Quote:
Originally Posted by oilers_fan
I think your getting my opinion about ROE wrong, Agamemnon. It's not that I want our troops to start breaking every rule in the book to win this war, I just think it's a bad situation when the enemy CAN, and not worry about the same things we would have to worry about. I suppose the same thing can be said for pretty much every major conflict, but this just seems to be a glaring example.
There was that picture a couple of days ago that showed hundreds of Taliban fighters at a funeral, nicely lined up in the sights of an unmaned drone over Afghanistan, but they couldn't shoot them because the Americans can't shoot at people in a funeral. But the Taliban can suicide bomb troops while they are handing out toys to children.
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Fair enough... but isn't there
supposed to be a difference in the way our soldiers act compared to the way the insurgents act? We can't exactly start killing their civilians... can we? Round everyone up and put them into 'strategic hamlets' ala Vietnam so that everyone left in the countryside is fair game?
I think the rules of engagement that some chafe under are a necessary part of who we are as a country. I'm proud that we don't torture prisoners (I hope), and no matter how badly the war goes, I think torturing people for information is barbaric and inhuman.