Interestingly the German born Kissinger served in the US Army in WW2 as an interpreter and intelligence NCO. This became a springboard for him to go on to bigger and better things.
"The Taliban Don't Wave" - Robert Semrau
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Interestingly the German born Kissinger served in the US Army in WW2 as an interpreter and intelligence NCO. This became a springboard for him to go on to bigger and better things.
By QR&O CF personnel are only obliged to comply with lawful commands and orders.
You'd be expecting too much. Vinkat just sits on the sidelines of intelligent debates and fires one liners into the mix to try and get a reaction.
Lawful orders vs war crimes. You can't compare the two. We know what's right and wrong. We know the ethos and core values expected.
Attended a accident were the driver was folded over the firewall of the vehicle but still alive and the attending medic walks up , lifts the drivers head back and all his guts pour out killing him. I expect there was no way of saving him.. could have been a similar situation.
Correct. It would be an unlawful order for example to order someone to shoot the wounded taliban.
Disclaimer: By virtue of my trade alone I have to side with Morpheus32's argument. Also, I have a lot of respect for the man base on his experience, what others have said of him and my limited personal experience. That said I wanted to play the devil's advocate here because Morpheus has a valid point, but beyond "this doesn't feel right", no one has brought a decent argument against his position and I love these discussions on ethics.
DND has an established ethical framework to guide our decisions. In order of importance the three statements are:
1. Respect the Dignity of All Persons
2. Serve Canada before Self
3. Obey and Support Lawful Authority
While the expanded description of these statements does not include mercy killings, one could argue that slowly bleeding out is not a very dignified way to die.
Would offering a quick and less painful way to die not be a way to respect the dignity of a person?ref:
http://www.forces.gc.ca/en/about/statement-of-defence-ethics.page
When I read the book and got to the part about the shooting of the wounded Taliban fighter, my thought were - "If that was me on the ground looking up at Semrau (assuming that I was still lucid), what would I want or expect him to do? Watch me die or put me out of my misery?" If I wasn't lucid (likely due to shock and blood loss), so much the better.
After the Viet Nam War, I saw a doc re: the number of PTSD cases the US was dealing with. One of the interviewed vets told of getting ambushed, his best friend cut down in a clearing while he was able to take cover, pinned down by enemy fire. He had full eye contact with his friend as he bled out. He was suffering all kinds of guilt over it and said that he wished he had shot him. That raised other issues.
As part of his therapy, he expressed this to his friend's parents who told him that it would have OK if he had done that. They would have understood. That set him free.
I'm getting tired of the "He didn't do the right thing by military law" expressed by some on this topic. It was one of the unfortunate vicissitudes of war requiring a decision to be made in seconds that lawyers would spend months arguing over, to be decided by Officers who had not fired a shot in anger or been under fire.
Let's give the final word to a respected Senior Officer. In his forward, Lewis Mackenzie, CM, OOnt, MSC and Bar, CD, Major-General (ret'd) had this to say:
"Many, including friends of mine currently holding senior positions within the CF, opined that the release was necessary to deter future incidents and send a message to serving soldiers. I strongly disagree.
When a soldier is faced with a similar situation in some far flung battlefield in the future and has those ten seconds to reach a decision, no regulation nor memory of his court martial will spring to mind. It will be his or her own moral code that will dictate their response - nothing more, nothing less."
Semaru was fukked by the army and the system he served.
dinsdale
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About as good as it gets is Great Britain:
Greek Civil War with Others
Malayan Emergency
Mau Mau uprising in Kenya
Aden Emergency
Cyprus
The other dimension of this is that Canada is a party to international protocols concerning the treatment of enemy combatants which excludes the killing of enemy POWs and wounded. One could argue that the Taliban, ISIS, etc have not, and even whether or not they have combatant status under these agreements, but our conduct should be the same in any situation.
Abdominal eviserations are often what we call distraction wounds for the more serious life threatening injuries.
Regardless of it being a similar situation we don't have the right to make that call. You would be surprized how many people pull through injuries that the "normal" person would think are fatal. If you were allowed to "put them down" they would not be around.
Who cares? There a human being regardless.
Nope. You will note that all the military folks posting here have zero issue with this. You don't shoot prisoners, you don't execute the wounded. It is rather simple. If he had done what he was trained to do, the result would have likely been the same but he would have been lawful in his conduct. I appreciate the emotion that people express. It is somewhat romantic how we visualize the incident, likely with images from movies in your head. Reality is something different. Soldiering is not the realm of the amateur. We represent our country and the military as well. As it is never acceptable to kill a prisoner here or "mercy kill" someone hurt in a motor vehicle accident, the same goes for soldiers. You know we have a bit of combat experience now, not like we have never done this before. Maybe, just maybe the military has it right.
