Thursday, September 14, 2006
Rules of engagement: Notes on the media at war
The United States apparently declined to attack a cluster of Taliban fighters because they were gathered in a cemetary.
The U.S. military acknowledged Wednesday that it considered bombing a group of more than 100 Taliban insurgents in southern Afghanistan but decided not to after determining they were on the grounds of a cemetery.
The decision came to light after an NBC News correspondent's blog carried a photograph of the insurgents. Defense department officials first tried to block further publication of the photo, then struggled to explain what it depicted.
NBC News claimed U.S. Army officers wanted to attack the ceremony with missiles carried by an unmanned Predator drone but were prevented under rules of battlefield engagement that bar attacks on cemeteries.
Commentary
What are the likely consequences of the American forbearance, and the media's report of that forbearance?
The most obvious result of American restraint in this instance is that 100 Taliban fighters have lived to kill and wound Afghanis and NATO soldiers again. The good guys will kill most of them some day, but these black turbins will do more damage before that day of reckoning. It comes to this: we made a judgment not to attack because dominant "world opinion" -- if the world can be said to have an opinion -- holds that it is better to let a war go on longer than to kill enemy soldiers in the middle of a religious ceremony, even if a few people not involved in that decision have to die later in its honor. Fair enough. People die all the time because of respect for religious traditions.
Of course, that same world opinion holds Islamists to a very different standard. There were no howls of outrage or accusations of war crime when Moqtada al-Sadr's Mahdi army tried to trap American soldiers in a cemetary. Along the same lines, it is not adventurous to predict that the United States will get no credit in "world opinion" for its humanity at the Afghani cemetary, especially not from Europeans, who seem to define "world opinion" for a certain segment of NPR-listening, New York Review of Books-reading Europhilic Americans. This is ironic, because there are 18,000 soldiers from NATO fighting alongside Americans in Afghanistan, and some of them may well die because the United States did not drop a Hellfire into the middle of a Taliban funeral.
The more interesting questions involve the consequences of the report that the Americans did not attack.
First, we can probably expect to see more enemy soldiers taking refuge in cemetaries. The Defense Department claims that it "makes no promises" to avoid attacking soldiers who hide in cemetaries, but if we were unwilling to drop a missile on a knot of 100 Taliban -- remotely, so there would be no pictures of American soldiers among the graves -- it is hard to see when we would be more willing to make an exception. Presumably we would if American or allied lives were immediately at stake, but when else?
If the Taliban had doubts before -- perhaps because of the battle in Najaf -- they have no doubts now: we don't attack if they congregate among tombstones.
Second, if the Taliban and other enemies exploit their new knowledge of the cemetary loophole in our rules of engagement, our military will feel great pressure to revise the rule or ignore it. We can't, after all, give the enemy little "home free" areas, as if war were a game of kick the can. So when we eventually cave in to necessity and attack the enemy in a cemetary, an enemy that is hiding there because it reads the wire services, what will be the reaction of the Western chattering classes then?
18 Comments:
By 
Gordon Smith, at
Thu Sep 14, 10:44:00 AM:
Word Problem:
One hundred Al Qaeda terrorists are hiding in a cemetery. United States air forces get the go-ahead to drop a bomb on them. They are all killed. Also, 400 graves are destroyed, throwing the remains of the long-dead into the same mulch heaps as the newly-dead. How many new terrorists will be created by this act? How many families will turn their rage towards the Americans, not the Al Qaeda?
Bonus: If we had enough troops on the ground and sent them to engage in a firefight with the inferior fighters of Al Qaeda, desecrating none of the graves, how many terrorists would we create by comparison?
Blowing up graveyards full of live terrorists is a good idea only if you want to create more live terrorists. This seems elementary to me. But, to some, passing on a chance to kill a bad guy is anathema, even if it means creating more bad guys in the process.
By Lanky_Bastard, at
Thu Sep 14, 12:05:00 PM:
I think what Screwy's trying to say is that this is a strategic decision. I would guess it was based more on "local opinion" than on "world opinion", but that hardly matters. Blowing up 100 warriors in a graveyard is not going to destroy an ideology. Quite the opposite. It fails reinforce the justice of our cause, or support anyone associated with us. Various entities would be forced to denounce the action, like our allies in fragile newly elected Arab democarcies. It could be used by our enemies to sow discord and spread hatred against us. Would it make our part-time ally Pakistan less enthusiastic to assist us? Would it strenghten anti-American sentiment in Iraq? These are valid strategic costs that should not be blithely dissmissed as "world opinion". Our two biggest military accomplishments in the last few years (apprehension of Saddam and elimination of Zarqawi) both resulted from actionable local intelligence. We need to strengthen, not poison, that well.
