| Submit your comments on this article |
| Home Front: WoT |
| Obama military adopts take no prisoners policy |
| 2010-02-14 |
| The Nabhan decision was one of a number of similar choices the administration has faced over the past year as President Obama has escalated U.S. attacks on the leadership of al-Qaeda and its allies around the globe. The result has been dozens of targeted killings and no reports of high-value detentions. Senior administration officials say that no policy determination has been made to emphasize kills over captures. Republican critics, already scornful of limits placed on interrogation of the suspect in the Christmas Day bombing attempt, charge that the administration has been too reluctant to risk an international incident or a domestic lawsuit to capture senior terrorism figures alive and imprison them. "Over a year after taking office, the administration has still failed to answer the hard questions about what to do if we have the opportunity to capture and detain a terrorist overseas, which has made our terror-fighters reluctant to capture and left our allies confused," Sen. Christopher S. Bond (Mo.), the ranking Republican on the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, said Friday. "If given a choice between killing or capturing, we would probably kill." Some military and intelligence officials, citing what they see as a new bias toward kills, questioned whether valuable intelligence is being lost in the process. "We wanted to take a prisoner," a senior military officer said of the Nabhan operation. "It was not a decision that we made." Even during the Bush administration, "there was an inclination to 'just shoot the bastard,' " said a former intelligence official briefed on current operations. "But now there's an even greater proclivity for doing it that way. . . . We need to have the capability to snatch when the situation calls for it." What are the instructions to the troops on the ground? Are they in conformance with GC? Will we take prisoners in Marjah or are ANA involved in Marjah operation so that all prisoners can be turned over to them? Battlefield rendition? What personal liability does the military face if it hands prisoners over to the ANA and they are subsequently tortured, and I don't mean waterboarding? Paging Lt. Morant, Lt. Breaker Morant ... |
| Posted by:Nimble Spemble |
| #13 we will not kill all their relatives. However, all their relatives will try to kill you. Blood fueds in tribal societies can go on for generations. The Pushtuns fight for tribe/clan and money/loot. Which makes (the Bush) assasination of Taliban/AQ facilitators the right strategy. I only hope they are assasinating the right people. |
| Posted by: phil_b 2010-02-14 22:38 |
| #12 I wouldn't be surprised if the Nobama administration has done away with the idea of having a place to put new bad guys, or even interrogating them if they did have a place to put them. Or even squeezing them hard enough to make them giggle. This would be the logical end result. Not that I'm complaining that much. But this administration has had ample opportunity by now to capture and interrogate someone. Anyone. Why not? They have always voted to wax them in situ with a drone or with snipers according to what I have seen. The airport bomber does not count. He basically surrendered himself. You'd think at least one of these bad guys would have something interesting to say, and you'd think we could hunt some of those folks down that he would have turned. |
| Posted by: gorb 2010-02-14 22:35 |
| #11 hypovehiculate My new vocabulary word for the day. Good one NS. |
| Posted by: lotp 2010-02-14 20:34 |
| #10 I don't think we're talking about battlefield executions vs. surrenders here Not explicitly, but there's a slippery slope. And do you think it will be a career helper to be the #1 prisoner taker when the CinC doesn't want prisoners because he doesn't know what to do with them? An then some mook will get tortured by the ANA and AI will want to know what officer authorized turning him over to known torturers, etc. And Bambi would hypovehiculate the guy in a flash. Like the good doctor said, paging Lt. Morant. |
| Posted by: Nimble Spemble 2010-02-14 19:40 |
| #9 The Blackwater captives have no comment |
| Posted by: Frank G 2010-02-14 18:50 |
| #8 I don't think we're talking about battlefield executions vs. surrenders here - more like assassinations vs. (high risk) snatch & grab missions. |
| Posted by: Glenmore 2010-02-14 18:39 |
| #7 All this happens when the CINC decides to make shady and risque legal determination without regard to true legal process. Its like union security guards watching some girls stomp on someones head at the train station. He really is in violation here and it is called abuse of process. |
| Posted by: newc 2010-02-14 17:39 |
| #6 I suspect the Taliban and al-Q would love to take some Americans prisoners and have not been able to because we have prevented them. Remember the convoy in Iraq they hit where they captured the female soldier and others. They were not killed immediately. I suspect they would love to take videos showing how they can humiliate the US soldier for muzziepRon. No matter how satisfying emotionally, or how much it helps OB1 to escape responsibility, taking prisoners is desirable for three reasons I can think of immediately: combatants are more likely to stop resisting and surrender if they believe they will be acceptably treated afterwords, corpses can't be interrogated, we will not kill all their relatives and we will be living with them after combat ends. |
| Posted by: Nimble Spemble 2010-02-14 17:07 |
| #5 Good point Deacon. I'm just not certain I agree with the precendent. The Malmedy massacre should not be forgotten. |
| Posted by: Besoeker 2010-02-14 17:05 |
| #4 Beoseker, I don't see a downside. So far The Taliban nor Al Queada has shown any proclivity for taking prisoners. |
| Posted by: Deacon Blues 2010-02-14 16:44 |
| #3 Sen. Christopher S. Bond (Mo.), the ranking Republican on the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, said Friday. "If given a choice between killing or capturing, we would probably kill." No doubt the enemy will gladly return the favour. |
| Posted by: Besoeker 2010-02-14 16:33 |
| #2 I like the practice of handing out a bunch of simple devices, that when the bad guys show up, anyone can just push a button, then bury or hide the thing. Of course, the bad guyz will try to confiscate them, but they won't know how many of them there are, nor when a button has been pushed. And threatening to kill tribesmen just for possession will get them nowhere. Then they will try to set up an ambush, using the device as bait. But we will do aerial surveillance ahead of time to compromise their ambush. Then they will try moving the devices around to other places, not knowing that the signal has a unique identifier. |
| Posted by: Anonymoose 2010-02-14 16:20 |
| #1 well if we to kill enough bad guys (probably way more than we are doing now) the locals would find ways to get us more info; this is consistent with the IDF experience |
| Posted by: lord garth 2010-02-14 15:34 |