MY SAY: ROE V AMERICAN WARRIORS
President Trump pardoned soldiers facing prison terms for “war crimes” and flouting the military rules of engagement. How can one apply rote rules to decisions made in the moment of high risk situations?
Lt. Col.David Bolgiano, U.S. Air Force and Author of: Combat Self-Defense: Saving America’s Warriors From Risk-Averse Commanders and Their Lawyers wrote:
https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/haditha/themes/roe.html
Rules of engagement are a device used by a commander to set forth the parameters of when, how, for what duration and magnitude and geographical location, and against what targets our forces can employ force, generally deadly force … in a theater of operations.
The rules of engagement, strictly speaking, as they work in the military, contain a caveat … that nothing in these rules of engagement shall limit the right, inherent right, of self-defense. And what’s left unspoken but is legally significant, is the phrase, when confronted with “an imminent threat of death or serious bodily injury.”
Why is there confusion over the right to self-defense? …
The confusion over the inherent right of self-defense doesn’t come from the written word. It doesn’t come from the law. The confusion over the inherent right of self-defense comes from assessing judgment-based shootings after the fact that, in the clear vision of 20/20 hindsight, may not appear to be reasonable when, in fact, by law and by tactics, they were.
In January 2005, a vehicle approached a hastily constructed traffic control point on the route from downtown Baghdad to Baghdad International Airport. The vehicle approached the checkpoint in speeds close to 60 miles per hour, ignored flares and warning signs to slow down and halt, at which point the soldiers on the traffic control point reasonably perceived a threat, an imminent threat of death or serious bodily injury, and engaged the vehicle.
In the clear vision of 20/20 hindsight, we learned that it was an Italian intelligence officer driving the vehicle who was, unfortunately, shot and killed. But that decision at the time the soldier [pulled] the trigger was, nevertheless, reasonable.
And that’s where a lot of the confusion comes from. It comes from folks that don’t understand the tactical dynamics of an encounter and wish to impose, one, either their Hollywood notion of what’s reasonable, or two, try to judge the person by what is learned in the clear vision of 20/20 hindsight.
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