Political correctness undermines the War on Terror once again:
September 13, 2006 — WASHINGTON – Taliban terror leaders who had gathered for a funeral – and were secretly being watched by an eye-in-the-sky American drone – dodged assassination because U.S. rules of engagement bar attacks in cemeteries, according to a shocking report.
U.S. intelligence officers in Afghanistan are still fuming about the recent lost opportunity for an easy kill of Taliban honchos packed in tight formation for the burial, NBC News reported.
The unmanned airplane, circling undetected high overhead, fed a continuous satellite feed of the juicy target to officers on the ground.
“We were so excited. I came rushing in with the picture,” one U.S. Army officer told NBC.
But that excitement quickly turned to gut-wrenching frustration because the rules of engagement on the ground in Afghanistan blocked the U.S. from mounting a missile or bomb strike in a cemetery, according to the report.
Pentagon officials declined comment and referred The Post to Central Command officers in Afghanistan, who did not respond to a request for comment or explanation.
Agonizingly, Army officers could do nothing but watch the pictures being fed back from the drone as the Taliban splintered into tiny groups – too small to effectively target with the drone – and headed back to their mountainside hideouts.
What a disaster. We had leaders from the Taliban in our crosshairs, only to learn that we could do nothing. Actually, that’s not true. We could have bombed them, meaning we had the capability to blow these terrorists to Kingdom Come and back again, but we didn’t because the military implemented rules of engagement that say we can’t bomb cemeteries. Political correctness has gotten so far out of hand that we allowed some of the worst terrorist scum to ever walk the face of the earth to, literally, walk away.
What if, some day, one of these Taliban leaders is involved in another 9/11-like event? How would the American people react if it was revealed that we had the chance to kill him but didn’t because he was in a cemetery and our rules of engagement said no bombing of cemeteries? Would the American people accept that? Not a chance.
Confederate Yankee is equally ticked and offers some great commentary and analysis:
This is the single most mind-numbingly stupid “shoot/no shoot” determinations I have heard of in this entire war. This was not a situation where that was significant risk of there being collateral damage to nearby civilians. The only people present were Taliban leaders that we want dead, and those in the cemetery that were already dead.
If this story is accurate and there are no mitigating circumstances we are unaware of, then we’re looking at two levels of incompetence.
The higher level incompetence of placing cemeteries off limits in the rules of engagement was most likely the decision of senior military officers, perhaps with State Department input. Whoever made such a determination should be stripped of these duties. War is not to be fought politely, and the enemy should not be give a “timeout” from the war unless civilian lives are at risk.
On the direct tactical level, the officer directly in charge of this flight should have taken the initiative and made the determination that attacking such a concentration of Taliban leaders was more important to the success of the mission that was “going by the book.”
Update: Judge Napolitano on Fox News researched this and said that the reason the request to fire on the group of Taliban leaders was denied was not because of the Geneva Conventions or the rule of law. It was due to an agreement the US has with the government of Hamid Karzai because cemeteries and funerals have particular importance in Afghan culture.
I understand that we don’t want to alienate the Afghan population, but let’s not forget something here. The Taliban was a tyrannical, Islamofascist regime that murdered Afghanis if they violated its strict Sharia law, including for something as innocuous as educating their daughters. Even kite flying was illegal.
And now the Taliban is trying to undermine the new Afghan government in an attempt to take the country back to where it was. I have a hard time believing that taking out 190 of the Taliban’s leaders, even if it happened at a cemetery, would alienate the Afghan population that much. The Afghan people hate them as much as we do.
Now the terrorists know they can run into a cemetery at any time to avoid being blown off the map. Nice. I thought “war is hell.” I guess that only applies to our side of the equation. Where are our safe havens?
Maybe the Pentagon and the WTC should have been built on top of old burial grounds. That would have made a difference, right?
A lot of senior staffers forget one basic rule about such military operations…
“It is easier to ask for forgiveness than to ask for permission…”
Given the chance, and with the tables turned, it is doubtless the Taliban would have relished and seized this kind of opportunity.
