Dealing with ethical and/or legal issues in operations

[Michael OLeary]

You enter a room and find one of your soldiers with his rifle in his hand, barrel smoking.  In front of him is a dead enemy soldier, clearly shot by your man. The enemy soldiers AK47 is leaning up against a wall on the otherside of the room clearly out of reach.
Laying on the floor is a dead middle age woman with a gunshot wound in her head, looks like an AK bullet.  On the floor beside her is her  young teenage girl who was clearly being raped and then dies herself from a gunshot would, inflicted by the enemy soldier previously.

Actually, there's nothing in that description that states that the dead enemy soldier was the one who raped the girl.

 

[armyvern]

You could play the what if game forever with scenarios like this. What if he had a knife, what if he was choking the girl, what if he rushed the troop and grabbed his weapon.... etc etc.

You're making assumptions; one must deal with the facts at hand. The "facts" you work with are given in the scenario - we are not supposed to "assume" anything; we are supposed to act based on the facts at hand. There's no choking, no knife, no rushing the troop given. Nada. Given that there was none of those in the scenario ... what would you do using the "facts" of the scenario - that is the question.

 

[armyvern]

Under LoAC, an enemy soldier is a legitimate target whether there is currently a weapon in his hands or not.  He remains a legitimate target until he is dead, shows his intent to surrender, or becomes a casualty & stops fighting.  In the scenario presented in this thread (which presents a warfighting situation against soldiers) there is no significance to the fact that the AK-47 is against the wall.  It does not matter if there were knives or if a criminal act was being committed.  The dead guy was a legitimate target - killing him was legitimate.

There may be more considerations in a peacekeeping mission or in an environment where the enemy are un-uniformed irregulars & guerrillas ... but that is not what was presented in the scenario.

Right. So we just enter and shoot him?

Where's the escalation of force in your above? Is he posing an immediate threat that would cause the immediate use of "deadly force" against him in this scenario? I don't see any of that in the scenario given. Appropriate escalation of force is also covered in the LOAC and the Geneva Conventions n'est pas - especially with non-combattants present?

 

[Brutus]

Right. So we just enter and shoot him?

Yes.

There is nothing I have learned that restricts this fictional soldier from just shooting him. The scenario did not mention ROEs, so one could assume there is nothing relevant there.

What makes you think there would be a problem in killing an enemy soldier? Isn't that kinda the point?

 

[Michael OLeary]

What makes you think there would be a problem in killing an enemy soldier? Isn't that kinda the point?

Yeah, you're right, the answer is ALWAYS just fucking shoot him, because it's just a fictional scenario and why would we want to have a serious conversation about ethics on the internet.

:

 

[Brutus]

Yeah, you're right, the answer is ALWAYS just ******* shoot him, because it's just a fictional scenario and why would we want to have a serious conversation about ethics on the internet.

:

What's all the hostility about? The problem is the lack of information, not my response.

In every situation that I can think of, ROEs would come into play, but if the question is, 'Can you shoot an enemy soldier who is unarmed', with no caveats, clarification, and most importantly, ROEs, then the answer is 'yes' (again, as far as I know). There is no law that I am aware of that absolutley forbids this under any circumstance.

edit: to correct spelling

 

[Michael OLeary]

What's all the hostility about? The problem is the lack of information, not my response.

Then work with the information given.

 

[Brutus]

Then work with the information given.

I did - and my response was:

'Yes.

There is nothing I have learned that restricts this fictional soldier from just shooting him. The scenario did not mention ROEs, so one could assume there is nothing relevant there.'

Do you have a response to the scenario, or are you restricting your comments to sarcasm and criticism?

 

[Michael OLeary]

OK, i give up, so when the is no specific explanation of ROEs we can just shoot anyone.

Sorry, I was expecting rational discourse.

 

[George Wallace]

......... There is no law that I am aware of that absolutley forbids this under any circumstance.

I guess you slept through all those classes on the Geneva Conventions, Laws of Armed Conflict, etc. 

 

[Brutus]

I guess you slept through all those classes on the Geneva Conventions, Laws of Armed Conflict, etc.

