warfare.
        kodah 5y ago
        Yes, I do think it's unreasonable. . When people speak in generalities it makes conversation vague but entertaining. It doesn't differentiate between policies that work and ones that don't. eg: most civilians don't understand the difference between this graph: DOD <> State Department <> SOCOM. I'm not trying to shade the person that responded to me, but I think this is a learning opportunity. They clearly know very little about what they're talking about in general, but it sounds like they've heard detailed specific stories and applied it to the wider concept. This is entertaining, maybe to some (to me it's not, I don't like being cast as a war criminal by presumption), but utterly lacking in information to learn from (future policy) or worth remembering (history). Instead, it's only function is divisiveness and furor. War won't stop any time soon and warrior culture needs to go in existing so long as war is constant so that we continue to fight wars with discipline and some amount of honor. If you remove information and history in favor of conjecture, we can do neither. More specifically, there's a lot of stories I could tell about having to interact in near-proximity to SOCOM that may shed light on why strange things seem to happen with them so often. That said, if I'm spending all my time trying to understand if said criticism also involves me (in a totally different department, whose acting on totally different policies) then that information will never make it to the reader because my line is busy. Also, I'll leave you with this: There's a lot we don't know about the Korean War and Vietnam (aside from video, which isn't that great). It's largely because veterans refused to share their stories, officially or unofficially. If I, in order to share anything, have to overcome that I am a monster in your mind first, I probably won't speak. When you accuse someone of war crimes it's not a joke, and let's be real - that is exactly what many people casually do when talking about war. The realities on the ground at war are informed by policy and real-world split second decision making which is reinforced by training. It's invaluable that we have an atmosphere where people are understanding and discerning between fact and fiction if we're ever to do things better.
- Pigalowda 5y ago
  When and where were you deployed?
  - pessimizer 5y ago
- mter 5y ago
  > What they don' tell you (or don't know) is that in Iraq, US soldiers were often given engagement rules like "from this point on the map onward, shoot anything that moves." Is this your personal experience? Where did you get this from? This isn't my experience having done OEF 02/OIF 03 as an 11b in the 82nd, and I was in the follow on forces for both wars so I saw a pretty loose ROE in both countries. The guys that served after 08 would have no idea what you're even talking about because their ROE was extremely restrictive, essentially they had to be shot at first and use of indirect fire required multiple layers of permission.
  - JoeyBananas 5y ago
    There are people who will complain about anything related to war no matter what. It doesn't matter what the military does or what actually happens. All they understand is that war=violence=bad.
    - tdeck 5y ago
      Just as one data point I happen to personally remember, the US blew up an MSF hospital in Afghanistan: https://www.msf.org/attack-kunduz-trauma-centre-international-activity-report-2015 https://www.msf.org/attack-kunduz-trauma-centre-internationa...
      - JoeyBananas 5y ago
        Of course it's possible to name incidents that sound bad on paper after spinning the narrative to serve the purpose of arguing that war=violence=bad. This happens all the time. That's the whole point I'm trying to make. Any time the military kills a terrorist, a certain group of people will say "You monster! He had kids for God sakes! Look at these pictures of his family! He never got a fair trial!" When a genuine fuckup happens, these same people naturally jump on the opportunity and criticize endlessly. The American population is especially apt for this kind of behavior.
        tdeck 5y ago
southerntofu 5y ago
> enemies frequently don't respect that red cross. (...) it is a target This is also what i've witnessed in the past decade of protests in France. I remember when i was younger there were not many casualties and they were easily taken away by firefighters or volunteer medics. Since at least 2016 though, i've personally witnessed (and heard many more instances of) cops explicitly targeting medics with their weapons, destroying their medical equipment, or otherwise preventing medics from reaching a person in need of medical attention. I'm not saying medical duty is not worth doing or that we should not protest the government, though. But to heartless attackers, a "journalist" or "medic" sign attests you're on the 'wrong' side and should be attacked.
- CyanBird 5y ago
  During the Chilean social revolt of 2019, police where explicitly attacking both volunteer Healthcare workers and their supplies as well as official ambulances and emts So yeah, even when not related to warfare per se, it happens
- beerandt 5y ago
  From videos of US protests in recent years, it's pretty clear that certain factions are teaching protesters to abuse these "rules". Same as if these red cross helicopters were to be armed and attack while still painted with a red cross. The enemy would quickly start disregarding any labels. Same for 'medics' at a protest.

