Friend Or Foe?

From IBD:
Posted 6/21/2006

Iraq: The grisly deaths of two American servicemen show how hard it is to fight a war in which the enemy knows no rules and civilians can't be distinguished from combatants. Maybe it's time to make it easier.
There's a method in the madness of those who kidnapped, tortured and murdered Pfcs. Kristian Menchaca, 23, and Thomas Tucker, 25, who were manning a Baghdad checkpoint with a comrade who was killed in the assault.

The jihadists want to give momentum to those in the U.S. such as Rep. John Murtha and Sen. John Kerry who want to bring the boys home either now or by a certain date.

The terrorists want to create the impression that despite the death of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, and the establishment of a new and permanent Iraqi government, nothing has changed. It's no coincidence that news of the brutal murders hit just as Democrats pressed the U.S. Senate to endorse a hasty retreat from Iraq.

But there's another purpose in their sick minds — to create a sense of mistrust and uncertainty between U.S. servicemen and Iraqis, to accentuate the already omnipresent reality that any Iraqi a U.S. soldier may encounter might be the one who's going to kill him or her. The more suspicious our troops become, they reason, the greater the likelihood of innocent civilians being shot. And the more likely a premature withdrawal.

We don't know the details of the kidnappings and torture/murder of Tucker and Menchaca. But the situation they faced at their checkpoint is not unlike the situations faced by the Marines being investigated for an alleged massacre at Haditha or the Marines who were shackled at Camp Pendleton for allegedly dragging a 52-year-old man from his house in Hamandiya and killing him.

This is a war where terrorists routinely kill innocent civilians and booby-trap their bodies so others will die as well. They use civilians as shields and masquerade as civilians, hoping overly cautious Americans will become their next prey. They follow no rules. They wear no uniforms. They could be behind any door. They could be the next person you see. They could be the last.

As war critics mourn three jihadist suicides at Gitmo, we have three dead soldiers who might have met their fate simply because, after Hamandiyah and Haditha, they took too long to determine if their kidnappers were friend or foe. If they'd killed their assailants, would they now also be accused of killing "innocent" civilians?
We recently reported on the case of U.S. troops being cleared of murder charges in Ishaqi, 60 miles north of Baghdad, during a raid that captured an al-Qaida cell leader and an Iraqi involved in making roadside bombs and recruiting terrorists. In the firefight, civilians were killed, but the soldiers were found to have properly followed the rules of engagement.

We've also written about the case of Marine 2nd Lt. Ilario Pantano, who was found innocent of murder charges for killing two terrorists fleeing a bomb-making house.

Innocent civilians have and will probably continue to be casualties of this war, as they've been in every war ever fought. But when terrorists kill innocents, they are proud of it. And what they did to our three soldiers they'd do to us all if they had the chance.

We may have to revise our rules of engagement as well as our sensibilities. We may have already lost too many in a war where soldiers are daily forced to make split-second decisions involving life and death. And if they make the wrong one, they should not be charged with murder.