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I just finished my fourth tour in Iraq with a Marine reconnaissance unit (our missions are similar to those of the snipers in the article), and feel compelled to share my perspective on this, because the topic of justifiable kills is an important one, morally complex, and perhaps confusing to those who haven't been in such situations themselves. You can pin a lot of bad things on the Brass--and God knows I do; most of them are incompetent, obsequious desk jockeys, and I almost always side with the guys in the field--but not this time. Most battalion commanders are too restrictive with their rules of engagement these days, and it scares us to think that if we kill someone innocent by mistake--even if we think we have identified hostile intent--we will get fried in a heartbeat. This particular battalion commander seems very generous with his rules of engagement, but despite pressing his soldiers to get more kills, nothing he said could reasonably be interpreted by any soldier as authorization to execute non-hostiles. Apart from the possibility that the heat and the amount of water these guys were drinking (which can lower blood sodium content, causing alteration of mental status)affected their judgement, what these guys did was absolutely inexcusable and unprofessional. I hate to back a colonel over a sergeant, but I admire the battalion commander for pushing aggressive ROEs. Don't think that these snipers were children with no ability to judge right and wrong or to interpret the nuances of their ROEs. They killed this guy for absolutely no reason, and that's that.