by kodah 5y ago

KennyBlanken 5y ago

Our military has no grounds to complain about people "not respecting" rules of war. A lot of online commenters make a big deal out of the military's rules of engagement and how they're "more strict" than police. What they don' tell you (or don't know) is that in Iraq, US soldiers were often given engagement rules like "from this point on the map onward, shoot anything that moves." In Afghanistan, through 3-4 different administrations, drone rules of engagement have been a joke.

kodah 5y ago
I wasn't in Iraq so I can't speak to that. > In Afghanistan, through 3-4 different administrations, drone rules of engagement have been a joke. I can speak to this though, I was in Afghanistan in 2011-2012. It was my job to aid troops in getting drone and air support. Can you be specific about who operated the drones you're mentioning? In the DOD we required three levels of verification to occur; every request started with "troops in contact" which requires that not only are troops engaged, but they have to be able to demonstrate that they cannot move (eg: "we are dead in the water if we sit here.") In the midst of this they had to be able to concisely define the target, usually with a building grid, but also describing the target with orientation (trees, other objects, etc), and third someone like me had to verify all of those facts by feeds, radio, binoculars, or sight on seen to pass order to an Air Officer who would design a proposal, which usually got passed all the way up to regimental office. As far as I know, for CentCom under Mattis this was not unusual - if provably difficult. With respect to ROE, the ROE in Iraq and Afghanistan were different. The one in Afghanistan required you be shot at in order to engage. This resulted in an abundance of injured or mamed troops, because the way the military does operations require them to blanket and leaflet towns they're going to invade. So yes, the Taliban usually knows you're coming weeks in advance, and the townspeople who aren't Taliban affiliated have left. That's not to justify, "This area is a free for all", and doesn't sound much like the military I know. Edit: I do highly support the idea of boots on the ground over drones. We never had any missed targets that I was aware of and BDAs (battle damage assessments) were always accurate to our desired outcome in my experience. That said, the reliance on drones in areas where we couldn't bring artillery created a real race for resources, which is where you get stories like Dakota Meyers. Edit: Last one, I promise. > Our military has no grounds to complain about people "not respecting" rules of war. This is junk. War is messy, it's the byproduct of deplomacy breaking down. It's on everyone who has experienced the theater of war to talk about how the rules were or were not applied. Sometimes you may not like the answer that results in an exception, but it's useful for warrior to understand the baseline reality that they will face and expect - I say this on either side, whether you're a US troop or a warrior in the Taliban. These laws come into conflict in complicated ways many times. One classical example: When I first learned to shoot the M2 (which is a 50 caliber machine gun) I learned you cannot shoot them at people. You can, howver, use them to assault vehicle born targets, targets with necessary distance, targets behind cover, targets using armor, etc... When you have a vehicle loaded down with explosives racing through a winding ingress point, knowing in all likelihood of they succeed that another attack is imminent, do you debate the law of land and warfare or do you zero in on the engine block and let fate take it's course?
- zimpenfish 5y ago
  > The one in Afghanistan required you be shot at in order to engage. But then you get things like this which seem to be operating under different rules. https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/20/us/airstrike-us-isis-dam.html https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/20/us/airstrike-us-isis-dam.... "In fact, members of a top secret U.S. Special Operations unit called Task Force 9 had struck the dam [...] despite a military report warning not to bomb the dam, because the damage could cause a flood that might kill tens of thousands of civilians"
  - kodah 5y ago
    This is why I asked who was operating the drone. Too frequently people wave their hands and say "drones" or "military" in reference to whatever they're disatisfied with. US SOCOM does not follow the same rules or procedures line companies do.
    - throwanem 5y ago
      From a policy perspective, or even a civilian one more generally, is this all that unreasonable? It's not as if SOCOM is not military, and while I agree it's risibly stupid to slander all for the actions of some as I often see people do on the internet, I'm not sure why the distinction matters in the context of asking whether US military forces in general may violate, or are directed to violate, what some international bodies hold to be laws or conventions of warfare.
      - kodah 5y ago