As often as I hear from the neocons that this is a global ideological battle, I wish they'd think about what that means rather than just use it as a soundbite to lump all the people they don't like into the same bin. Winning an ideological battle means proving our ideology is better (see Soviet Union). That's why this is a news article. It is specifically spreading the message: "Look how noble and just we are. Our ideology is superior." If it wasn't written by psy-ops, it certainly has their approval. It's a rare assist from the media in the global war on terror. It amazes me that the most ardent of war-supporters would poop all over it.
By TigerHawk, at
Thu Sep 14, 12:12:00 PM:
Lanky, I am pleased that Screwy finally has representation.
I didn't mean to "poop" all over this, but rather to raise a series of points that most readers of the story probably don't think about. I think it is probably wise to avoid bombing cemetaries in Afghanistan for the reasons you describe. However, I also think that the publicity of that particular rule of engagement will tend to create the conditions that degrade its enforceability over the long haul. We will get no public relations credit for our forbearance -- I expect that this story will get essentially no pick-up -- but the enemy now knows about a policy that it may not have known about before. This is a likely consequence of the decision to publish this story. I'm not saying anything should be done about it, but we should not deny the risk that it is so.
By Fabio, at
Thu Sep 14, 01:18:00 PM:
Last time I checked, VX does not damage tombs...
Ah well, seriously now.
You have to balance the military advantage of killing enemies against the social advantage of being "culturally sensitive".
To me it seems that America gets always blamed in any case, so it's better to privilege military effectiveness.
Also, the nigtmarish scenario of hundreds of broken tombs and scattered human remains can be created only by aerial bombing or artillery stryke. Air-bursting anti-personnel munitions would cause little damage to the cemetary (and I'm not joking in this case).
By Fabio, at
Thu Sep 14, 02:26:00 PM:
Ah, Screwy can't avoid some stupid statement tho.
"Bonus: If we had enough troops on the ground and sent them to engage in a firefight with the inferior fighters of Al Qaeda, desecrating none of the graves, how many terrorists would we create by comparison?"
It's not a matter of having more troops on the ground. It's a matter of getting them there in time. How would you do? By road, by plane, helicopter? How many vehicles do you need? Pilots, fuel, protection...
What friendly casualties and material losses do you risk with this kind of action?
Are you sure that no-one would still label that as intolerable desacration of a cemetary?
Another solution could be out-source these jobs: if another Afghan militia were to blow up a cemetary, no one would give a damn.
By skipsailing, at
Thu Sep 14, 02:56:00 PM:
Hmmm, I've heard this "create more terrorist" nonsense for some five years now.
I have video of the USMC assaulting a grave yard in Iraq. Bing West has a chapter in no true glory titled "the jolan graveyard". We've fought in Islamic grave yards before and I suspect we'll fight there again.
will that create more terrorists? I suppose if one assumes that muslim men will only respond one way then by now there must be millions of these terrorists.
But I wonder where they are. I wonder where those millions of angry men with table cloths on their head and AK's in their arms are right now.
sitting in Syria eating baklava and smoking cigarettes? Holed up in Warizistan living on goat meat and watching their beards get longer?
Please. If there truly were millions of new terrorists would Nasrallah be in hiding? Would analysts be claiming that the IDF killed 40% of the Hezbullah fighters? Puh leeeeeze
isn't just as possible that Muslim men view things differently? Why assume that they will respond the way screwy (perfect screen name BTW) insists? Isn't it just as possible that they say "My goodness, there is no where safe from American bombs, what exactly are we fighting for again?"
It seems to me that the anti victory crowd has repeated this "new terrorists" theory so loudly for so long that they've come to view it as axiomatic, which it is not.
I have not seen any independant confirmation that the photo is real and the decisions are being accurately portrayed.
I understand the RoE's and I find them quite frustrating, but none of that makes this entire episode true.
but I'd like to see more facts about this. I've heard that this is press report is the result of a leak and that tends to diminish credibility.
By 
, at
Thu Sep 14, 03:24:00 PM:
RiverRat nailed it. I bet that is exactly what happens. At the least it will reduce the amount of future missions aborted for the same reason even if we (quietly this time) reinstate the same ROEs.
