In my former life, I wrote strategy and doctrine for warfare policy. It was pretty heady stuff and I rubbed elbows with a lot of really smart people who now find themselves in charge of significant assets dedicated to our national security. That is policy talk for being a 3 or 4 star flag officer or civilian equivalent in the government. I find the news wonks and other media members who doubt the veracity of my old friends to be self serving in their own right and invariably pursuing a predetermined slant on the story they will report whether or not the facts agree. In some cases, these self-serving people are midlevel staff members hired during previous administrations and, because they are not in a "political" position, retained their job under the Bush administration. I know this to be true because my former colleagues told me it was.

I know my former staff mates to be honorable men and women who have the best long term interests for this country in their hearts and minds. They are loyal Americans, patriots above reproach, most importantly, they have integrity and will stand up for what is right and disagree with what is wrong. I saw that happen on many occasions in the "Tank" (which is what the personal conference room for the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff is called) including a briefing on a friendly fire incident from our brief combat in Panama. The squadron commander of the unit involved (who was also a mission commander in the operation and therefore privy to the first hand results of the mishap) gave the briefing in a factual manner, devoid of emotion, and without thought to any Miranda warnings or other consequences of taking blame for the error. At the end of the briefing, he provided a partial solution for the problem, but warned that future casualties from incorrect identification-friend-or-foe systems would be inevitable. Combat, as he noted correctly, is not the time to be doubtful of your aim because you doubt your target. Once identified as a foe, the task is to kill the target as quickly as possible before delay results in the deaths of your fellow soldiers.

Lost in the recent court martial proceedings against two fighter pilots who killed four Canadian soldiers engaged in a training event in Afghanistan is a simple truth...the fighter pilots engaged a target identified by themselves and others as hostile to their presence (they were being shot at by these guys on the ground). In addition, the fighters were flying over territory designated as hostile by their intel briefing. What is being debated now in court is a new interpretation of the rules of engagement being applied in retrospect to the incident...and this new interpretation is being applied because of pressure from the Canadian government to punish those responsible for this accident.

Our government should not influence the outcome of the court martial to satisfy the Canadians. Our government should hold the court martial to determine if the men responsible for releasing the bombs that killed the soldiers on the ground were guilty of negligent homicide because they failed to follow the rules of engagement in a hostile fire zone. If they failed to follow the rules, they are guilty of a negligent act which resulted in accidental death. Punishment is proscribed for this behavior. If they followed the rules, they should be briefing the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and his senior staff directors in the Tank on how the incident occurred and how it could be avoided in the future.

Telling the truth and following the rules of engagement are critical components in our national defense personnel structure...if we allow the system to punish soldiers for doing either one, then we will quickly find that personal loyalty will replace personal integrity...and that would spell the end of our military as we know it.

Rip Kirby

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