Law of Armed Conflict and Small Wars

[Jarnhamar]

For the record, I'm not a moralist or an idealist.  I don't give a frig about changing the world and making it a better place for all.  What I do care about is winning this fight and making the world a more secure place for Canadians.

I'm surprised at myself but I think I'm one of the idealist crusaders.

I think the world is heading on a crash course to global civil war and one of the main instigators is religion and religious zealots. People who kill you becuse you don't follow the same beliefs.
Just check out youtube. You'll be hard pressed to find a video without comments SOMEWHERE contaning racist anti-gay anti-muslim anti-western remarks.  Hitler somehow is an all time super star when it comes to youtube comments.  Makes me wonder where young people are learning all this hate.

I like a comment I heard.  It's better to fight terrorists at home in their back yard on our terms than in our back yard on theirs.
In a perfect world everyone would get along but the truth is there are people there will will take steal rape and kill just because they can.  Either on an individual level or national. 

Unless the whole world is brought together under a banner of peace and tollerance we're always going to have Afghanistan's to deal with.

I can see where you're coming from when you say your only worried about Canada but what IS Canada?
A country where other nationalities come and demand we respect their traditions all the while ignoring our own?
I think we need to look beyond Canada.
It's silly but I enjoy a line I heard from a computer game of all things.

"Humanity has looked skyward for it's true path"
Since the dawn of time humans have looked skyward and wondered what's out there. We'll never find out until we take away the ability of making war from selfish people.

I'm going off on a tangent though, apologies.

 

[Ralph]

Sometimes when you hold the moral high ground, it ends up being the hill you die on.  Trying to fight an unconventional enemy by conventional means is pointless.  Break out the napalm and lets get this crap done already.

Hey Kat, you tell me how to drop some napalm on the compound housing three bad guys without injuring the friendlies/neutrals living in the surrounding compounds and I'll give it a go...

 

[vonGarvin]

Hey Kat, you tell me how to drop some napalm on the compound housing three bad guys without injuring the friendlies/neutrals living in the surrounding compounds and I'll give it a go...

It's called "Hellfire"

 

[George Wallace]

The thing that you are overlooking is that some, if not many, of these "friendlies/neutrals" are only friendly or neutral when they don't have their wpns handy........When they pick up their wpns, they aren't so "friendly".  They can be one thing today, and something else tonight.  I am sure that many dead combatants suddenly became "innocents" when their wpns were smuggled out of the area as the MSM arrived.  One of the problems faced in fighting this type of Warfare.

 

[Kat Stevens]

Hey Kat, you tell me how to drop some napalm on the compound housing three bad guys without injuring the friendlies/neutrals living in the surrounding compounds and I'll give it a go...

I don't have to know how, I'm just a dumb ol' ex lifer corporal.  We send very smart people to very expensive schools for long periods of time and pay them a metric ass load to figure these things out.  I don't need to know how to fix my TV to see it's not working.

 

[Fusaki]

Half the guys on the battlefield do think it's crusade, they're called "the enemy". 

And that mentality does nothing but hurt their cause.  By and large, the world sees them as medieval thugs and religious fanatics.  Their extreme views have alienated them from the rest of the world, and I believe that if we can bring up the levels of literacy and education in Afghanistan, it will alienate them from the people there too.

What's self righteous bullshit is thinking you can win a war with a half assed effort, and THAT is an insult to every dead soldier that comes home.  Seeing past the guy on the ground is great, seeing the real drivers, then dropping a 2000 laser guided bomb down his chimney is just great.

I'm not suggesting that we half-ass anything.  What I'm saying is that winning this war will take a holistic approach, combining politics and the development of infrastructure and education of the Afghan people, along with combat.  This isn't about "going easy on the badguys".  It's about selection and maintenance of aim.  It's about fighting smarter, and not just sending more troops over the top and trying to win by attrition.

Let's do more of that.  Ruthlessness is exactly what's missing...

Don't confuse ruthlessness with blind rage. We should be professionals: cold and calculating.  No sympathy, and no remorse, because it's all business.  Once you bring emotion into it you risk being seen as a thug, which undermines our credibility and it undermines the legitimacy of the mission.

 

[Loachman]

Hey Kat, you tell me how to drop some napalm

Not that we use napalm anymore.

 

[Kat Stevens]

I don't disagree, no remorse.  So why are we discussing charging this Officer for dispatching a badly wounded person who moments ago was more than willing to dispatch him?  Fuck 'em all.