I fear we will never learn…
I have two quotes from gueys smarter than I that are directly applicable:
“[W]e have reached a point at which the rules apply only to us, while our enemies are permitted unrestricted freedom.” — Ralph Peters, 10 July 2006
“People who try to be sensitive in a war have a tendency to die, and to take their nations with them.” — Steven Den Beste, 21 Sept 2002
I well remember “rules of engagement” and what they cost is in Viet Nam. Free fire zones (where the enemy isn’t) and no fire zones (where the enemy is).
I don’t know when governments, especially ours, started believing war could be humane. There may be isolated incidences of humane action but war is about killing people. I don’t know of a nice way to do that.
Chuck
This is nothing new. There were places in Vietnam that were off limits to bombing, even if there were known VC or NVA troops there.
I’d be interested to know just whos funeral it was for senior Taliban to gather in one place in the open. It must have been a very important person. To bad we didn’t help to bury more very important people in that cemetary.
Didn’t the Taliban just finish bombing the funeral of an Afghan governer?
Who made the rules of engagement? Who’s in charge? Who should be held accountable? I want names.
Am I the only one shocked that we’re still talking about targeting Taliban leadership? Didn’t we dispatch those jokers 5 YEARS ago? In all of the discussions recently about the War on Terror and the supposed progress we’ve made, aren’t we overlooking that fact that we have failed to vanquish a very legitimate target,the only target I might add, whom we launched a military campaign against, that was actually tied to the 9/11 attacks? Where’s the progress? And where’s the democratic utopia in Afghanistan that was supposed to appear once the “unity” government was installed?
Call me a troll if you like, but this the kind of discussion we should be having as we attempt to objectively asses for ourselves whether or not our leaders are competently executing the War on Terror in the balance of which lies our lives and the lives of our children.
Kill them in the cemeteries, kill them at weddings, kill them in their mosques, kill them in Mecca…I don’t care…for cryin’ out loud, just KILL THEM! Do we not understand that they are coming for us, here on American soil? This is insanity.
“U.S. intelligence officers in Afghanistan are still fuming about the recent lost opportunity for an easy kill of Taliban honchos packed in tight formation for the burial, NBC News reported.”
Who leaked this to the news and why did NBC report it?
I guess it is possible the agents who leaked this are part of an operation designed to change where the terrorists meet, but all these leaks in our intelligence operations worry me greatly.
You never know, in WWII the US started a campaign to get kids to eat carrots because their vision would improve. The purpose of the campaign, my father said, was to cover up the success of our radar equipped night fighters like the Black Widow.
Who made the rules of engagement? Who’s in charge? Who should be held accountable? I want names.
ACLU, CAIR, your local congressman…er…congressperson for cryin’ out loud.
Funny, this is how the left thinks we can “fight smarter”. Maybe we should have just sent John Kerry in there and he could have apologized on behalf of the USA for retaliating for 9/11. Maybe he could even have worked out a deal so they will only kill half or 1/4th of the USA instead of trying to wipe us all off the face the earth.
Asking for forgiveness? Try spending time in a military prison in chains, like the soldiers involved in the “massacre” in Haditha.
If the military officer had gone ahead and blown up that Taliban funeral, he knew what would happen. He would have gone to prison.
Rumsfeld should step forward about this — not President Bush. Bush is not in charge of tactics in the war. That’s Rumsfeld’s job.
“Now the terrorists know they can run into a cemetery at any time to avoid being blown off the map. Nice.”
Holy crap! They must be Immortals like Duncan McLeod of the Clan McLeod. Sacred ground man, can’t fight on sacred ground.
Well they should at least have a fix on the location of their caves then? Time to target those caves.
we need a counter-terrorist group appearing to be “non state sponsored” to rise up if we are to defeat this enemy….beat them at their own game since the idiotic laws keep us from doing so the traditional way
“How would the American people react if it was revealed that we had the chance to kill him but didn’t because he was in a cemetery and our rules of engagement said no bombing of cemeteries? Would the American people accept that? Not a chance.”
Actually you may be wrong there – the recent airing of the ABC documentary about the leadup to 911 specifically highlights a number of cases where Bin Laden could have been taken out but wasn’t, often due to some politician not wanting to possibly put his job on the line just in case something went wrong.
Unfortunately the American public (in general) does not appear to give a shit about it.
We ALL know very well that, given a similar opportunity, any one of these fanatics would not hesitate to go for the kill, and if they could take out some innocent civilians in the process, even better – heck, it’s a terrorist’s wet dream!
