Lawyers, Political Correctness Tie Military’s Hands in Afghanistan
It would appear, at least in my humble opinion, that many of the lawyers in the Defense Department value the lives of foreigners more than the lives of our troops.
Thanks to the lawyers and the effective of liberals to infuse political correctness into the Defense Department and the military, our forces are having to call off attacks against our enemies in Afghanistan due to more stringent rules on civilian casualties.
This story, from The New York Times–yes, I know, liberal rag, but this is believable, articulates one of the main reasons we’re losing the War on Terror.
Just read what the liberals have done to the military:
Dawn was breaking over Afghanistan one day this month as Air Force surveillance planes locked in on a top-ranking insurgent commander as he traveled in secret around Kandahar, the spiritual home of the Taliban.
But as attack aircraft were summoned overhead to strike, according to a recounting of the mission by Air Force commanders, the Taliban leader entered a building. Intelligence specialists scrambled to determine whether civilians were inside. Weapons experts calculated what bomb could destroy the structure with the least damage.
It had taken the American military many days to identify, track and target the senior Taliban officer. But the risk of civilian deaths was deemed too high. Air Force commanders, working with military lawyers, aborted the mission. The Taliban leader escaped.
In interviews at the air operations headquarters in Southwest Asia, American and allied commanders said that even as orders for air attacks in Afghanistan had increased significantly this year, their ability to strike top insurgent leaders from the air was severely restricted by rules intended to minimize civilian casualties.
The disgusting lawyers inside the Defense Department have effectively, in many ways, tied the hands of our military. You think liberalism and political correctness haven’t weaseled their way into the military?
And of course the U.N. has to weigh in:
According to the United Nations, 698 civilians were killed in the first six months of this year, compared with 430 in the same period last year. The United Nations report said nearly two-thirds of the deaths this year resulted from actions by the Taliban and other insurgents. The remainder were attributed to actions by Afghan government, American or allied forces.
You know what? The U.N. can take its report and shove it!
But gets worse. Just read all of the precautions our men and women serving our country have to take to protect the lives of innocent civilians (many of whom aren’t so innocent, by the way):
At the air operations center, targeting specialists spend hours before each mission measuring distances from the potential strike zone to the nearest house, building, mosque, school or hospital.
Vast numbers of public, religious and historic sites make up a computer database of no-strike zones. Special goggles are worn while reviewing digital images compiled from surveillance aircraft and satellites to give a detailed, three-dimensional view of the target area.
The bombs themselves are chosen carefully and sometimes modified. Some designed for air burst are instead programmed with a delayed fuse to bury themselves before exploding, thus reducing the blast range. One sort of bomb has even been loaded with less explosive, filled instead with concrete, to cause great damage where it hits but no farther.
This is the result of liberalism.
And you think the enemy doesn’t take advantage of this? Think again. It’s common for Taliban and al-Qaeda members who are on the verge of being attacked to slip into a school, hospital, or a Mosque. Because God knows we can’t even come within 10 miles of striking a Mosque!
I’m not suggesting that we go after innocent civilians, but if there’s a chance to take out a key al-Qaeda or Taliban figure, or a whole lot of them, and a few civilians die as a result, so be it. I’d rather it be innocent Iraqis, Afhans, or whatever country’s citizens than our servicemen and women or own citizens. I realize this doesn’t make me a good “citizen of the world,” but I’m a citizen of America first and foremost.
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Liberalism has no place in war. You can never win a politically correct war.