 

[Loachman]

And that mentality does nothing but hurt their cause.  By and large, the world sees them as medieval thugs and religious fanatics.  Their extreme views have alienated them from the rest of the world

Regrettably, most of the world is completely unwilling to do anything about such thugs and fanatics, or else we would not have much need to be discussing them.

 

[mariomike]

Not that we use napalm anymore.

Apparently the U.S. does, or did, use a similar concoction:
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/military/20030805-9999_1n5bomb.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_77_bomb#cite_ref-globalsecurity_1-1

 

[Old Sweat]

Apparently the U.S. does, or did, use a similar concoction:
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/military/20030805-9999_1n5bomb.html

Wait a minute. We have this one report in a source from 2003, but nothing since then. If this weapon was available, there should be clips of it being used or other reports. The media would be all over it like ants on a blob of jam on the patio. Instead we have not seen or heard of any "fire" or "naplam" type weapons being used. How say those with time in theatre?

 

[X-mo-1979]

I havent seen napalm,however I did have a supertanker of fuel get hit with a RPG 100m to my front.that was the coolest explosion I have ever saw.

I think we should be using napalm on all the dope and opium fields.Be too easy.As the poppy eradication team....well they didnt eradicate anything in my area.Wanna win the war destroy the money crops,stop the funding.I didnt understand why we didnt destroy these.Not destroying these crops "as its their lively hood is fing B/S in my opinion."It's like saying your not goning to bust the crack dealer in town as he's only small league.Destroy production,destroy their ability to fund themselves.

When  I was fighting bushfires back in the day I seen a helo drop napalm stuff to build a firebreak.Lets send over a couple more helo's and use em to drop napalm on weed,and opium crops.

The Poppy eradication team did nothing in Zhari/Panj from what I could see.Even though we were told they were coming to our area in a brief during our tour.

 

[jollyjacktar]

I agree with most that is being said.  But I believe the other side does not give one shit that we believe we have to moral high ground or that we adhere to LOAC.  I believe they find this a weakness on our behalf and they believe that they not us have the moral high ground according to their beliefs.

You don't necessarily have to take out whole villages to fight fire with fire.  Conventional means have never been successfull against any insurgency.  They either had to go unconventional themselves or try other means.  We are taking these steps right now with Kallay and others are trying to mimic our efforts.  Are they working ? That is not for me to say, I hope so as I took part in some of it and it would be good to know that I did not waste my time there.

However, another example was given to me many years ago of going unconventional.  Someone I knew was at the Canadian Embassy in Beruit in 85 or so.  At this time it was a regular occurance for Western personnel to be kidnapped by some group or another and demands for randsom made, or just outright wacking the infilels.  One group kidnapped some of the Soviet Embassy staff, demands for randsom were made and refused.  A couple of hours later one of the workers bodies was dumped outside the Embassy as a warning.  The Russians brought in a Spetnaz wet team who found out who was responsible, who their families were and where they were all located.  In due course, the kidnappers had several bags containing the bodies of selected members of their familes dumped outside their hidy hole area with a demand to release the victims or more would follow.  All of the victims were quickly released and no one screwed with the Russians after that.  They went for the more morally high ground folks.... like the Yanks.  Not nice stuff, but it went down to their level of understanding and it worked.  Beautifully.

 

[Infanteer]

Sometimes when you hold the moral high ground, it ends up being the hill you die on.  Trying to fight an unconventional enemy by conventional means is pointless.

How is the enemy unconventional?  Is a small arms ambush or a stand off explosive an uncoventional method of fighting?  We teach this to our soldiers and utilize these techniques against our enemy. 

Break out the napalm and lets get this shit done already.

How would napalm work more effectively than the numerous different munitions we utilize in theater?

 

[Kat Stevens]

How is the enemy unconventional?  Is a small arms ambush or a booby trap an uncoventional method of fighting?  We, we teach this to our soldiers. 

How would napalm work more effectively than the numerous different munitions we utilize in theater?

We teach the indiscriminate use of concealed explosive devices with no regard to the outcome?  We teach our soldiers to dress like and hide among the civilian populace with a Kalashnikov stashed up their kilt?  We teach our soldiers to throw acid in the face of little girls, to "discourage the others", to twist a phrase?  Wow, the army really has changed a lot in the last 7 years.  I think you understand my intent with the napalm comment, as do the others who jumped on that little tidbit.