American Political Correctness is the terrorists best weapon, and the way things are going, it will probably win the war for them.
I saw this announced on Fox this morning, and I have to say I defer to the judgment of our military and political leadership. Ultimately we are fighting a political war. The Fox announcer said that under our rules of engagement, we can attack in Iraqi cemeteries, but not during funeral ceremonies in Afghan ones. If “American P.C.” was to blame, the rule would be the same in both countries. If the Afghan government, or Afghan religious leaders whom we respect, tell us that westerners killing Muslims in cemeteries during funeral ceremonies violates some profound Afghan code or will upset large parts of the Afghan population, we have to honor that, or else lose the support of many, many Afghans — too many to justify the deaths of the Talibani who were in the photo. I presume the rule isn’t that cemeteries are allowed to be permanent sanctuaries, but that when a funeral is going on, the assembled mourners have a temporary immunity there. Perhaps the Taliban have agreed not to conduct attacks on mourners at funerals of Afghans on our side. Perhaps it’s an ancient tribal tradition in Afghanistan that mourners get temporary immunity from attack. (Does anyone know whether the Mafia has such a rule?) Now I know, our military and political people refused to comment on this decision, so I don’t know that this kind of judgment was their motivation. But I’m going to give them the benefit of the doubt, unless some hard evidence arises to show this was motivated by American P.C. attitudes, rather than by a considered judgement of Afghan sensibilities. It makes it easier to give the benefit of the doubt when we realize it’s a Republican administration in charge, which is less likely to be subject to “American P.C.,” but I would give the same deference even if this happened under a Democratic administration.
War isn’t about who is right.
War is about who’s left.
Actually what better a place to lay them to rest then at the cemetary. Seems logical to me. Maybe when other Taliban come to clean up the mess we can bomb them again, etc.
Ashes to Ashes, Dust to Dust,
Screw Polital Correctness,
Kill them we must.
Sissoed has the most well-reasoned comment I’ve read so far (including my own).
Afghanistan is not, after all, an enemy country or one which we occupy. It is a sovereign nation and Coalition troops are there at the invitation of the Afghan government. I don’t know why the ROE are what they are, but if in fact they were designed to avoid alienating the general Afghan population, realizing that there would be occasions like this one, then I, too must defer to the leadership.
That said, I am fully on board with the sentiments expressed by Peters and Den Beste, if the ROE were designed with concern for what the New York Times and the rest of the lamestream media would say, as opposed to the reaction of the Afghans.
I am sure the right will find some way to blame Clinton, or maybe the Gorelick “Wall” was responsible?
bah. blame Canada.
Hey aren’t you the same folks who foam at the mouth and rage about Clinton not taking out Osama in Afghanastan when he had him in his sites? Where’s the outrage at your Commande-In-Chief?
Ah, why would I think the righties would be intellectually honest about this one?. Barnet’s right, you’ll figure out some way to blame Clinton or Carter.
I’m going to duck know as the spittle will soon be flying my way.
BarneyG2000 said:
I am sure the right will find some way to blame Clinton, or maybe the Gorelick “Wall” was responsible?
Nope. Not even close.
We only blame Clinton and his administration for treating the GWOT as a law enforcement issue, rather than as the war it so obviously is.
But go ahead. Stick to the talking points.
I will vote for ANY Democratic candidate who will swear they will kill the enemy in a cementary.
How ’bout it? Any takers?
Fighting a PC war is tough on the Soldiers on the front. Break the rules set up by the PC police from the regime of the 90’s and you end up in prison. Ask several military members now serving time for doing their job.
Yes, this is another screw up that can be laid at the door of the PC Clinton Administration and the democrats of today. You gotta win the war without hurting or killing anyone.
Even with all the screw ups, the release and publication of the photo’s which will effect future operations (and get Americans killed) was a major crime and those responsible should be hunted down, tried and shot.
Hugh said:
Hey aren’t you the same folks who foam at the mouth and rage about Clinton not taking out Osama in Afghanastan when he had him in his sites? Where’s the outrage at your Commande-In-Chief?
