Overheard on Albie Speer's Marine Officer Selection Course

[MichaeltheGreat]

Academy award caliber camera work there.

[Alexander's Horse]

lol yes, Spielberg is in no danger

One frustration for the troops is the ROE don't allow them to take out these blackbirds with cameras unless they have a weapon in their hand

The enemy of course doesn't have such idiotic restrictions

[MichaeltheGreat]

I was just a dumb grunt, but that camera would look like a weapon to me. Yeah, our candy-ass ROE in places like the 'stan and Somalia are just cringe inducing. If it's actively moving with the Talebs, or using a camera, cell phone, or anything else that even vaguely appears to be coordination with Talebs, then **** 'em, time to meet Allah.

[Alexander's Horse]

some of it was just utterly ridiculous, don't get me started...

[Ben Kenobi]

Hell, even someone as dirt poor as Albie should be able to come up with the dowry of five goats.

Unless he's getting a package deal, that's around 800 bucks, plus he'd need a way to transport 'em there and back. I don't think Albie would pay 800 for a female.

[regexcellent]

I read an account of the Rhodesian Bush War by a guy who was in the Rhodesian Army for 15 years, most of it in special operations outfits like the Selous Scouts and the RLI. It gave a pretty good account of how they handled counter-insurgency warfare. His book got a fair amount of sales and he gets contacted by US military officers all the time. He commented in an interview that one of the most common things he gets asked is "what were your rules of engagement?" He said that when he first heard that, he had to ask what ROE was, and upon hearing it, his answer was "kill the enemy."

That's how we should be doing it in Afghanistan.

[Hauldren Collider]

That's rather simplistic when the enemy is hiding among the good guys.

[giblets]

Let's be like a bunch of racists who probably didn't worry too much about innocent black people getting killed

[Hauldren Collider]

You are aware, gribbler, that the Rhodesian military was majority black? And that the modus operandi of ZANLA was to slaughter whole villages of black people if they wouldn't fight white people? So yeah, they were racist, but not worse than the other guys.

[MRT144]

My solution to insurgency: Time machines!

[giblets]

And American soldiers wouldn't be worse than the Taliban if they followed regexcellent's recommendations.

[Hauldren Collider]

And American soldiers wouldn't be worse than the Taliban if they followed regexcellent's recommendations.

Good point.

[Hauldren Collider]

My solution to insurgency: Time machines!

Why limit that to insurgencies? We could solve Ben with them too, for instance.

[MichaeltheGreat]

I don't see American soldiers burying a young woman up to her waist and stoning her to death solely on the accusation of adultery by a "husband" who tired of her, or wanted his dowry back, or wanted someone else, or wasn't anything more but a self-decided would-be husband and she had the nerve to say no. I also don't see American soldiers implementing Sharia to the extent that girls can not go to school, therefore cannot become doctors, and that women cannot be examined by a male doctor (since there are no female doctors) who is not a blood relative, else she is committing adultery and shall be stoned. Nor can I see American soldiers using soccer stadiums to conduct public execution of women who are "prostitutes" because they are war widows (of Mujahid) with kids, so they have no male relative to support them, no men who want to marry them, and are prohibited from all normal work. Etc.

So no, getting aggressive in hunting down the enemy would still give us several thousand levels to fall before we sunk to the level of the Taleban.

[regexcellent]

That's rather simplistic when the enemy is hiding among the good guys.

I'm not saying shoot anything that moves, I'm saying that our rules of engagement don't leave enough to discretion and that we're being excessively legalistic. We have all these rules about when we can shoot people. In Fallujah, we'd let insurgents get away just because we couldn't 100% positively establish that the people walking out of the house weren't the ones shooting guns at our troops from inside the same house, since they'd left the weapons inside. It's insane. Soldiers aren't ****ing cops, and we shouldn't be fighting with both our hands tied behind our backs.