Can SOCOM pull the trigger, even on bin Laden?

Posted By Uncle Jimbo

The incident involving MSG Troy Anderson and CPT Dave Staffel facing murder charges for killing a known terrorist worried me greatly. Noone in the field considering pulling the trigger and ventilating a terrorist in what they understand to be full and complete compliance with the Rules of Engagement (ROE) should ever have to wonder if someone back in an office in the US is going to second guess him. Well plenty of these folks are doing just that right now. I have heard from several people who although they like to think they would always take a righteous shot, admit there is certainly doubt now.

In every instance of the use of deadly force the single factor that determines whether it was right or wrong is the state of mind of the shooter. If that persons fears for their life, the life of others, or reasonably believes that his actions are in accordance with the applicable Rules of Enagement, then the action is proper. This doesn't mean someone can willfully misunderstand them, but that they apply them as instructed.

UPDATE: I didn't put one before, but this is single sourced and unattributed, and for the left from FAUX News.

Today COL Hunt has a piece claiming we had bin Laden for 70% certainty (plenty high enough) with drones, air strike planes and SEAL Team Six ready to take him out, but we failed to pull the trigger. This is horrifying if true. If anyone has any more info on this please ping me. I will be asking some questions about this to military folks soon and can use any additional facts about any of these situations or related ones.

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Comments

[defendusa]

I caught that little "blurb" about having OBL in the sights, but it was not on any Mainstreamn stuff. And I am of your thought process, why did we let him get away? Is this another SEAL team One type discussion about being portrayed as killers instead of warriors by the media? And I mean zero disrespect for those SEALS of the Hindu Kush...I only throw my hands up in frustration and exclaim, "WTF?"
Hoping to hear more of this...

[Subsunk]

Jimbo,

Hope COL Hunt isn't totally correct and that there is SOME valid reason for not killing someone who desperately needs to be killed (like the next Messiah is sitting next to him at the time), but I'm agreeing with the COL that our government and most of our leadership is TOO WORRIED about bad press and not worried enough about sending the correct message to murderers and cutthroats. They deserve to die, must be pursued until death, and then paraded around in Death as an example of what happens to ideological twits who wipe their backsides with their bare left hand, but think pigs are unclean? Display his little bitty pieces if that is all that's left. Discourage his followers. Raining Hell on them will discourage them far more than his death will ever enrage them.

Gentlemen, learn your lessons once and for all. Any suggestion that martyring some mortal raghead merely breeds more of them or makes them larger than life misses the fact that everytime you fail to kill them when they are in your sights, that one particular fact is what makes them larger than life. The fact that our leadership has less backbone when wringing its hands over collateral damage than our enemy will ever have over killing the best of us is what makes them stronger and us weaker in the eyes of the only people we need to win over.

Kill that SOB, and don't hesitate again! Ever again. You make his legend grow every time you are too scared, and that is what it looks like to our enemy every time, scared, to pull the trigger. Stop failing the American people. Do your job. Do your duty.

Subsunk out.

[Deltabravo]

I'm with you, DefendUSA. I'd like to think that when Pres. Bush says "Dead or Alive" he means it. He should get up there and promise PUBLICLY any of our servicemen that if they are the ones to pull the trigger, there will be no courts-martial, and even if there was, it would be followed by a full presidential pardon within 5 minutes of the verdict being announced.

This is absurd.

[Deltabravo]

The fact that our leadership has less backbone when wringing its hands over collateral damage than our enemy will ever have over killing the best of us is what makes them stronger and us weaker in the eyes of the only people we need to win over.

Exactly! And beautifully stated! What I don't understand is that no matter what we do, it's the wrong thing with certain political factions. They rant that it's 6 years and UBL is still at large. Yet if we killed him, that would be a problem too?

Some people are in need of a good dying.

[The Wolf]

Just to make things perfectly clear, to those joining late:

1. 2 snipers face charges multiple times in taking out known baddie
2. Said snipers were cleared by CID and others, but charged again on direction of LTG Kearney
3. Said LTG's actions could possible cause 'double-think' in field personnel actions when facing enemy
4. ''The One'' (Luttrell) said in his book they worried more about rear-echelon reactions and the media more than Taliban or AQ.