By skipsailing, at
Thu Sep 14, 03:52:00 PM:
Absolute non sense. Anbar has been hotly contested since day one as any informed observer knows.
further, this doesn't answer the question. Are you saying that there are millions of AQIZ fighters in Anbar now? I doubt that strongly. the sunnis and the Irahabin are staging a low level grind in anbar, but they cannot deny th US military access to any place in the province. Yes, its been tough, but its been tough for centuries.
Basically you're saying that any where there is fighting is proof of your thesis. That's nonsense.
By , at
Thu Sep 14, 06:10:00 PM:
You folks are affected by 'paralysis by analysis'. The correct answer is: 2 or 3 GBU-83 cluster munitions, followed by an A-10 doing 3 or 4 20mm gat strafing runs. No recess today. Everyone take their 'Art of War' by Sun Tzu out and turn to page 45.
By Assistant Village Idiot, at
Thu Sep 14, 07:39:00 PM:
I agree that there is a calculation to be made of gain vs. loss in potientially bad PR situations, even if they are unfairly bad PR situations. However I don't think that is a constant. "Creating more terrorists," while a legitimate concern is a fluid variable. Psychological effects of our actions can vary not only by country, but day to day as well. Doing something which gets bad press in Ottawa is not a fixed cost in Pakistan. I don't accept the calculation that whenever we do something that torques off the extremists that there is an automatic large recruiting advantage for them. It's more variable than that.
By Papa Ray, at
Thu Sep 14, 09:26:00 PM:
Talking about safe haven's in Iraq.
The current ROE for our forces there make it almost impossible to return fire. The ROE has tightened down considerbly since the Marine incidents.
Concerning the "Wild West" or the "backside of hell" as one Marine recently returned from there says.
It has never been under any kind of Regional government control. It is controlled by tribes and smugglers that have been fighting among themselves and any outsiders for centuries.
aQ is unwelcome as well, but they are feared because they are stronger and because they act "crazed" and kill anyone who doesn't cooperate or snitches on them.
In the areas where the Marines have stayed awhile, the locals will assist in the capture of aQ and have been known to fight them, themselves.
But speaking of the whole hell's backside area, the report is correct. As it is stated. But it does not encompass what is needed to enable better control or progress.
Only the state it is in at the moment.
My buds tell me that "more boots" are not the answer out there or actually anywhere in Iraq. They all say that the answer is for the central government of Iraq to handle bribing or scaring the local insurgents into laying down their arms and joining forces with the Iraqi government, both politically and by joining up in the IA and/or police forces.
The Wild West can be controlled, pacified and brought into a later century only by the Iraqi government. But even those say that it will be a long term proposition because that area has never been under anything but tribal councils that are constantly changing alliances, no different than it was hundreds of years ago.
My buds say once security is established and the kids get educated they will all leave for damn sure. There is nothing there for them except smuggling and sheep herding and an early death.
Papa Ray
West Texas
USA
By , at
Fri Sep 15, 12:30:00 AM:
I would ask how they could be Anbar's "most significant political force" if it were otherwise.
Ummm, Anbar is a relatively empty desert area with little population.
You could say biker gang rolling through Death Valley could be considered the "most significant political force there" since very few people live in Death Valley, but that doesn't mean one biker gang is a significant threat to the state of California.
By Dawnfire82, at
Fri Sep 15, 12:33:00 AM:
"Why you think it is that al Qaeda in Iraq is more powerful now than ever despite our efforts? If you deny that al Qaeda in Iraq is more powerful that ever, I would ask how they could be Anbar's "most significant political force" if it were otherwise."
This is absurd. You make an assumption and then challenge others to disprove it. Rather, you should be attempting to prove your point so that it CAN be rebutted.
Al Qaeda is relatively strong in Anbar now for two reasons. One, the survivors of the Great Terrorist Purge this summer have gathered there to regroup in friendly territory. They have all but given up the north, east, and south.
Secondly, the US just redeployed a mass of forces that were there in order to lock down Baghdad (at the request of the Iraqis) and exterminate lingering problems there.
Look at it again from this angle. Al Qaeda has less opposition thanks to the redeployment, and more personnel than in the recent past because of their own concentration of force, but it *still* isn't the state of uprising seen during the Battle of Fallujah, et al.
More powerful than ever. Pft. Empty words fired as political ammunition.