        Yes, I do think it's unreasonable. . When people speak in generalities it makes conversation vague but entertaining. It doesn't differentiate between policies that work and ones that don't. eg: most civilians don't understand the difference between this graph: DOD <> State Department <> SOCOM. I'm not trying to shade the person that responded to me, but I think this is a learning opportunity. They clearly know very little about what they're talking about in general, but it sounds like they've heard detailed specific stories and applied it to the wider concept. This is entertaining, maybe to some (to me it's not, I don't like being cast as a war criminal by presumption), but utterly lacking in information to learn from (future policy) or worth remembering (history). Instead, it's only function is divisiveness and furor. War won't stop any time soon and warrior culture needs to go in existing so long as war is constant so that we continue to fight wars with discipline and some amount of honor. If you remove information and history in favor of conjecture, we can do neither. More specifically, there's a lot of stories I could tell about having to interact in near-proximity to SOCOM that may shed light on why strange things seem to happen with them so often. That said, if I'm spending all my time trying to understand if said criticism also involves me (in a totally different department, whose acting on totally different policies) then that information will never make it to the reader because my line is busy. Also, I'll leave you with this: There's a lot we don't know about the Korean War and Vietnam (aside from video, which isn't that great). It's largely because veterans refused to share their stories, officially or unofficially. If I, in order to share anything, have to overcome that I am a monster in your mind first, I probably won't speak. When you accuse someone of war crimes it's not a joke, and let's be real - that is exactly what many people casually do when talking about war. The realities on the ground at war are informed by policy and real-world split second decision making which is reinforced by training. It's invaluable that we have an atmosphere where people are understanding and discerning between fact and fiction if we're ever to do things better.
Pigalowda 5y ago
When and where were you deployed?
- pessimizer 5y ago
mter 5y ago
> What they don' tell you (or don't know) is that in Iraq, US soldiers were often given engagement rules like "from this point on the map onward, shoot anything that moves." Is this your personal experience? Where did you get this from? This isn't my experience having done OEF 02/OIF 03 as an 11b in the 82nd, and I was in the follow on forces for both wars so I saw a pretty loose ROE in both countries. The guys that served after 08 would have no idea what you're even talking about because their ROE was extremely restrictive, essentially they had to be shot at first and use of indirect fire required multiple layers of permission.
- JoeyBananas 5y ago
  There are people who will complain about anything related to war no matter what. It doesn't matter what the military does or what actually happens. All they understand is that war=violence=bad.
  - tdeck 5y ago
    Just as one data point I happen to personally remember, the US blew up an MSF hospital in Afghanistan: https://www.msf.org/attack-kunduz-trauma-centre-international-activity-report-2015 https://www.msf.org/attack-kunduz-trauma-centre-internationa...
    - JoeyBananas 5y ago
      Of course it's possible to name incidents that sound bad on paper after spinning the narrative to serve the purpose of arguing that war=violence=bad. This happens all the time. That's the whole point I'm trying to make. Any time the military kills a terrorist, a certain group of people will say "You monster! He had kids for God sakes! Look at these pictures of his family! He never got a fair trial!" When a genuine fuckup happens, these same people naturally jump on the opportunity and criticize endlessly. The American population is especially apt for this kind of behavior.
      - tdeck 5y ago

southerntofu 5y ago

> enemies frequently don't respect that red cross. (...) it is a target This is also what i've witnessed in the past decade of protests in France. I remember when i was younger there were not many casualties and they were easily taken away by firefighters or volunteer medics. Since at least 2016 though, i've personally witnessed (and heard many more instances of) cops explicitly targeting medics with their weapons, destroying their medical equipment, or otherwise preventing medics from reaching a person in need of medical attention. I'm not saying medical duty is not worth doing or that we should not protest the government, though. But to heartless attackers, a "journalist" or "medic" sign attests you're on the 'wrong' side and should be attacked.

CyanBird 5y ago
During the Chilean social revolt of 2019, police where explicitly attacking both volunteer Healthcare workers and their supplies as well as official ambulances and emts So yeah, even when not related to warfare per se, it happens
beerandt 5y ago
From videos of US protests in recent years, it's pretty clear that certain factions are teaching protesters to abuse these "rules". Same as if these red cross helicopters were to be armed and attack while still painted with a red cross. The enemy would quickly start disregarding any labels. Same for 'medics' at a protest.