Conducting yourself in an honour manner, within the laws, within the ethos of the military means you can hold your head high regardless of how bad the bad guys were. By the way, we killed alot of bad guys. It is not grade school or something.
Interestingly, I understand that an ANA Capt who was there was upset that Lt Semrau's actions interferred with the will of Allah. Had he applied first aid as was expected by the CF he could have made an argument to the Capt that if it was Allah's will, the man would have died anyway. But that if the casualty lived, it was because Allah intended for him to care for the wounded man. Possibly still a cultural clash but one that would have been more defendable.
Regardless, military training is intended to instill values in you which you are expected to adhere to. I can't accept that he was unaware of what the expected course of action was.
Regardless, military training is intended to instill values in you which you are expected to adhere to. I can't accept that he was unaware of what the expected course of action was.
did you read the book to understand the reference? If not yes you are a smartass
Lew Mackenzie was a contemporary of mine. We served in the same unit during our formative years and I always had a high level of respect and admiration for his professional and leadership abilities. But he is not necessarily infallible on everything military. In this case he was long retired and didn't have a vote. Had he been serving as the Cdn Contingent Commander over there, and had he decided to quash the investigation into this matter or to not proceed with disciplinary action, he would have been facing charges himself. You can never legislate for every possibility by regulations and orders. But leaders are expected to operate within guidelines at all times and will always be held accountable for their decisions and actions. That's what they are trained for and expected to do.
I've had the unhappy task of serving on a couple of courts martial and found it to be a burdensome and difficult job. I would not have wanted to sit on this one.
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Semaru fukked himself and you'll notice that that seems to be the opinion of all of his compatriots, on here, who served in the same theater of operations in combat (myself at the exact same time in fact....one of the members of his team is one of my closest friends). He made a bad call, he knew it, and he payed with his career. Full stop. The guys here with Campaign Stars on their chests seem to all stand the same ground on that question.
...And Lew Mackenzie is an outstanding guy, who I have been fortunate enough to meet, but he's a Cold Warrior and the Cold War and COIN have as much in common as synchronized swimming and monster truck rallies.
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Travis Bickle
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This scenario is simply a magnifier of all that is wrong with the way we fight "wars" as "civilized" nations today.
How can you effectively fight and win a war against savage fanatics using guerrila tactics on their own turf while handicapped with mountains of confusing ROE's, numerous overlapping Convention regulations etc?
NATO cannot fight a true war anymore. We've signed every single international and UN tree hugging treaty that's ever been drafted.
We're handicapped by our own politicians and leaders attempts to make war kind, humane, mass media friendly and Politically Correct. Sadly those concerns take priority far and above the safety and effectiveness of our own soldiers to kill the enemy as far as our Commanders are concerned today. Semrau is proof of that. Cut and dry, yes he broke the rules and yes he was correctly charged. Full stop. His call and his consequences. But that doesn't make the real underlying issue any less ridiculous.
War is war. You go to war to completely destroy the enemy who is posing a threat to you and all your friends because there is no longer place for negotiation and they will not back down.
That's the point of war isn't it? True war anyways. Destroy the enemy right?
I don't know what the f**k we did in Afghanistan but a lot of the times it seemed like the main objective was drifting pretty far away from that......
How can you effectively fight and win a war against savage fanatics using guerrila tactics on their own turf while handicapped with mountains of confusing ROE's, numerous overlapping Convention regulations etc?
NATO cannot fight a true war anymore. We've signed every single international and UN tree hugging treaty that's ever been drafted.
We're handicapped by our own politicians and leaders attempts to make war kind, humane, mass media friendly and Politically Correct. Sadly those concerns take priority far and above the safety and effectiveness of our own soldiers to kill the enemy as far as our Commanders are concerned today. Semrau is proof of that. Cut and dry, yes he broke the rules and yes he was correctly charged. Full stop. His call and his consequences. But that doesn't make the real underlying issue any less ridiculous.
War is war. You go to war to completely destroy the enemy who is posing a threat to you and all your friends because there is no longer place for negotiation and they will not back down.
That's the point of war isn't it? True war anyways. Destroy the enemy right?
I don't know what the f**k we did in Afghanistan but a lot of the times it seemed like the main objective was drifting pretty far away from that......
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Well Trav. To be honest, I don't think we helped ourselves with large FOBs. I think having a few large FOBs where we could have Heliborne QRF makes sense but that the main focus should have been better spent on VSOs and an ALP program. Other than a few big fights, Medusa, Argandahb Battle etc we didn't find ourselves in set piece battles with large numbers of Talibs. Besides, SF have proven time and again that a small unit, well armed and in a good position with an indig force can fukk up a much larger force with ease.....but Big Green Army Generals don't like to hear that. They like battle groups and Bdes to play with. Large maneuver elements look cooler on the C2 maps...lol
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