Me: I’m not foaming at the mouth. Not raging, either. But Clinton could have at least tried to capture OBL. Doing nothing, however, was consistent behavior for him–Clinton probably had 3 or 4 polls to support this “decision.”
Ah, why would I think the righties would be intellectually honest about this one?. Barnet’s right, you’ll figure out some way to blame Clinton or Carter.
Me again: Nope. Wrong again. Carter gets blamed for a little something that happened next door. You know–that hostage situation in Iran in ’79? Or are you too young to know about that?
I’m going to duck know as the spittle will soon be flying my way.
Me again: Why is that? Are you spitting your words into the wind?
I will vote for ANY Democratic candidate who will swear they will kill the enemy in a cementary.
VagaBond: Be careful how you word this. It all depends on what the word “enemy” means. You’re assuming that Republicans and Democrats are talking about the same group of people.
Republicans: enemy = terrorists
Democrats: enemy = who? Republicans? Christians? surely not terrorists!
Dam you are right Doug.
I meant Islamofacists.
Doug:
You’re a very astute guy…I mean that. So, what has Me. Bush done the past 5 years re Osama. If I remember right he said he’d forgotten about him (or words to that effect), until by gosh election time starting getting close. Oh what i cyncic I am!!!
Oh, and I ask again where’s the outrage re this Taliban incident?
“Clinton could have at least tried to capture OBL” Doug
Those 50 cruise missiles he launched at the OBL camp was just swatting flies?
Some dems can’t decide on what the meaning of “is” is. You expect them to apply meaning to a more complex term like “enemy”?
I am one of those who hate the PC B.S. Religious places, schools, hospitals and such should be open game if they are being use for military purpose. Killing people while they are at a funeral is just plain wrong. We would be outrage and rightly so if they target an Arlington cemetery funeral.
Oh, and I ask again where’s the outrage re this Taliban incident?
WTF do you think is the entire point of Kim posting this story? To post it out of non-chalannce? What a feckless and pointless question…
While I am horrified that we let these folk go (if this is true), I have to disagree that there are two sets of people to blame. You can not be serious that you want officers and soldiers in the field to diregard their lawful orders. This point of view is not in the best intrests of our soliders, our Military, or our Nation. There is Civilian control of the Military for a reason. The proper time for a soldier to disobey an order is when the order is unlawful, not when it is distasteful.
Blaming the folk who put this rule in place and who would not change it based on the extenuating circumstances seems wholly correct.
Peter”
Pasy attention to the posts instead of being “feckless” and reckless with your “banal” and “trite” answer (s). My question to Doug was where is the outrage directed to out CIC? He had not reponded.
Why is it that we are supposed to have a dialog and talk with people whose starting point is the death of me and mine for simply existing? Why is it I am supposed to respect a person whose scripture says, “Go ahead and lie. There is no oath that the foriegner can hold you to.”? Whay can’t people, even those in federal beauracracies see that they are never going to talk in good faith, never going to budge an ince from their core beliefs and never do a thing that does not advance their aims of world domination. They do not just want to be left alone. The need to rearm and then come back out guns blazing to kill as many as they can.
Why do we let them get that breather? We need, as NBF said, “To keep the skeer on ’em.”
We only blame Clinton and his administration for treating the GWOT as a law enforcement issue, rather than as the war it so obviously is.
So the terrorist attacks in Spain and England, the recently “foiled” plan in England, a potential future attack on American soil… these are due to military action (or inaction)?
But Clinton could have at least tried to capture OBL. Doing nothing, however, was consistent behavior for him–Clinton probably had 3 or 4 polls to support this “decision.”
Now you’re just making shit up.
ABC might have checked in with Clarke (who would have been easy to find, since he is an ABC News consultant). Clinton, Clarke said in a statement, “repeatedly authorized the use of lethal force against bin Laden and his deputies and personally requested the US military to develop plans for ‘commando operations’ against them.”
This is an outrage! Who’s responsible for this? Whoever is commander in chief of our armed forces should be fired immediately!
What is this pc bullshit in wartime? The hell with it all. You see the terrorist queers all grouped together and You immediately smear them off the face of the earth! Who the hell is f-ing this up?
remember the riots that a false report about flushing Koran’s down the toilet did from Newsweek….blowing up a funeral doesn’t sound good and unfortunately in the information age of media they have to factor PR crap in
Okay. So, tell me why this mistake made by the U.S. military isn’t being blamed by you guys on the COMMANDER IN CHIEF of the military, the president?! Is he in charge or not?
