How the Democrats Are "Helping" the Troops!(This is disgusting!!!!)

"Unreal: 77% of Dems Voted Against Amendment Requiring Rules Of Engagement That Gives U.S. Troops Authority To “Proactively” Protect Themselves From Enemy Fire…





Almost all of us have been furious (to put it mildly) with the crazy ROE our troops are being held to in Afghanistan. It’s unfathomable a member of Congress sitting in comfy Washington DC would have the balls to tell our troops in a life or death situation they can’t fire back when the Taliban are trying to kill them.

Via Andrew Bostom:

Florida Republican Congressman John Mica offered the following morally clear Amendment (5/25/2011-H.AMDT.318 (A018) Amends H.R.1540):

Amendment requires that the rules of engagement [ROE] allow any military service personnel assigned to duty in a designated hostile fire area to have rules of engagement that fully protect their right to proactively defend themselves from hostile actions.
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The results? (tallied here):
143 out of 185 Democrats present — 77% — voted against this amendment; 217 out of 235 Republicans present — 92% — voted for it.

Keep reading…"


IF this upsets you, it should! Write your Congress critter who are democratic and tell them to quit playing General in the field. Keep the troops from being just sitting ducks!

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Ok, before we jump to conclusions, what exactly are the current rules?
What does proactively mean?
By what authority is Congress meddling in this in the first place?

By "proactively" does that mean that if there is a sniper on the grounds of a mosque they can blow up the mosque?

I'm not on the Dem's side here, but frankly I think Rep. Mica has no business putting forth this proposal.

The ROE should be policy of the defence dept, give to the commanding general in theater, who directs his troops.
And I understand that for the troops it's a s**t sandwich to be shot at and not always shoot back, but (IMO) the mission is wonky to begin with.

Part of the problem is that the insurgents are devious and adept at drawing NATO fire onto schools, mosques etc where they are hiding out.
I can certainly understand the US military wants the troops to be very cautious and hold "collateral damage" to a minimum, and having Congress trying to micromanage ROE from across the globe doesn't seem like a good idea.

 

This steams me as well, Tex. I'm sure many are the usual anti-military types in Congress, but that's a relatively small group to account for such a large percentage of Democrats. It would be interesting to hear the rationalization for their votes. My guess is that the first words they utter will be, "I fully support our troops, but...".

And Republicans should make note that the presidential hopeful, Ron Paul, also voted against this amendment. Unfortunately, I'm not surprised.

 

Heck, I'm voting for Hannibal Lechter next Prez election. Or maybe Gunny Highway. I think that to be elected to DC office, one should have to have served in some branch of the military. National Guard, front-line troop, whatever....just so they know what's going on when they make these stupid rules. Didn't they learn from 'Nam, you can't run a war from an armchair? Tell your commanding general "go get em", then unleash the dawgs of war.

 

When US ground forces were first deployed to Vietnam in 1965, they couldn't fire first there either. They had to hold their fire and only fire when fired upon. Not a good way to run a war.

 

The thing is, you (and we too, in Afganistan) are not in a war there, and supposedly never have been since the fall of Saddam/Taliban. We are "nation building" and assisting a friendly allied government to round up extremists & insurgents.

If you go in and blow a bunch of civvies to kingdom come, you're gonna piss them off, and the whole "nation building" effort will be a waste of time.

 

Care to explain?
Yes my quip was somewhat tongue-in-cheek somehow it was decided that no declaration of war was needed.
Anyways, I don't want to sidetrack the thread over that.

My point is this: I don't think the Rep's motion is at all helpful. Does he think Petraeus is incapable of giving clear instructions to his subordinates?

I would be against Republicans in Congress trying to manage the war from Pennsylvania avenue, (mainly because in future years the Dems will try the same thing.)
I've always felt that the obligation of the politicos is to put a competent general in charge, give him clear instructions and then leave him alone.
When the General gives orders through the chain of command, the lower ranks shouldn't be arguing "but my Congressman said that I should...."
If the politicians aren't satisfied with the progress of the war, they can replace the commander, or issue new istructions to him.


An example of the meddling (IMO) was the requirements from the polititians given to Eisenhower about treatment & cooperation with ex-Vichy officials in North Africa following Torch. I give full credit to Ike, he basically told them to stuff it, he was going to organize a theater of war as he saw fit, and they could sort out the details after the war.

 

That's only partially true, and depended on who you were with and where you operated. Most of the complaints about "overly strict" ROE's in Vietnam were related to the air campaign. The only complaint most ground troops had was that they couldn't follow NVA/VC across the border into N. Vietnam, Laos or Cambodia.

As for the ROE's for Iraq and Afghanistan, they frequently change and I feel overly strict. The insurgents/terrorists are well aware of what the rules are and manipulate them to their advantage. Fortunately, we have the most highly trained and proficient military in our history, so we manage to win, in spite of the ROE.

 

As usual the Politicians are playing "Look at what the other side is doing". Smoke and Mirrors guys, smoke and mirrors. Click the link Tex provided and pull up the entire HR 1450 bill, read the entire text and then ponder your own vote. It's all politics. I'm not going to read through hundreds of pages myself to find the (most likely) one sentence stating what the Republicans are espousing as the Democrats failure to support the Troops. We have to remember both the Rep's and the Dem's are masters of deflecting attention away from the whole picture. I too would be interested in seeing what those who voted against the Bill use for a reason but I doubt it has anything to do with the Florida Republican Congressman John Mica's amendment.

 

It is switcharoo blame game......see what X is doing to undermine our troops while Y cuts their budgets and forbids tax increase so they can't have as much medical for their families, or retirement at 20 years so Y can do more important corporate welfare. While you are sounding about X loudly, Y quietly gets what they want. Same old political game.

 

I don't feel that a change in ROE would alter things that much. As USMC Price says, they change a lot. Given the modus operandi of the insurgents, roadsides and suicide bombers won't be affected by a change in ROE.

We (Norwegians) have had even strickter ROE in certain parts of Afganistan, but it has not impeded our mission. In the engagements in the mountains the Taliban is despatched with the 30mm Bushmaster mounted on our IFV, or our recoiless guns at a safe range.

Having more boots on the ground so that we could have 'permanent presence' in key areas would help a lot more than ROE's.

Like Price says. The grunts are professionals, the ROE is part and parcel of the game.

I fear that this is another media storm in a tea-cup....