Think that if what COL Hunt says is true and proven or confirmed, that someone didn't get cold feet?

I have to tell you, saw the EXACT SAME THING when we had Mookie in our sights...

-Wolf

[chiropetra]

AAAAAARRRRRGGGGHHHHH!

While I'm no fan of collateral damage and I understand fully the way our enemies use civilian causalities against us, this is utterly freaking absurd!

We need a serious, major, high-level re-think of the rules of engagement. (He says, courageously preaching the blindingly obvious to the choir.)

The really sad thing about this story is it will be utterly ignored by the mainstream media.

[ST333]

This is the result of having to many scum sucking lawyers. Those fork tongued zeros pushing their pens have gotten to the brass and this is the trickle down effect. President Bush should be making it known that any man of honor caught in the cross hairs of the filthy lawyers and/or liberal media will be pardoned as his last act as Commander in Chief. We can not have this kind of second guessing by our men in the field. Put a bullet in bin Laden's head next time.

[Caleb]

In my ever so humble opinion, the best thing to have happen with this "can I pull the trigger" mess as discussed by "The One" and by the recent case of the SF Sargent and Capt. would be for someone to do an in depth fisking of the life and times of LtGen. Kearney. I have said this before, but I will repeat. What is his military history? Exactly who is his sponsor? Is he a trade school grad, or did he come in from a "civilian" university.

If, just once, one of the uber political PC generals could be completely exposed and his biases and incompetencies laid bare in public, it would go a long way in detering other uber political generals, colonels, etc. from pulling this crap. Let no one forget that Gen. Kearney was instrumental in kicking a whole company of spec. ops. certified recon Marines out of Afganistan for the crime of attacking too aggressively when they were ambushed.

Col. Hunt can really go off on some red hot rants at times, but I can't remember any case where anyone has absolutely proved him wrong with his facts. I will sign on with Col. Hunt until and unless some drastic negative facts come to light regarding his account in his column.

[SteveG]

Col Hunt went nuts on Katrina.
Can't prove him wrong, but he gave a report about gangs of looters from out of the area getting boats and hitting jewlery stores... then getting into full automatic weapons battles over turf.

But I gotta say I've drank the koolaid before... and gone back for eight more, so I'll cut him some slack... but still I'm waiting on confirmation

[Grimmy]

I wonder how much of the nonsensical layers of ROE are a newly invented top down mandated abomination, and how much is just the result of an entire generation of ever increasing lawyer influence on the command and control process that has been part of the social re-engineering of our national military since the mid 70s?

This aint LBJ and McNamara in office. I do wonder how much of what's helping the enemy to kill our guys is just an amalgam of constantly accumulated accretions hardened into place.

Our military has been a steady visitor to the public whipping post for decades prior to this war. We have an entire generation of military leadership that has existed in the organization with the sure knowledge that their own citizens will turn on them in less than half a heart beat if given even the flimsiest provocation by totally transparent enemy propaganda broadcast into every living room by our own national news outlets.

[winemkr]

Since we are at war with al-Qa�eda, any legal analyis of the use of violence against that enemy turns on how violence is employed. In short, the United States must exercise violence lawfully in accordance with the rules associated with the law of armed conflict. The law of armed conflict describes lawful targets which can be destroyed in the proper context of combat operations. An enemy combatant - whether part of an organized military or a civilian who undertakes military activities - is a legitimate target at all times and may be lawfully killed, even if by surprise. At the same time, the law of armed conflict absolutely prohibits the killing of noncombatants, except as a matter of collateral damage where civilians may be killed ancillary to the lawful attack on a military objective. Targetting civilians specifically as a military objective in time of war is illegal and criminal.

Thus, as long as the international armed conflict with the virtual-State of al-Qa�eda continues, the killing of al-Qa�eda combatants such as al-Havethi is certainly not assassination. Unless they surrender, these individuals are legitimate and legal targets and may be killed on sight.

Read it all here:

http://jurist.law.pitt.edu/forum/forumnew68.php

I'm fucking pissed!

Semper Fi and a big ol HOO YAH!...figure that one out.