Two Views on Killing People at Funerals

[BPSCG]

Link (http://www.nypost.com/news/worldnews/taliban_gets_bury_lucky_worldnews_ian_bishop.htm)
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.

Meanwhile... (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14782986/)
A suicide bomber struck Monday at a funeral for a provincial governor assassinated by the Taliban a day earlier, and four senior members of the government at the service escaped unhurt, officials and witnesses said. At least six people were killed and dozens were wounded.

The blast went off near a tent where more than 1,000 people had congregated in Tani district of Khost province in eastern Afghanistan at the funeral for Gov. Abdul Hakim Taniwal. He was killed Sunday along with two other people in a suicide attack outside his office in Gardez, the capital of neighboring Paktia province.

[gumboot]

Why didn't they just park Humvees outside and wait???

(incidentally I think bombing a cemetary would be a war crime...)

-Andrew

[MRC_Hans]

So we seem, after all, to have better ethics than the guys we are fighting. I find that a comforting thought.

Hans

[Garrette]

I'm not sure it would qualify as a war crime, but bombing a cemetery without sufficient justification would contravene Geneva-Hague and all that.

It is arguable that the presence of the key leaders there would provide sufficient justification, assuming that civilian deaths could be minimized (there's no strict formula on how many civilian deaths are too much and how many are too many).

The U.S. tends to take the safer road and not target even when an outside arbiter, using Geneva-Hague as the guidelines, would say they were justified. Not always, but tends to.

[richardm]

A US bomb was directed against a small funeral gathering in a cemetary. Initial reports put the number of dead at over 500, but the death toll is expected to rise as rescue parties continue to dig though the night.



Old jokes never die ;)

[Darat]

So we seem, after all, to have better ethics than the guys we are fighting. I find that a comforting thought.

Hans

So do I.

We often saw this difference in ethics in the UK, whereas Christian terrorists were quite prepared to kill people attending funeral services the UK security forces (police & army) would often not even take steps to prevent known Christian terrorists attending funerals never mind launching an attack on known terrorist whilst they were attending a funeral.

[daredelvis]

For you to point out that we will not bomb funerals is tipping our hand to the terrorists. Now they will spend all of their time at funerals. I must ask why you want the terrorists to win, and when did you become a mouthpiece for those other America haters at the NYT? :)

Daredelvis

[Garrette]

Old jokes never die ;)
I can't tell if you're serious or if you even have a point, but on the off-chance that you do, I'll address it.

If you think that I (or, I assume, even BPSCG) is suggesting that such things never are committed by the US, then you are mistaken.

If you think that the US does such things more frequently than the Taliban, al Qaeda, Sunni insurgents, or Al Sadr's militia, then you are mistaken.

If you think that when this sort of thing is committed by the US that it is usually not an error (either mistaken target coordinates or faulty information about the nature of the target), then you are mistaken.

[bluess]

I can't tell if you're serious or if you even have a point, but on the off-chance that you do, I'll address it.

If you think that I (or, I assume, even BPSCG) is suggesting that such things never are committed by the US, then you are mistaken.

If you think that the US does such things more frequently than the Taliban, al Qaeda, Sunni insurgents, or Al Sadr's militia, then you are mistaken.

If you think that when this sort of thing is committed by the US that it is usually not an error (either mistaken target coordinates or faulty information about the nature of the target), then you are mistaken.


Umm .... Garrette, I think he was just using this thread to make that very silly old joke, and not commenting on US action.

[Garrette]

Oops.

I didn't read it as a joke at first, despite the title.

I am frequently stupid.

[bluess]

But you balance it so well by being foolish.

:)

[Garrette]

Can I still characterize Democrats as traitors and Ann Coulter as hot?

[Skeptic]

(incidentally I think bombing a cemetary would be a war crime...)

It sure would, if you start counting the dead after the attack...

[bluess]

Can I still characterize Democrats as traitors and Ann Coulter as hot?

So much for OUR friendship. :D

[DaChew]

But you balance it so well by being foolish.

:)


Flag on the play: Piling-on. Ten yards & loss of down.

[Crossbow]

I still have not found any confirmation of this story.

Now then, I do not know the rules of engagement that the USA uses (I have not been able to obtain this data either), but not striking simply because they were at a funeral does not ring true to me.

It sounds to me as if the strike was not made because the target was not confirmed, that there were non-combatants in the target area, or something like that.

[Garrette]

Flag on the play: Piling-on. Ten yards & loss of down.You've been watching my dreams...

[Garrette]

Now then, I do not know the rules of engagement that the USA uses (I have not been able to obtain this data either), No promises, but let me see what I can find.

[Crossbow]

No promises, but let me see what I can find.

Thanks much!

It is possible that the current ROE are classified which may be why they are difficult/impossible to obtain via a public search.

[Darth Rotor]

Why didn't they just park Humvees outside and wait???

(incidentally I think bombing a cemetary would be a war crime...)

-Andrew
It isn't. If arms or fighting positions are in the cemetary, and particularly combatants, it becomes a target. LOAC.

DR

[Darth Rotor]

Thanks much!

It is possible that the current ROE are classified which may be why they are difficult/impossible to obtain via a public search.

You are correct, some RoE are classified. I have worked with both. I am disturbed that this article is in the press. Someone broke OPSEC, in my opinion, and needs to hang.

DR

[Garrette]

You are correct, some RoE are classified. I have worked with both. I am disturbed that this article is in the press. Someone broke OPSEC, in my opinion, and needs to hang.DRI have, too, and if that happened here, I'm with you.

But it's possible they're not.

[BPSCG]

Someone broke OPSEC, in my opinion, and needs to hang.

DRFiguratively speaking...? Or literally? :boggled:

[Skeptic]

Can I still characterize Democrats as traitors and Ann Coulter as hot?

Yes.

Of course, characterizing Democrats and shape-shifting aliens from Venus would still be more accurate than characterizing Ann Coulter as "hot".

Am I the only one who thinks she looks like a transvestite?

[BPSCG]

Am I the only one who thinks she looks like a transvestite?She reminds me of Jamie Lee Curtis. Some photos, you think, "Wow, hot." Other photos, you think, "Is she a guy?"

[Darth Rotor]

Figuratively speaking...? Or literally? :boggled:
Literally, from the highest yardarm on a ship in the Norfolk Naval base. Or, from the tallest pole at Fort Meyer.

The past twenty years have seen the US military slowly lose its talent for keeping its mouth shut regarding operational details. The effectiveness of UAV's lies in, among other things, their not being seen, heard, or suspected of patrolling a given area. Playing the "look how clever we are" game is attention whoring that is unsuitable for a professional military. Likewise the admission by Sec Def Rumsfeld that Iraqi generals had been contacted by cell phones, or some other means, in attempts to get them to surrender their units en masse in March of 2003. That operational detail did not need to be discussed until long after the war was over.

Sorry, but OPSEC violations make me mad. They have since BBC, Falklands, Argentine bomb fusing adjusted ended up in dead Brits. :mad:

I'll say no more, other than: loose lips sink ships.

DR