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The War Profiteers - War Crimes,
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November 18th,
2007 - SEALs Did Right, But Paid High Price |
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SEALs Did Right, But Paid High
Price By William Cole The Honolulu Advertiser November 18, 2007 The firefight that would
take the lives of two Pearl Harbor-based SEALs in the mountains of
Afghanistan had yet to come, but what preceded it was a moral, legal and
ethical dilemma. Three goat herders - a boy
about 14 and two adults - had stumbled on the four-man SEAL team after it had
been dropped deep behind enemy lines at the 10,000-foot level in June 2005. Now, the SEALs had to decide
what to do with the three Afghans. They could kill the unarmed trio
and worry about the repercussions, or they could let them go. There was
serious consideration of both. Former Pearl Harbor SEAL
Marcus Luttrell wrote in his book, "Lone Survivor," that "if
we were thinking like ordinary law-abiding U.S. citizens, we would find it
very hard to carry out the imperative military decision, the overriding one,
the decision any great commander would have made: these guys can never leave
this place alive." Instead, their consciences
weighed on them. The SEALs let the civilians go, giving them the chance to
alert the Taliban. Within hours, the SEALs were attacked by 80 to 100 heavily
armed Taliban fighters. The actions of the SEALs,
and those of some Schofield Barracks soldiers in Iraq, recently made
headlines, but with far different results. Both involved unarmed civilians. Lt. Michael Murphy, one of
the Pearl Harbor SEALs killed in Afghanistan and the team's leader, received
the Medal of Honor posthumously on Oct. 22. Four days earlier, a
military judge heard a Schofield Barracks soldier testify that he had
witnessed his platoon sergeant in June shoot an unarmed Iraqi man who had
refused to pick up an AK-47 assault rifle and whose hands were on his head. That case, too, involved
moral, legal and ethical decisions, but resulted in premeditated murder
charges against two Schofield soldiers that are still pending. Other soldiers testified
that an order had been given to shoot at unarmed villagers and kill all
"military aged males" during the same mission. Both point to the difficulty
and uncertainty of battlefield decisions, and squaring those decisions with
the sometimes confusing, sometimes changing "rules of engagement,"
or ROEs, that govern when a U.S. service member can and cannot shoot in a war
zone. Eric Seitz, a Honolulu
defense attorney who has handled hundreds of military cases, said ROEs are
what combat troops debate the most. "Let me tell you, if
you talk to any current student at West Point, you can find this debate - it
rages," Seitz said. "This is the debate
that rages most significantly in their ethics classes - about what to do in
these circumstances." There are plenty of opinions
to go around. J.J. Aguirre, a former
Kane'ohe Bay Marine who fought door-to-door in Fallujah with the 1st Battalion,
3rd Marines, against a determined enemy in late 2004, said "it's easier
for someone to see it from the outside versus someone who's actually had to
apply it." Combat troops receive pocket-sized rules-of-engagement cards
that in the past have included seven conditions to fire on a perceived enemy,
including the requirements that a threat has to be clearly seen and
identified. But those rules have varied
in practice depending on the level of threat, and what is determined to be
hostile action. "No matter how you go
about it - whether you break the ROEs or you use the ROEs - people are going
to be upset because, 'My home got burnt down, my little girl got killed, or
boy,'" said Aguirre, 25, who now lives in Fayetteville, N.C. "It's
just being in the wrong place at the wrong time and insurgents use that to
their advantage." Fighters would drop their
weapons, blend into the civilian population and pick up a rocket-propelled
grenade on a neighboring rooftop. Rules too vague? In Fallujah, as elsewhere,
U.S. troops had to make split-second life-or-death decisions. Even then it
sometimes was too late. Sgt. Rafael Peralta, a Kane'ohe Bay Marine, was shot
by three waiting insurgents when he opened the door of a room in Fallujah in
2004. Shot in the face and torso,
he had the presence of mind to pull an enemy grenade into his body, saving
four other Marines. He was recommended for the Medal of Honor. Former Secretary of State
Colin Powell wrote in his book, "My American Journey," about his
Vietnam experience, saying, "The kill-or-be-killed nature of combat
tends to dull fine perceptions of right and wrong." At the same time, some have
accused the Pentagon of employing loose rules of engagement in Iraq and
Afghanistan as cover for civilian casualties. Last February, William B.
