One thing that has become clear over the course of the Iraq debacle is that US forces operate under very different rules of engagement from other, more civilised countries, with frequent incidents of civilians being massacred by jumpy, trigger-happy American troops. Now, an Australian officer who served in Iraq has revealed that Australian and British legal advisors had to repeatedly "red card" US forces to limit civilian casualties:
In the most detailed insight yet into the secret rules Australian forces operated under during the conflict in 2003, Colonel Kelly, who went on to become a senior adviser to the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq, said for Australian forces to open fire the enemy was "required to visibly carry weapons while deploying for an attack".Defence sources said that under more relaxed US rules there only had to be a "reasonable suspicion" that the person was an enemy combatant and a threat.
Australian F/A-18s rarely ventured into built-up areas during the conflict to make strikes, and on occasion pulled out of bombing raids at the last minute when it was realised civilians were in the target area.
(Mike blogged about one such incident here)
The consequences of that difference in rules of engagement can be seen in the top left corner of the screen: thousands of dead civilians, many killed simply because they got to close to American forces who saw every Iraqi as a potential suicide-bomber.
This poses a problem for future US military action. If they continue down the path of wontonly violating international law, then they may find themselves increasingly unable to cooperate even with close allies.
8 comments:
to be honest, i'm surprised you think this is news.
the US has been well-known for this type of stuff for decades. even in WW2 they were known for it!
i've been trying to re-source an article i read way back in 1993 (?) for example, which talked about kosovo. basically it said, "kosovo. not in such a bad state now. having a bit of trouble with serbia. place is calm because it has Norweigian peace-keepers. when they leave in 1996 (?) everything is likely to go pear-shaped on account of the americans taking over".
it was like a prophecy.
i'll put in a bit of effort and try to find the actual article. it's a hard one to dispute because it's not exactly published on rabidlefty.org...
Posted by Anonymous : 8/11/2005 03:32:00 PM
Quote from Juancole.com, from an email sent to him by some military lawyer for the Marines (I think).
"One of the ways we train our Marines is by going over scenarios with them. In one, I propose that they are traveling down the highway in a convoy. As they approach an overpass, they see a MAM (military age male) standing on the middle of the overpass with something about the size of a baseball (grenade-sized) in his hands. When he sees the convoy, he freezes. What should you do? Most of the Marines will say, "He's demonstrated hostile intent, you need to waste him. He could be holding a hand grenade and be intending to drop it into one of the trucks as you pass under." (This is an actual tactic used by the insurgents).
I change the scenario and say that when he sees you, he drops to the ground on the overpass. Some Marine will invariably answer, to the acclaim of his fellow Marines, "That's a hostile act. He's taking cover because he's about to detonate an IED on you. You need to take him out." (Also something they've actually seen.)
Finally, I change the scenario to say that, when he sees you, he turns around in the direction from which he came and starts running off the overpass (you can see where this is going). The answer is usually that that too is a hostile act or hostile intent because he is clearly trying to get off that overpass before the IED goes off.
Apparently, the only safe action for the MAM to take is to have Scotty beam him up. As far as some Marines are concerned, the presence of an Arab male in proximity to an American convoy may be all you need to find hostile act/ hostile intent. This is, of course, highly reminiscent of that quip in Michael Herr's Dispatches, "The ones who run are VC. The ones who don't run are well-disciplined VC."
NML
Posted by Anonymous : 8/11/2005 03:53:00 PM
sock, well, that's exactly the point.
norwegians. things good. americans pushing people around. things bad.
like i say, i'm trying to source the article.
Posted by Anonymous : 8/11/2005 04:55:00 PM
the US strategy works against some people the strategy of norwegians or whoever works well against other people - it is hard to tell exactly which one is appropriate before the event, sometimes you can't even tell after the event.
there is also of course the "chinese/russian" strategy (flatten and occupy then beat the spirit out of them)
Or the old "soviet" strategy - get some insurgents to fight on your behalf.
Other strategies include for example flattening and not ocupying.
Posted by Genius : 8/11/2005 07:37:00 PM
I recently watched the Oliver Stone movie 'Platoon' for the first time and I was particularly moved by the scene in which US troops enter and then destroy a village while killing several of it's inhabitants.
Granted, this is a fictional story and the incident portrayed never took place.
What was notable, however, was that the actions, attitudes and behaviour of soldiers in a movie made twenty years ago could be fitted seamlessly into many real, authenticated accounts of the actions of US soldiers in Iraq today.
As I said, the movie was a fiction but Stone has made it clear over the years that the story was based realistically on his own wartime experiences in Vietnam.
I think an arrogant contempt for the lives of civilians is endemic in America's military mindset and sadly nothing seems to have changed in the last twenty or thirty years.
Posted by Anonymous : 8/11/2005 07:48:00 PM
Genius - rubbish, it's not difficult at all to tell whether it's likely to work, it's that large political interests don't really care to modify their thoughts and actions when they have the option of resorting to overwhelming military strength. there is one simple word for it - arrogance. If Juan Cole could accurately predict the outcome before the action of Iraq, based on the history and temperament of the people, it was hardly an unsolveable mystery..!
Strangely enough, I doubt anyone on NRT would advocate what you call the Chinese or Russian approaches.. the reason it's not stated,. and they're not demonised more is because it's self-evident they're clearly obscene in a human context, and no-one can be bothered wasting the breathe in order to satisfy those who demand equal column-inches for east/west atrocities.
The difference with the US is the Right by and large are extremely willing to act as defenders, justifiers and even champions of US actions, rather than applying common standards of acceptable human behaviour across east and west, whereas the Left are nmuch less willing.
Posted by Anonymous : 8/11/2005 08:36:00 PM
gary, isn't there an famous and well documented incident called the 'mai lai' (sp?) massacre in which US soliders butchered dozens of vietnamese villagers?
also, there's that recent uncovering of the butchering of plenty of Koreans under some bridge?
yup, a memory for detail me...
And Genius, re: Soviets getting insurgents to fight on their behalf. i think you might want to take into account a group calling themselves the mudjahadeen? you now, the group funded by the CIA to fight the Soviets in Afghanistan? the same group that Osama Bin Laden trained/fought with?
and the chinese/russian strategy you're talking about sounds suspiciously like the one used to defeat Hilters Germany....
Posted by Anonymous : 8/12/2005 09:51:00 AM
Gee, I guess British or Australian troops never committed any attocities in the Malaya & Kenya. Not to mention that nasty business of Gen Dyer's massacre of more then a thousand civilans in Armistar, India in 1919 or Cromwell's savage conquest of Ireland!
(Do not mind criticism of US troops & actions as long as some intelligence is shown in doing so.)
Posted by Anonymous : 8/13/2005 04:35:00 AM
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