Rules of Derangement

by Dave Blount | December 14, 2009 12:10 pm

Liberals don’t even bother to hide their intense hostility toward the military. Their moral avatar Bill Clinton has averred that he loathes it[1]. Chris “Tingles” Matthews, whom they trust to install their opinions, refers to West Point as the “enemy camp[2].” The challenge for progressives is: how is a herd of squishy-soft degenerates to overcome the greatest fighting force the world has ever seen?

The answer is to attack our fighting forces’ most crucial asset: their morale. Our abulic Community Activist in Chief showed how it’s done by dithering for months on end before responding to a desperate plea for reinforcements in Afghanistan, finally deigning to grant part of the request. The less thoughtful contingents of Obama’s base would prefer outright surrender to the Taliban, but continuing to fight the war with his day late, dollar short approach will be much more devastating in the long run. The goal is not just to lose, but to lose slowly, painfully, and as senselessly as possibly, in hopes of leaving a lasting psychic scar and dissuading the best and the brightest from joining the military.

Only from this point of view can sense be made of the insane rules of engagement[3] under which our troops are ordered to lose and die.

New military rules of engagement ostensibly to protect Afghan civilians are putting the lives of U.S. forces in jeopardy, claim Army and Marine sources, as the Taliban learns the game plan based [on] the rules’ imposed limits.

The rules of engagement, or ROEs, apply to all coalition forces of the United States and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. …the Taliban is well aware of them and has its own forces acting in ways to counteract them [i.e., exploit them].

A few examples:

• No night or surprise searches.
• Villagers are to be warned prior to searches.
• Afghan National Army, or ANA, or Afghan National Police, or ANP, must accompany U.S. units on searches.
• U.S. soldiers may not fire at insurgents unless they are preparing to fire first.
• U.S. forces cannot engage insurgents if civilians are present.
• Only women can search women.
• Troops can fire on insurgents if they catch them placing an IED but not if insurgents walk away from where the explosives are.

Here’s how the rules work to save terrorist hides:

Often, rules of engagement require varying levels of approvals before action can be taken. In one case, villagers had tipped off U.S. forces of the presence of a Taliban commander who was threatening village elders.

To get permission to go after him, U.S. troops had to get 11 separate Afghan, U.S. and international forces’ approval to the plan. The approval, however, did not come until well into the next day. By then, the Taliban commander had moved on, to the consternation of the villagers who had provided the tip. Observers have claimed that it can take some 96 hours to acquire all the permissions to act.

In other cases, the use of force against insurgents may be blocked if they lower their guns, only to have those insurgents return later to attack.

Also, ISAF troops cannot engage insurgents if they are leaving an area where an IED has been planted. In one case, insurgents planting an IED had detected the presence of U.S. forces and immediately began leaving the area, tossing evidence of their preparations along the way. U.S. forces could not fire on them.

Unsurprisingly, this moonbattery has gotten American soldiers killed:

ROE restrictions were in effect when four U.S. Marines twice pleaded by radio for artillery support in combat action in Kunar Province in Afghanistan — and twice they were refused, before they were killed.

But these lives are considered expendable by the same politically poisoned brass that responded to the Fort Hood massacre by puling[4] about the sacredness of diversity.

As the ROEs make glaringly obvious, our troops aren’t in Afghanistan to win. The Anointed One has admitted[5] that victory isn’t the objective. They are over there to get killed for as long as it serves his political purposes. Then they’ll come home ragged and beaten — not by terrorists, but by the infinitely greater threat to America, backstabbing liberal politicians.

On a tip from Mike B. Cross-posted at Moonbattery[7].