Drug Boat Strike

[Flash]

It appears that somewhere at the SECDEF / COCOM / JTF level, the orders were issued not only to destroy the drug vessels, but also to eliminate the actual drug runners. Presumably these orders went through SJA review. I don't believe these were issued ad hoc as the article paints, but in mission tasking orders that were vetted and planned, and commanders at all levels had the opportunity to sort through the ROE and authorities.

I agree that there is a lot in this story that is suspect. In my experience while working with SOF in Afghanistan and Iraq, senior commanders always had the same person in the chair to their left…the SJA. In one end of tour interview I conducted the SJA actually sat in. Flag officers like Bradley don’t just say, “Hey, the fellas at the Five Sided War Hut on the Potomac said shoot, so shoot.” This strike got the nod from more than one SJA and probably a few politicians.

I think you are both making some pretty big assumptions here, and also presuming that things were done the same way as you previously observed. For example, one of the Secretary's main legal advisors is a Reserve DCO CDR who has no previous experience as a JAG.

The article that kicked this whole thing off appears to have gotten a lot of details right, in addition to exposing it happening in the first place, with some of the main details acknowledged by the White House itself. It even mentions subsequent strikes were not conducted in the same manner. So I would be wary in assuming that things were done as you assume. What once was, may not be so anymore...

Also, from the DoD Law of War Manual:

5.9 PERSONS PLACED HORS DE COMBAT

Persons, including combatants, placed hors de combat may not be made the object of attack. Persons placed hors de combat include the following categories of persons, provided they abstain from any hostile act and do not attempt to escape:

• persons in the power of an adverse party;

• persons not yet in custody, who have surrendered;

• persons who have been rendered unconscious or otherwise incapacitated by wounds, sickness, or shipwreck; and

• persons parachuting from aircraft in distress.

5.9.1 Hors de Combat – Notes on Terminology. Hors de combat is a French phrase that means “out of the battle.” It is generally used as a term of art to mean persons who may not be made the object of attack because they are out of the fighting and who therefore must be treated humanely.

Yeah, aside from concentration camps you can't point to the Nuremberg trials and say "see, war crimes!" Besides, the foundation of our doctrine is an amalgamation of German and British warfare.

I am not sure if you are being serious or just trolling, because if it is the former and not the latter that is a ridiculously bad take.

 

[Brett327]

a ridiculously bad take.

This should be Spekkio’s signature tag line.