Wasted Opportunity

In the words of Martin Landau as legendary producer Bob Ryan on the show "Entourage," if I told you that I had managed to gather 190 Taliban militants together in one place, and they were all lined up neatly in a row like sitting duckaroonies, just waiting to be obliterated with a large, fiery missile, would that be something you might be interested in?

Yes? Well folks, yesterday we learned that, unbelievably, a Predator drone found itself in precisely that situation. It had nearly 200 Taliban in its gun sights, with a huge bulls eye on their collective heads. The Predator did its job, but the U.S. military did not. According to an anonymous Army officer, the Tali-whackers had gathered together for a funeral, or possibly a religious ceremony, to bury their dead. The Predator, as it is wont to do, buzzed around from a loooong distance away and managed to spot them with its eagle eye. Now I just KNOW that its little, murderous, blinking computer brain was just itching, just DYING to fire a hot steaming missile at those ignorant, drug-dealing, misogynistic, dirty birdies, and send them all straight to H-E-L-L. (Actually, as previously stated, I believe that we are actually IN hell right now, so more accurately, the Predator would have sent the Tali-bananas back HERE, to be reincarnated as dung beetles, or perhaps shit maggots. Hopefully you're not enjoying a delicious snack as you read this).

According to the anonymous officer, the "military rules of engagement" preclude attacking an enemy who is participating in a funeral and/or a religious ceremony. Ergo, somebody decided that the Predator could not take the shot, and all 190 Talibanicles lived to fight and kill another day.

Let me see if I can stretch the capacity of my cranial and understand the logic involved here.

The United States tortures captured "enemy combatants" with regularity, and has been doing so since at least 2001 (I'm sure it's far longer than that, but work with me).

Then we embarrass ourselves in the eyes of the world when a few of our soldiers decide to massacre innocent people in Haditha, Iraq and torture and humiliate prisoners at Abu Gharaib. To many observers who don't hold a U.S. passport, the Abu Gharaib abuses were not an aberration, but rather, part of a deliberate American interrogation policy. Is it a policy or an aberration when military officers look the other way when they know torture is going on? How about when your Secretary of Defense and his cronies in the Pentagon encourage it?

We are also willing to accept the loss of innocent life in Iraq and Afghanistan. Because the enemy has adopted the predictable guerrilla tactic of hiding in mosques, private homes, schoolhouses, and behind women and children whenever possible, the military, on occasion, will tolerate some level of "collateral damage" in the form of dead civilians who just happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. This is okay when the target is important enough (i.e. See Zarqawi, Kill Zarqawi), and sometimes even when it's not.

And let us not forget that in the fog of war, mistakes often happen. Instead of hitting a bad guy, we might hit a wedding, a religious site, or a private home with families inside. Sometimes we accidentally kill our own soldiers, or those allied with us, through "friendly fire." (Aren't euphemisms like "friendly fire" and "collateral damage" great? They both mean "murdered people.") Sometimes journalists get mistaken for insurgents. Sadly, these are all a normal part of war, which is why leaders with a conscience don't start wars unless they have exhausted all other options and have no choice.

Notwithstanding the torture, humiliation, "friendly fire," "collateral damage," and unintended deaths of innocent people that we are willing to accept in the heat of battle, apparently, the "military rules of engagement" do NOT allow our soldiers to kill 190 Taliban sitting ducks who are gathered together in one place because they are praying and/or attending a funeral. Make sense to you? Not to me. These people bomb and defile their own mosques on a daily basis. Every day, they kill innocent people outside schools, shops, and religious sites with suicide bombs. And it's obvious, but I'll say it anyway, the Taliban sheltered and gave refuge to the leaders of Al Qaeda, who planned and caused the deaths of 2700 innocent people, most of whom were just going to work, five years ago.

Nothing is sacred to these people. I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that I don't think Al Qaeda and the Taliban would waste a single millisecond concerning themselves with the rules of military engagement if they had an opportunity to kill American soldiers or civilians who were attending a funeral or praying in a church, mosque, or (especially) a synagogue.

Example: last Monday, I watched Anderson Cooper gather with a group of American soldiers in Afghanistan to pay a brief moment of tribute to those who died in New York, Washington, D.C., and Pennsylvania on 9/11, and the nearly 3,000 military fighting overseas who have died since. As soon as the soldiers began lining up together for the ceremony, and with the CNN camera showing the entire thing live, you could suddenly hear gunshots and live rounds coming from Taliban militants who were targeting their position from a mile away. All the soldiers, with the estimable Mr. Cooper in tow, quickly ran for cover and hid in bunkers, until the firing stopped long enough for them to drag out a big ol' Howitzer and start throwing some shit back.

So, after all of this, please explain to me how the "military rules of engagement" won't allow us to scrape 190 pieces of human dogshit off our shoe? It is extremely rare to get the enemy together in one place in a guerrilla war, and in my view, the decision not to pull the trigger in this instance was utterly idiotic, even if the "military rules of engagement" did not justify it. I guess this explains why I am not in the military -- I would have a problem with "military discipline" in a situation like this. I wonder how many Afghanis, Americans, and NATO soldiers these people are going to kill now? How can you rationalize not taking the Taliban out when you are perfectly willing to risk killing innocent people under other, far less clear circumstances?

Especially when, and here's a little secret for you: we are LOSING the Afghan War. Not nearly enough soldiers, and a country where backstabbing, bribes, and switching sides to the highest bidder are a way of life. We are in no position to let an opportunity like this be wasted. Our goal in Afghanistan should be to take out Al Qaeda with overwhelming force (which, of course, will require an invasion of Pakistan, because that's where they all are). Then we should try to rebuild Afghanistan and establish some infrastructure for the people and help them build an economy. Then we should get the hell out. But none of this is going to happen, so don't waste much time thinking about it.

You may have noticed this, but I feel far differently about the Afghan War than I do about the war in Iraq. In my view, the Afghan War is fully justified self-defense; the Iraq War is not. The invasion of Iraq was a simple oil and construction dollar grab for Halliburton, Kellogg Brown & Root, and the hundreds of other American companies who form the military-industrial complex. Gotta keep that capitalist engine pumping, people! If we don't get control of the M-I-C and fast, we are in for a very rough ride in this country. More about that another time.

Today I read that the Bush Administration is trying get Congress to "reinterpret" Article III of the Geneva Convention in an effort to strip "enemy combatants" of certain human rights perks. It seems that the Senate Armed Forces Committee just voted in favor of a bill that authorizes tribunals for terror suspects to protect their rights. Just like any soldier captured in a war is supposed to have. But the Bush Administration doesn't like this because it's going to interfere with the torture, I mean "interrogation" of these suspects. Even Colin Powell is coming out against Bush on this because he feels that if Bush's interpretation of Article III prevails, it will put American soldiers at grave risk if they are captured or imprisoned. McCain -- who was tortured as a soldier in Vietnam -- is apparently willing to risk the presidency over this. I'm with them. But why isn't Rummie? Don't our soldiers work under him?

Here's a novel idea: rather than try and obliterate the protections of the Geneva Convention in this country, which will only give the world another reason to believe that the United States has become a domineering, fascist empire, who now pisses on human rights instead of defends them, WHY DON'T WE "AMEND" OR "REINTERPRET" THE MILITARY RULES OF ENGAGEMENT?

Sounds like a fair compromise to me.