Caldwell, then a major general and spokesman for Multinational Force-Iraq,
said the rules were neither vague nor confusing. Caldwell said the overriding
rule is that "nothing in our rules of engagement prevents our troops
from using necessary and proportional force to defend themselves."
Combatants must distinguish individuals presenting a threat from innocent
civilians, he said, while also acknowledging that that might be difficult to
do. "In the
counterinsurgency we are now fighting, disciplined application of force is
even more critical because our enemies camouflage themselves in the civilian
population," he said. "Our success in Iraq depends on our ability
to treat the civilian population with humanity and dignity, even as we remain
ready to immediately defend ourselves or Iraqi civilians when a threat is
detected." But in July testimony in the
case of Camp Pendleton Marines accused of killing 24 civilians in Haditha,
Iraq, the definitions of positive identification, hostile intent and hostile
action were shown to be subjective, and could change from one area to the
next, one day to the next, the Los Angeles Times reported. Capt. Jeffrey Dinsmore, who
was a battalion intelligence officer, testified that there was continuing
conflict between frontline Marines and upper-level officers about what
constituted positive identification and what behavior defined hostile action,
the Times said. Charges have been dropped
against four Marines, and cases against four others either remain pending or
have been referred for court-martial. ‘I had to do something’ The ambiguity of combat
often blurs the edges of such cases, or mitigates the penalties, experts say. In the case involving the
two Schofield soldiers, Sgt. 1st Class Trey A. Corrales, 35, of San Antonio,
and Spc. Christopher P. Shore, 25, of Winder, Ga., were charged with one
count of premeditated murder in the death of an unidentified Iraqi man on
June 23 in al Saheed near the northern city of Kirkuk. The Army accused Shore of
shooting the Iraqi after being ordered to do so by Corrales. The soldiers
were looking for roadside bomb planters, and spray tests turned up positives
for explosives residue. A fellow soldier testified
at a preliminary hearing last month for Shore that Corrales pulled the Iraqi
man out of a house that had been secured, and told him to run. As the confused Iraqi
started backing up, the soldier said he saw Corrales start to raise his
weapon. The soldier said he turned, not wanting to see what came next, and
heard up to five shots. After being ordered to
"finish" the wounded Iraqi by Corrales, Shore said, "I had to
act. I had to do something." He said he fired off two
shots in the dirt, to the side of the Iraqi's head without Corrales seeing
that he did not shoot the man. But he acknowledged that he had previously
said he had shot at the Iraqi because he thought the incident would be swept
under the rug and he did not want to get on Corrales' "bad side." Several soldiers testified
that Corrales was a mercurial and tyrannical platoon sergeant who told them
to "kill all military-age males" in the village and the target
house. The soldiers said they did
not believe Corrales actually wanted them to kill people indiscriminately,
but there was testimony that shots were fired at villagers. Lt. Col. Raul Gonzalez, the
officer who presided over the hearing last month to determine whether Shore
should be tried, recommended recently that Shore not be tried for murder, but
that he should be court-martialed for aggravated assault. Gonzalez also said there was
"overwhelming evidence" showing Corrales shot at the man multiple
times with the intention of killing him. Corrales waived his right to a
hearing prior to a decision on whether he should be court-martialed for the
Iraqi's killing. A decision on how to proceed
on both cases by Maj. Gen. Benjamin R. Mixon, the commander of the 25th Infantry
Division, is not expected before Dec. 10. Obligations Seitz, the defense attorney,
said in neither the Iraq case nor in the mountains of Afghanistan, were
shootings of civilians justified. The SEALs - three out of
Hawai'i and one from Colorado - were worried that if they killed the Afghans,
they would have faced charges, and Seitz said "they are right, and they
would have and they should have" if they had gone through with it. "Basically, military
expedience and protection of yourself in a vague and murky situation is not a
justification for using deadly force against unarmed people," Seitz
said. "Otherwise, anytime in the middle of battle, if you take a
prisoner, you could shoot him." The Geneva Conventions set
out that once prisoners are taken, there are obligations toward them, he
said. Ultimately, the rules of
engagement may have worked in the mountains of Afghanistan - with tragic
results for three of the four SEALs on the mission. And in al Saheed outside
Kirkuk, they may not have worked. "If the discipline on
the field is undermined by people who either have their own agenda or are not
properly trained, then it doesn't work," Seitz said. The Associated Press
contributed to this report. External link: http://tinyurl.com/2myadl |