By , at
Fri Sep 15, 01:46:00 AM:
A fairy tale:
"Hey, I'm Muhammad Al Jahara and I think I like the Americans. I think the Taliban was no good, shooting women in the soccer stadium. I like watching soccer better than shootings. I think I will go to America and have a nice life. Oh no, Americans sent missile to kill Taliban and messed up Uncle Jamil's tombstone! That does it! I choose jihad! Death to America! Death to America!"
I don't think so. The popular theory of how terrorists are created is bunk. Most people in this part of the world understand might, force and power. These are brutal regions of the world and the people try to avoid those who will kill them. If we clearly show that we are very effective at killing those who fight us, less people will go to fight us. I think the popular theory of being "Mr. Sensitive" to win over people in this region is absolutely wrong.
By , at
Fri Sep 15, 04:43:00 AM:
After seeing the picture of the "funeral" I have a hard time believing it. If they can stand in formation like that it's impressive(for taliban) with/without knowing a drone/airplane is over your head(unless they gathered the locals & put them in order for fun & tv). They would be wise to air/land attacks in the local area being so open. I think it's Afgan army burying it's dead. Just a guess. And if the pic is true that guy that got buried had some rank. Smack'em, one less American in harms way.
Mike S
By , at
Sat Sep 16, 01:43:00 AM:
How many new terrorists will be created by this act?
None who weren't already inclined so anyway.
I don't see any waves of Jewish terrorism in this country when some neo-nazis or islamofascists decide to desecrate a jewish cemetary.
Do you really want to argue that muslims are more inclined to terroristic behavior just because they are muslims? Wouldn't that ruin the whole leftist schtick?
By Dawnfire82, at
Sat Sep 16, 04:28:00 PM:
"They never had any traction in the North, East or South, because those areas are inhabited by Shi’ites and Kurds."
I never meant traction as political power for those reasons. but what about the almost constant car bombs, mortaring of schools, and kidnappings/executions that have tapered off in those places since the Summer? They have stopped fighting there, at least for the present and I suspect for longer. That's what I meant.
"How did the “great terrorist purge” cleanly miss of the heart of the Sunni insurgence?"
Better hidden, naturally. Do you think it's be easier to find a cell leader called 'al-Tikriti' in Mosul or in Tikrit? Do you think there are more people willing to help hide you, a Sunni Salafist, (and fewer people to sell you out) in Kirkuk or Fallujah?
"Yes, and because we don’t have enough troops to secure the entire country at once, so we’ve given up Anbar to al Qaeda. This makes them more powerful, not less. Our abandonment of that area combined with the Iraqi Government’s impotence means they are the only game in town."
You say given up like it's a permanent condition, and it isn't unless we and the Iraqis are willing to simply give up the whole province forever. Since we aren't, we'll be going back.
Secondly, it does not make them more powerful. It doesn't affect their 'power' in any way. If it did, then their withdrawals from the other regions would make *us* 'more powerful.'
As you imply, a sudden power vacuum has made them the 'primary political force' there, not a sudden increase in ability. Lack of opposition does not mean an increase in power.
"You seem to be confusing a state of uprising with power. They are now more powerful than ever due in no small part to the fact they no longer have to fight. We left Anbar to them. By your logic, the enemy giving up the fight and leaving makes one less powerful."
There's no confusion. Power = capability. Terrorist capabilites are severely degraded in Iraq from where they were, say, a year ago. As I've said before here, where are the mass prison breaks, the human wave assaults on Marine outposts, the infiltrations of American headquarters? Similarly, where are the seized cities, like Fallujah? They used to mass hundreds of fighters to launch attacks fairly routinely. But they're gone. Why? They lack the manpower necessary.
You seem to confuse lack of opposition with power. Just because no one is shooting at them right now doesn't mean that they are more powerful. It just means they aren't being shot at right now. It also means that they aren't shooting at us.
By Dawnfire82, at
Sun Sep 17, 04:09:00 PM:
"Are you actually saying that because the violence is not at the record highs it was in July, it is some sort of victory? If you'd like to consider it that way, you may, but then when violence inevitably swings up again, you'll have to consider it a defeat. Perhaps it would be more useful to look at the greater trend lines rather than the month to month swings since the summer."
A simple lessening of violence isn't necessarily a victory. But a lessening of violence because the enemy has fewer troops and guns *is* a sort of victory. It means they've been hurt badly enough for their abilities to have been degraded, which is of course the entire point of battle.
"They don't seem to be having any trouble staging attacks in Kirkuk or Mosul."
You asked how the 'heart of the insurgency,' presumably in the West, could have been missed. I explained why, from a HUMINT perspective since that's what is likely most used and that's what I do. Sea of the people, and all that.