*edited to remove unnecessarily inflammatory content*

 

[mariomike]

How would napalm work more effectively than the numerous different munitions we utilize in theater?

Wikipedia had this to say: "The Marines used fire as both a casualty weapon as well as a psychological weapon. They found that Japanese soldiers would abandon positions in which they fought to the death against other weapons. Prisoners of war confirmed that they feared napalm more than any other weapon utilised against them."
"The substance used now is a different incendiary mixture, but sufficiently analogous in its effects that it is still a controversial incendiary, and can still be referred to colloquially as 'napalm.'"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Napalm

 

[Infanteer]

We teach the indiscriminate use of concealed explosive devices with no regard to the outcome?

The shitty insurgents are indiscriminate, but the good ones have a targeting methodology that is no different then us emplacing a high-density minefield or utilizing an airstrike to kill our target.

We teach our soldiers to dress like and hide among the civilian populace with a Kalashnikov stashed up their kilt?  We teach our soldiers to throw acid in the face of little girls, to "discourage the others", to twist a phrase?  Wow, the army really has changed a lot in the last 7 years.

Ohhhh...so this is about how they dress.  So is an "unconventional" conflict based strictly on what one wears when he gets in a shoot out?

As for acid in the face, what does a domestic criminal act against another civilian have anything to do with how we prosecute our campaign against the enemy?

I think you understand my intent with the napalm comment, as do the others who jumped on that little tidbit, or are you being deliberately obtuse?

No, I don't really understand your intent.  Are you saying we should simply reduce districts like Panjwayi to a wasteland?  Before you answer, remember that although they didn't go all the way, the Soviet's used a "gloves off" approach.

I have been obtuse with my last two posts.  I've asked basic questions that haven't been answered.  I've seen people rail against our current campaign with the usual pithy "kill 'em all and let god sort them out" post, but I've seen no real answer to the question as to how the Law of Armed Conflict interferes with how we do business.

Remember not to mix tactics with the operational level.  Where are folks saying that we are falling short at?  At the tactical level - remember; we've killed a lot of insurgents over the last 4 years.  How would "taking the gloves off" improve our tactical approach?

If you're discussing the operational level, and advocating wholesale slaughter or internment of the populace to "root out" a few insurgents than we can take the discussion there.  My question for you, Brigadier General Kat Stevens Commander Task Force Afghanistan, is are you willing to give an order to kill so many for the sake of nailing so few (that we will eventually kill anyways)?

 

[Kat Stevens]

I don't have any answers, as I honestly admitted several posts back.  But something clearly isn't working.  Yes, we've killed zillions of them, but I can only guess at that, all I see on my TV is NATO soldiers being killed, and  there doesn't appear to be any shortage of guys willing to step up and strap on some SEMTEX underoos.    Domestic criminal act or not, the acid attack is an indicator of the scope of the Taliban mentality, and they're everywhere.  I will bow out of this, and keep my plainly horrifying opinion to myself.

 

[gcclarke]

I don't have any answers, as I honestly admitted several posts back.  But something clearly isn't working.  Yes, we've killed zillions of them, but I can only guess at that, all I see on my TV is NATO soldiers being killed, and  there doesn't appear to be any shortage of guys willing to step up and strap on some SEMTEX underoos.    Domestic criminal act or not, the acid attack is an indicator of the scope of the Taliban mentality, and they're everywhere.  I will bow out of this, and keep my plainly horrifying opinion to myself.

Well then I guess the question is, are they running out of people faster than we're running out of the will to fight? Or, perhaps even better, are they running out of people faster than the time it would take to stand up the Afghan Army to deal with the situation on their own assuming that we don't run out of the will to fight before that happens.

Anyways, yes, I agree, the whole acid attack thing is quite horrific. Not quite as horrific as the earlier suggestion to use napalm on the same people who are getting acid thrown at them, but still.

 

[Kat Stevens]

Okay, let me state my position a little more clearly for the very last time, and withdraw the flippant napalm remark that seems to be the only ball anyone picked up and ran with.  Soo here it is:

  You can't win the game, any game, when you're the only one playing by the rules.  If it were up to me, not one drop of medevac chopper fuel, not one minute of a doctors already busy day, not one centimetre of suturing, would be expended on wounded enemy combatants.

Now I truly am done in here.