“Okay. So, tell me why this mistake made by the U.S. military isn’t being blamed by you guys on the COMMANDER IN CHIEF of the military, the president?! Is he in charge or not?”
LOL yeah, well since nobody else has the balls to make the call because they’re too busy protecting their own butts from being accused of political incorrectness, maybe it’s not such a bad idea. Unforunately the wheels of the Govt grind very slowly – by the time Bush heard about it, the opportunity would be long gone.
We’re putting respect for the dead above the cause that put those people there in the first place – does nobody see the irony [read: stupidity] of that?
demonsurfer –
Well, the President IS commander in chief of the armed forces. It may be that “the wheels of the Govt grind very slowly”, but whoever is in charge STILL bears responsibility. Doesn’t he?
Did the president or his appointee Don Rusmsfeld KNOW what the rules of engagement were which they had in place before they went to war? If not, isn’t that a rather large oversight? Shouldn’t the commander in chief and the person he put in charge of the war take responsibility.
And, even if they don’t, why aren’t you protesting to the president that he should have the rules of engagement changed?
Hugh said:
So, what has Me. Bush done the past 5 years re Osama. If I remember right he said he’d forgotten about him (or words to that effect), until by gosh election time starting getting close. Oh what i cyncic I am!!!
Sorry for the delay in answering, Hugh (and I mean it sincerely); I was busy finishing up some work and then put my kids to bed…
Anyway, what has Bush done re: OBL over the past 5 years? Well, through military action… (a) he’s taken away two countries that OBL counted on as safe havens (or at least places that were sympathetic to his plans), (b) he’s captured or eliminated a significant number of leaders and coordinators of terrorist operations, (c) he’s taken the fight to them instead of waiting for OBL and his minions to attack us here again.
This doesn’t even take into account the other tools that have been utilized to track movement of personnel, materiel, and financial support.
As to OBL himself? Well, we may never know. [An aside: you’re right–Bush has had a mixed message re: OBL. Early on, Osama was public enemy #1; Bush sounded too much like a sheriff in the Old West to me. Then, as you said, the President all but ignored him…. I would have preferred one approach or the other, but not both. This is a valid point.]
I find it interesting that OBL hasn’t been heard from (except under somewhat suspicious circumstances) in… what? Several years? And, at least to me, his silence on the 5-year anniversary of his greatest “success” speaks volumes. I either think he’s been captured (and no one will ever admit to that), or he’s been atomized–just like so many of those unfortunate victims in NYC, Washington, and PA.
Bottom line? 5 years after 9/11, we have not been attacked again on our soil (knock on wood for all of us). I remember how I felt those first few weeks after those horrible attacks–I was absolutely certain that we would be hit again and again.
One could argue that this administration’s success in combating terror to this point has had an inverse affect on the left–“we’re safe today, so the threat can’t be that bad; Bush lied, etc. etc. blah blah blah.” I just hope that it doesn’t take a more horrific attack for the nation to unite against this real threat from Islamofascism–y’know, I doubt that these guys care at all whether I’m a conservative or you’re a liberal. Just as long as we die at some point.
A somewhat rambling answer to your question, Hugh. Sorry about that. But I wanted to give you a non-sarcastic response.
Brian said:
So the terrorist attacks in Spain and England, the recently “foiled” plan in England, a potential future attack on American soil… these are due to military action (or inaction)?
C’mon, Brian. You know better than that, don’t you? Your question has a flawed premise.
My point was that the Clinton administration believed that the US response to terrorist attacks would be through law enforcement, not on a battlefield. And who knows? If 9/11 had not happened, maybe the Bush administration would have followed the same approach.
But it’s safe to assume that OBL never expected to be as “successful” as he was. And he sure as hell didn’t expect the US to respond the way we did.
Let me ask you something, Brian (and I think these choices are realistic, given our recent history): Where would you rather confront the terrorists–
a) on a battlefield halfway around the world with the full force of the US military, or
b) here at home, who knows where?
The way we answer this is very much a life-or-death matter. To pretend otherwise is stupid and very dangerous.