Don't hesitate, KILL THE BASTARDS!! 'cause if you don't, they're gonna kill you!
Posted on 12/08/2005 10:03:59 AM PST by upchuck
The latest issue of Time Magazine has an interesting article about the Predator drone and the people who operate them.
But here's an excerpt I found very troubling:
It was 10:30 p.m. in Nevada, 9:30 a.m. in Iraq, and after two hours of watching insurgents fire a pickup-truck-mounted .50-cal. machine gun at U.S. troops in western Iraq, Rogers and the sensor operator with whom he works were given the command to shoot the truck. Both developed a case of what Rogers calls the "trembles"--the nervousness of wanting to kill the enemy but injure no one else, combined with the enormity of taking human lives. Just as Rogers pushed the button to let fly one of the Predator's Hellfire missiles, a car appeared and started to drive toward the pickup. His partner's job is to keep the missile locked on target or, if necessary, divert it to a place where it would cause as little damage as possible. "What do we do, sir?" the partner asked in a shaky voice. "Stay on the target and hope he drives fast," said Rogers coolly. The car passed, and the truck exploded violently when the Hellfire struck. Rogers let out a whoop and exchanged high fives with his partner.Why in the world would Major Rogers' superior officers "put up" with letting our guys be asaulted for two hours with a .50 cal machine gun before deciding to kill a couple of terrorists?
There have been a couple of links posted here to "movies" from AC-130 [I think that's right] gunships observing terrorists do bad stuff. And there's an audio track which consists mostly of, "Wait! Wait! Don't shoot yet." Is this any way to win a war? Don't hesitate, KILL THE BASTARDS!!
'cause if you don't, they're gonna kill you!
Don't hesitate, KILL THE BASTARDS!! 'cause if you don't, they're gonna kill you!
Because the anti-American Leftists in today's media can't wait to call our troops "baby killers" if they so much as put a scratch on the butt of "an innocent bystander" who was feeding the terrorists intel and ammuntion.
Now now..... Monday mornin quarterbacking is not allowed in war.
The writer was not able to convey all that was known and the commander should not be second guessed in absence of all the facts.
Never aim at something you don't intend to shoot.
Face it, this war has become another Vietnam just as Ted Kennedy and his co-horts in the Democrat party wanted.
The issue is not "How to win" but rather "How to get out".
Either we start putting HUGE pressure on the Democrats to join our nation in its defense, or we will lose this war. We can not win a war by challenging the veracity of our troops and demanding them to put both hands behind their backs during battle.
Anything in Time magazine is suspect. I'm surprised they can spell much less report.
maybe they went to the State Dept. School of Warfare? and I'm guessing maybe they've never been shot at
[A]fter two hours of watching insurgents fire a pickup-truck-mounted .50-cal. machine gun at U.S. troops in western Iraq, Rogers and the sensor operator with whom he works were given the command to shoot the truck.Why in the world would Major Rogers' superior officers "put up" with letting our guys be asaulted for two hours with a .50 cal machine gun before deciding to kill a couple of terrorists?
Um, maybe because they knew something the authors of the Time article didn't?
Requests for air support come from the ground. They are then channeled through multiple layers of Army coordination before a formal request is made to the airborne asset (be it a UAV or manned aircraft). Sometimes that process can take minutes. Sometimes hours. But there is a reason for the process. The Army has very specific rules of engagement regarding control of fire. In this case, the dudes in the truck may have been happily firing away but hitting nothing. Or, there may have been special forces troops operating close enough to the truck that they may have been taken out by the effects of weapons used to destroy the truck. You just don't know. Of course, this article from Time Magazine won't even come close to giving you a decent picture. I can't believe anyone still reads that rag. You might as well read Rolling Stone or People for a useful look at current events.
I'm with you.
Maybe because the missile costs tens of thousands of dollars and they only a limited number of missiles, and taking the bad guys out with a bullet or a grenade saves the missile for another day?
Warfare Economics 101: If you use up all your missiles when you don't absolutely have to, you might not have any more when you really, really, really need one.
Amen to that. Either go in to annihilate the enemy without obsessing about collateral damage or don't go in at all. Marines/soldiers aren't peacekeepers and policemen, they're warriors.
Chuck the "hearts and minds" BS out the door; that strategy won't work with Islamics.
At least, since PJ O'Rourke stopped writing for them.
"Why in the world would Major Rogers' superior officers "put up" with letting our guys be asaulted for two hours with a .50 cal machine gun before deciding to kill a couple of terrorists?"
Jf'n will be on face the nation telling about the horrors of our military.
Mort Kondracke said that liberals keep quoting Mel Laird, the guy in charge of getting out of Vietnam. What they fail to quote him saying is that we WON in Vietnam in every battle, every fight, every way...except at home. The politicians lost Vietnam when they shut down the funding for it. He also said the very same ones doing it THEN are the ones doing it NOW. (fat teddy, jf'n??)
Time is a liberal magazine but this article on unmanned aircraft was very interesting -- as was the feature article on Spielberg's movie, Munich.
WHY ???
STRESS !
The STRESS of working with, or the STRESS of second guessing your fellow soldier, or the STRESS of Some malcontent Officer, or (Worse) an attached State Department or DoD Official with higher political goals, or the STRESS of any number of Numb-Nuts who will give "story & detail" to any MSN Lackey hanging around , digging for any "USA is Bad" or "IT's Bush's Fault" story!
The STRESS of Way to many people who seem to be infected with Diarrhea of the Mouth !
Anything that anyone here says about this, is pure speculation. We don't have any way of knowing why.
This is from TIME. How do we know any of it is factual? I never trust what the MSM says.
It may be totally true, but I have no way of knowing. I shall, therefore, give our guys the benefit of the doubt.
"Is Time Warner Good for America"
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