Nice cut and paste job. My full reponse, with the relevant bits bolded, was:

What's all the hostility about? The problem is the lack of information, not my response.

In every situation that I can think of, ROEs would come into play, but if the question is, 'Can you shoot an enemy soldier who is unarmed', with no caveats, clarification, and most importantly, ROEs, then the answer is 'yes' (again, as far as I know). There is no law that I am aware of that absolutley forbids this under any circumstance.

edit: to correct spelling

Can you shoot enemy soldiers who are not armed and actively engaging you? Yes, provided your ROEs don't remove this option from you.

If you disagree, please quote me the LOAC/GC article.

 

[McG]

Right. So we just enter and shoot him?

In a warfighting scenario: absolutely.  That is the infanteer's job.

Where's the escalation of force in your above?

Not required by LoAC in a warfighting scenario.  Snipers don't have to give a warning shot before putting a bullet into an enemy's skull.  Pilots don't have to drop inert warning bombs before putting a missile into an enemy tank/bunker/etc.  The infantreer clearing an objective in war does not need escalation of force prior to killing the enemy soldier on the objective.  If that enemy wants to live, then he kills first, he surrenders, or he hopes for just a flesh-wound and the Geneva protections that come with it. 

The scenario, as described, was an infantry fight through an urban/village objective in a war scenario.  Don't allow over-conditioning for Bosnia type missions to confuse what you are actually allowed to do in war.  The enemy soldier is a legitimate target, and you may kill him baring that he is not hors de Combat.  That is LoAC.

 

[McG]

OK, i give up, so when the is no specific explanation of ROEs we can just shoot anyone.

It is worth noting that the senario did explicity state "enemy soldier"  -  not just anyone.

This is significant, and it makes it okay to put bullet holes in him.

 

[Michael OLeary]

It is worth noting that the senario did explicity state "enemy soldier"  -  not just anyone.

This is significant, and it makes it okay to put bullet holes in him.

No, the scenario leads us to assume he was committing a rape when our soldier walked in - it does not state that he was actually doing so, was known to have done so, or was acting in any threatening manner.  For all we know he was a medic offering assistance.  What the scenario does not tell us is as important as what it does when we examine what our actions might be.

 

[Brutus]

I am not sure of the root cause, but I have noticed (here and elsewhere) an expectation that the soldier first attempt to disarm the enemy in battle. I suspect that this started with the advent of peace support ops, and really took hold with the lack of combat missions in the 90's coupled with an enourmous amount of PK work. However, the Infantry soldier (as per the scenario) is not a police officer, and it is his duty to engage the identified enemy (again, as per the scenario). It is not his duty (unless otherwise stated) to first try and capture him.

 

[McG]

No, the scenario leads us to assume he was committing a rape

It does not matter what he was doing unless it was throwing up his hands to surrender.  He was an enemy soldier.  We are allowed to kill enemy soldiers in war.  That is what we do.

 

[Michael OLeary]

I am not sure of the root cause, but I have noticed (here and elsewhere) an expectation that the soldier attempt to disarm the enemy in battle. I suspect that this started with the advent of peace support ops, and really took hold with the lack of combat missions in the 90's coupled with an enourmous amount of PK work. However, the Infantry soldier (as per the scenario) is not a police officer, and it is his duty to engage the identified enemy (again, as per the scenario). It is not his duty (unless otherwise stated) to first try and capture him.

The scenario in question clearly stated that the soldier's rifle is across the room, and makes no mention of other weapons.

 

[Brutus]

The scenario in question clearly stated that the soldier's rifle is across the room, and makes no mention of other weapons.

And I am questioning the relevance.

 

[McG]

Soldiers in war are allowed to kill enemy soldiers even if the enemy forgot his weapon on the other side of the room.

Micheal, you have situated the estimate in your mind and placed it in Bosnia with you as the UN soldiers & instead of an enemy soldier the other person was just a beligerant soldier.

We can kill enemy soldiers in war.

 

[aesop081]

We are allowed to kill enemy soldiers in war.  That is what we do.

I'm sure that "military necessity" comes into play somewhere in there.