Watching last year’s Frontline documentary “Rules of Engagement“, about the killing of 15 civilians in Haditha. A few random thoughts; glad to hear contradictory opinions in comments.

1. At one point, a military lawyer states that the rules of engagement allow for presumption of hostility of “men of military age” fleeing an explosion, such as the IED that killed a Marine and set off the Haditha incident. From the military’s perspective, I can see why this makes sense.

But speaking as a man of military age: if I’m standing near the site of a recent explosion, my instinct is to get the hell out of there in case it’s the first of several. It seems to me that the rule sets a standard whereby an Iraqi has to first check the area to see if there are any US military around; if not, he’s allowed to run like hell. If there are? Well, apparently that’s too damn bad — as the documentary makes clear, it doesn’t appear that there’s any way of remaining still and staying safe from either insurgent or military attack.

(Note: I’m not presuming that US troops would mistakenly fire on civilians, although the later Haditha conviction does indicate that it isn’t a matter of opinion whether it sometimes occurs. However, I assume that the average Iraqi “man of military age” may have drawn his own conclusions about whether it’s safe to stay put when facing US troops under attack, and it seems this particular rule puts him in a fatal catch-22.)

2. The unsworn testimony of two Marines struck me as extremely eloquent, more like submissions to Reader’s Digest than court testimony. On the presumption that most sergeants and corporals can’t write with that skill, I assume they had help drafting the statements. Nothing wrong with that, but it does make me wonder about a military court system that values such written contrition and makes resources available to provide it.

3. The conclusion of the documentary states that the new policy of automatic investigation of civilian casualties is causing troops in the field to hesitate out of fear of what the subsequent investigation will turn up. A lieutenant is quoted saying that this does increase battlefield risk — and notably adds that it’s worth it.

The possibility is raised that it’s not, but I think that contradicts military policy. If we want to reduce troop risk above all other considerations, we could replace ground troops with much more indiscriminate ranged and air weaponry. We don’t do this, because we don’t wage war that way (and neither does anyone else who is a signatory to war crimes treaties). So we already allow for increased risk to our troops in return for both military and moral goals. I have trouble understanding why a combat pause to assess the targets — which may indeed increase the risk of giving your enemy a chance to return fire — doesn’t fall into this category.

That said, I’ve never been in combat nor expect to be, so I’m interested in hearing why I’ve got this entirely wrong.