Do you think that the Pentagon's US "rules of engagement" which in many cases don't allow US troops to shoot..

Question

at the terrorists in Iraq might be the main reason why the US hasn't won the war in Iraq by now?

Answer 1

I hope you aren't suggesting that our soldiers should become terrorists or invaders bent on subduing the Iraqi people--shooting first and asking questions later, ignoring that they are to provide security for the people and merely securing themselves instead, or even worse.

Yes, if the army started killing anyone they thought might be an enemy, and then killing everyone else, the army would get a "win", but the moral cost wouldn't be worth winning. If we aren't the "good guys", what are we there for? Oil? The myth of security? I hope that we were trying to remove a dictator and set up a replacement government in the power vacuum we created, at least partly for the people of Iraq.

Answer 2

Terrorists don't have to follow ANY rules, while we have to abide by the military code of conduct. That's quite a disadvantage, and one of several reasons why we are having a difficult time eliminating the resistance.

Maybe the Iraqi government should consider really different methods of discouraging terrorism. I remember reading how the Chinese Communist Party bosses, many decades ago, were fed up with lazy, corrupt, inefficient and dishonest managers. They chose one refrigerator factory that was producing shoddy goods, and not meeting their quota. They took all the management, including women, outside to the rear wall of the factory and had them all shot dead.

Managers around the country immediately started being more responsible and worked much harder after that!

Learning from history, perhaps the Iraqi government should take the insurgent traitors who are not just defying the democratic will of the voters, but trying to destroy the government there, and make an example of them.

I heard about a similar tv show the Iraqis already have in which they take captured insurgents and televise their trial and subsequent confessions. Whereas the insurgents used to have this mystique of toughness and invulnerability, the average Iraqi could see these guys reduced to pathetic sobbing heaps.

That's how to win the war.

Answer 3

You can thank the ACLU for that one. Terrorists ARE NOT Prisoners of War. But the ACLU has us treat them as if they were. A Prisoner of War is one in a uniform who surrenderred and is entitled to be housed,fed and receive medical attention along with notifying that person's embassy that he/she was captured and held under the guide lines set forth by the Geneva Convention which forbids torture.
Terrorists are another matter. They use guerrila warfare against civilians and innocent bystanders to destroy a target no matter what the outcome. THOSE don't need coddling at Guantanamo Bay,they need to be put up against a wall and shot! But,it seems both sides have resorted to this and HONOR has gone the way of the Dodo.

Answer 4

The "Rules of Engagement" are not "Don't shoot at the terrorists", they are their to prevent soldiers from going ballistic and shooting at everything that moves. Given that this war is taking place in an urban atmosphere, I think a policy like that is badly needed. The majority of our soldiers die from roadside bombs and suicide bombers -- not from gunfire. So, being able to shoot terrorists is not a problem, if only we knew where to shoot...

Answer 5

The U.S. can't win any conflict decrease than the so-referred to as rules of engagement. The enemy has no rules, and does not take prisoners, as they extremely behead their enemy. The U.S. has taken the plague of Political Correctness to the battlefield.

Answer 6

No.

The Pentagon strengthened the rules because too many innocent Iraqis (that we are trying to bring freedom and democracy to) were getting cut down by understandibly nervous US soldiers.

It's kinda hard to make your case for bringing freedom to these people when you are gunning them down randomly.

Answer 7

Just like when I was in Nam, anyone in the field that obeys stupid orders like that probably deserves to get shoot. I swore that when I shipped out, nothing was gonna keep me from coming home in one piece. I lost count of the number I whacked over there, but by God, I came home in one piece.

Shine mister
Back that box up
But shine
blam, blam, blam

Answer 8

And can you IDENTIFY who the terrorists in Iraq are--at a glance?

Answer 9

the pentagon should leave the shooting war to the soldiers, no wonder we don't win any wars.

Answer 10

Yes, and I think professional politicians and trial laywers need to be shunned from government service.