I couldn't find a chronological list of attacks in Mosul or Kirkuk. They were all macro-level statistics and such. While your little list is rhetorically impressive, without regional data it cannot be used to either confirm or refute the idea that attacks there are either increasing or decreasing. I think decreasing because after some particularly disgusting IED attacks against school children last year (I think it was last year; report by a Staff Sergeant friend who was there when it happened) the populace had turned hostile to the terrorists. Also, I've heard nothing but good things about the Kurdish Peshmerga and their effectiveness.
"You can cling to the notion that someday we'll go back there and actually secure the place before getting our attentions diverted elsewhere because a more important part of the country is up in flames, but I'll believe it when I see it."
You can cling to the notion that we've abandoned it because we're really so simple minded and unprofessional as to be distracted by "ooh, shiny" rather than forming rational priority ranking lists and carrying them out, but I'll believe it when I see it.
Irritating, isn't it?
"You've conspicuously failed to name any place that they have actually withdrawn from."
That's because I'm not on a first name basis with any of them. The only way to gauge this is to observe trends. Sectarian violence is up between the aggressive Shi'i militias and corresponding Sunni resisters (who are not Al Qaeda, by the way), but attacks against the coalition troops (excepting by Shi'i militias from time to time) are down. Since, like I mentioned, I haven't been able to find regional stats I've gone with the more informal method of 'what have I heard.' And what I've heard was that the Al Qaeda types were gathering in the West and that activities elsewhere (excluding Baghdad, which seems to be their main concern now) are declining.
"Power does not equal capability, at least not military capability, which you are clearly talking about."
You've manipulated my words into a pre-conceived formula. I didn't ever say military capability; I said capability, which in the international vernacular can mean all sorts of things. But if you'd rather, then yeah it does. They're *terrorists*, not a country. They exist only to inflict harm, a little like a self supporting military. In that case, yeah, military capability is really the only capability that matters to them because that's all they do. They don't operate the same way, and the way you deliver the phrase "being handed undisputed control of Anbar more than makes up for that" implies that they now run the municipalities, collect taxes, with their own policing program and local recruiting offices. They're just a group of killers, not politicians and administrators. What funding they receive is external; they don't collect taxes. Weapons are also supplied externally (even the IEDs now); they don't have industrial complexes. They don't supply social services, they don't enforce law, they don't negotiate with other nations, they don't accept petitions, et cetera. While I appreciate the symbolism of comparing Arab terrorists to the Soviet Union, the analogy is unfit, not to mention historically wrong.
The Soviet Union was absolutely more militarily capable in 1944 than 1941. By the end of the war, the Red Army was huge, well armed, well led, experienced, and highly effective. Hordes of T-34s and SU-152s and Flying Tanks had pounded the Germans into the ground. Hence the Soviet victory. At the beginning it was huge, poorly armed, poorly led, inexperienced, and terribly ineffective. Hence the string of Soviet defeats. The Germans didn't just get tired of fighting and go home. They were defeated by a superior army.
However, if you want to use nation states at war as analogies, consider this. By the end of 1944 the Germans had withdrawn into Germany proper because they could no longer hold on to the territories outside of their home country. Their former allies of Romania and Italy (Sunni tribal forces) had turned against them. They had suffered huge losses, primarily on the Eastern Front where entire armies were surrendered. Their greatest hero, Erwin Rommel, (Zarqawi) was dead. They fled into their home country of Germany (Anbar) to fight a last stand and try to stop the flood of Allies. Now, German soil hadn't yet been conwuered by invaders. German military industry was still intact and churning out Tiger tanks. (IEDs) Their armed forces were not yet broken. All sorts of doom and gloom prophecies about the terrible costs of subjugating the country were being propogated, and maybe it was better to secure a negotiated peace. But who won that war, and who lost?
Now I'm sure that you're thinking of all sort of interesting ways to rebutt this analogy and point out how it's unfit because of the differences in ideaology, circumstance, armament and tactics, et cetera.
That's my point.
"It is a pity General Galtieri did not have you to spin the Falklands War for him."
As I've told Screwy a dozen times, sarcasm does not replace an argument. Saying that something is true and then mocking the opposition when they disagree is bad form. If you're implying that we have somehow been *defeated* by Al Qaeda's Royal Marines and Harriers and have removed ourselves from Anbar because we have just given up on it forever, come out and say so. So I can mock you.
