Quote:
Originally Posted by castlebravo92
The purpose of a system is what the system produces, whatever the name or stated intent of the purpose. The US military, as an institution, knows how to successfully fight a counter insurgency war. The fact that we did not successfully fight a counter insurgency war is prima facia evidence that "winning" wasn't the goal. Cui bono?
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You wouldn't believe some of the crazy-ass RoE we were dealing with at certain times and locations.
An example: In Al Anbar, 2005, for a significant part of the year in the vicinity of the city of Karmah, we were prohibited from pre-emptively engaging individuals carrying obvious heavy weapons with ammunition. PK machine gun, RPG, M69 or D-37 mortar, doesn't matter, can't shoot them, doesn't matter if they see you, start running, take up positions, can't shoot them, no firing until they engage you first.
Those might be poor farmers on their way to hand those weapons in for buybacks, you see.
Almost universally, they were simply transporting them to another location for hiding away, protected by the aegis of dumbass RoE.
I'd argue that no one benefits, really, but merely that it's next to impossible to militarily force a change of culture without undertaking utterly repugnant actions. It's also not really what a military is built to do, and certainly not with two hands tied behind your back and both balls taped to one leg.