Petraeus to ease RoE in Afghanistan?

Lets hope he goes through with it:

Gen. David Petraeus, tapped to replace McChrystal after President Obama fired him last week, vowed Tuesday to take a hard look at the rules which came in "tactical directives" from McChrystal to unit commanders.

In a message to troops and their families who believe the ROE have led to unneeded battlefield defeats and deaths, Petraeus pledged before the Senate Armed Services Committee that he will "look very hard" at the restrictions. He offered no specific changes.

"I want to assure the mothers and fathers of those fighting in Afghanistan that I see it as a moral imperative to bring all assets to bear to protect our men and women in uniform and the Afghan security forces with whom .... troopers are fighting shoulder-to-shoulder," he testified at his confirmation hearing. "Those on the ground must have all the support they need when they are in a tough situation."

He said that after Obama nominated him last week one of the first issues he discussed with Afghan President Hamid Karzai was the ROE.

Ever since Petraeus has taken McChrystal's spot there's been a lot of buzz over whether or not he will change the rules of engagement, which as of now seem to do more to help the Taliban than coalition forces.  I understand the idea is that you don't want people becoming upset  with American forces and joining up with the enemy, but they have their own PR problems to deal with, and at the end of the day we still have to be able to engage and destroy the enemy.  It doesn't matter how many or how few people join the enemy if you're unable to kill them effectively.

I'd go more into why the RoE's are so bad, but the article touches on that point so well, that I don't have to:

An Army special operations soldier who has served in Afghanistan had this bitter assessment:

"If soldiers in contact need an air strike or a fire mission, give it to them. Don’t deny them illumination or smoke because a canister might land on a civilian.

"If a Taliban runs into a deserted house after clacking off an IED killing Americans, don’t disallow the attack on the house because it is a civilian dwelling. If the same guy who just shot at you, hides his weapon, walks out and gives you the finger, don’t let him go because he’s an unarmed civilian. The enemy knows our ROE and is using it against us. If we are going to turn war into a joke—get out."

There really isn't a better summary of what's going on, and he's right in that we're not really fighting a war currently.  If we're going to be in Afghanistan spending time, money, and lives, we have to be in it to win it, no matter how long it takes.

The RoE in the Afghan war has my biggest complaint (followed by the lack of support from our NATO allies) about the war, so seeing a change there would be pretty exciting.   Perhaps if we gain some ground and make some progress the defeatist talk of withdrawal will go away and be replaced with something a bit more pragmatic.  I doubt it though.  Obama will probably need a "victory" before November 2011, and a withdrawal would give him that.

A reminder on why we continue the fight in the Afgan War

Too often today the line is blurred between the Taliban being terrorists, and being a government-in-exile or an armed political force.  The distinction wouldn't matter if there weren't elements, both within the Afgan government and the US, who support peace with the Taliban and their integration into the new political system.  Just in case you were getting a bit war weary, here's a reminder about the animals we fight:

British troops risk being infected with HIV as Taliban fighters are hiding contaminated needles with their bombs.

Heroin syringes as well as razor blades are being buried in the ground by insurgents in Afghanistan so that they prick bomb squad experts.

It is believed that the needles, used in Helmand province, are contaminated with hepatitis and HIV as the Taliban use increasingly 'despicable' tactics.

You don't get much lower than shoving dirty syringes in bombs or sticking contaminated razor blades in the ground around them, but this comes awfully close:

Suspected Taliban militants executed a seven-year-old boy in southern Afghanistan after accusing him of spying for the government, a provincial official said Wednesday.

The child was captured by the militants in Sangin district of southern province of Helmand Tuesday, Daoud Ahmadi, a spokesman for the provincial governor, said.

"The militants killed the seven-year-old boy in Heratiyan village of the district, on charges of espionage for Afghan government," Ahmadi said, citing information provided to police by relatives.

The thing to remember about most of these killing is that the charges are usually complete fabrications.  Generally when the Taliban take over an area they start ruling as if they were a government, and one of the things they do to keep order and ensure loyalty is to pull out random people and execute them for "being spies".  Making an example out of a grown man or woman is bad enough, but putting a seven year old child on his knees and shooting him is incomprehensible.

When liberals were in full surrender mode over Iraq conservatives reminded them that our withdrawal would likely result in a bloody genocide.  In Afghanistan we have to remind them that the end result may very well be the return to power of the Taliban, and the bloody, repressive rule that comes with it.