Damian, of Babbling Brooks and The Torch, as well as others of my acquaintance, sent me a link to the story in the New York Times about the murder charges brought against an SF Captain and Master Sergeant for an incident in Afghanistan.
FORT BRAGG, N.C., Sept. 17 — From his position about 100 yards away, Master Sgt. Troy Anderson had a clear shot at the Afghan man standing outside a residential compound in a village near the Pakistan border last October. When Capt. Dave Staffel, the Special Forces officer in charge, gave the order to shoot, Sergeant Anderson fired a bullet into the man’s head, killing him.In June, Captain Staffel and Sergeant Anderson were charged with premeditated murder. On Tuesday, in a rare public examination of the rules that govern the actions of Special Operations troops in Afghanistan, a military hearing will convene at Fort Bragg to weigh the evidence against the two men, both Green Berets.
You should read the whole article, as always.
Damian sent it with this note:
Sounds like either orders and/or ROE were unclear, or someone was pushing the limits, or someone is looking to score career points. Either way, what a mess.
The case was referred by then Major General, now Lieutenant General Kearney. General Kearney was the SOF commander in Afghanistan at the time, and is the officer who kicked the Marine unit out of Afghanistan for what he considered to be an overly-kinetic response (i.e., he thought they were counter-productively trigger-happy) to an ambush.
My colleagues, active and retired, and I have been kicking this one around in email, and I guess I'm finally collapsing into full-bore cynicism.
This is my take: I await further info. Based solely what is in the article, I, as an Art 32 officer, would not be inclined to move forward.
As LTG Kearney had his own JAG, who I assume told him that he could make a case for prosecution, I'm wondering what we don't know about this situation. Which is oft times my stance when these things hit the news, because they usually do so through the defense attorneys. Not everything is a railroad, and I'll await the results of a Court.
That's not the sad cynical part. This is...
I am willing to consider the fact that LTG Kearney is positioning himself for consideration by a Democrat administration for one of the plum 4 Star jobs by pushing this issue, establishing his creds in a way calculated to appeal to a Hillary/Obama administration with the Prince of Darkness (retired General Wes Clark) as the SecDef.
Just as I am willing to consider that Admiral Fallon, at CENTCOM, is doing something similar in his ongoing tiff with General Petraeus. From an IPS story by Gareth Porter:
Fallon told Petraeus that he considered him to be "an a$$-kissing little chicken$hit" and added, "I hate people like that", the sources say. That remark reportedly came after Petraeus began the meeting by making remarks that Fallon interpreted as trying to ingratiate himself with a superior.That extraordinarily contentious start of Fallon's mission to Baghdad led to more meetings marked by acute tension between the two commanders. Fallon went on develop his own alternative to Petraeus's recommendation for continued high levels of U.S. troops in Iraq during the summer.
The enmity between the two commanders became public knowledge when the Washington Post reported Sep. 9 on intense conflict within the administration over Iraq. The story quoted a senior official as saying that referring to "bad relations" between them is "the understatement of the century".
Which is sad, that I'm considering it. I hope I'm wrong, at least with LTG Kearney, and that there's fire where this smoke is. And I can see the world through Admiral Fallon's perspective, in geo-strategic terms, given his background. But I'm suspicious of the leaked info about his interactions with General Petraeus. It doesn't make sense for that kind of in-fighting to be made public during an on-going war unless there's an agenda behind it.
That said - Admiral Fallon is the Commander of CENTCOM, and he might justly feel that his authority as CENTCOM commander is being undermined by General Petraeus' direct line to the White House. It's a weird world up that high - where the senior commander is end-runned that way. And Admiral Fallon, looking to the future, may well be choosing to play to the future. If Petraeus' plan succeeds, well and good, if it fails, Fallon has cover.
Of course, the agenda could be the agenda of one of Admiral Fallon's staff - regardless, it's unprofessional and unnecessary, whoever let it out into the wild. {POINT OF ORDER : Don't stop reading here - go down to the updates where there's more info that would appear to take some of the sting out of the L'Affaire Fallon-Petraeus. -the Armorer]
Update: Lex has more, and it doesn't make me feel any better about the two SF troops.
I just hope two good soldiers aren’t going to twist in the wind for a while (and a chill wind blow among the deployed) as this resolves into clearer focus.
Update on Admiral Fallon:
Admiral William Fallon Says General Petraeus' Plan Is "The Right Thing To Do." "Admiral William Fallon, head of U.S. forces in the Middle East, endorsed Iraq war commander General David Petraeus's plan to withdraw as many as 30,000 troops by July, rejecting lawmakers' suggestions that the two men are at odds over the timing and extent of a pullout. 'I think it's appropriate, the right thing to do; I concur with it, I concur with the timing of it,' Fallon said in a telephone interview yesterday from Oman, one stop on a tour of Persian Gulf countries where he is discussing threats from Iran. …'As we transition here, we're going to hand this over to the Iraqis and have them be responsible for security of the country. It will take place over time,' Fallon said. 'General Petraeus is going to have to work out the details of this in terms of when and where and how.'" (Janine Zacharia, "Fallon Rejects Suggestions of Split With Petraeus On Withdrawal," Bloomberg, 9/19/07)
The story twists again. I empathize with Admiral Fallon's concern about having some forces left over for doing something else somewhere else - but he also knows that having Iraq implode isn't going to make that task any easier. The one thing that makes me laugh when the Left accuses us of striving for Empire - we're sure doing it with a tiny military for the job. Which argues we're probably not really trying to do it...
I just wish I knew somebody on the CENTCOM staff who could give some good gouge on what really happened down there in Tampa.
Second Update again via Lex (and this is the beauty of the blog).
I've never worked for Fallon, but everything I've heard about him says that kind of outburst would be out of character for the man.
Chap worked for him briefly, and had more. Consensus is that this is manufactured.
If our concerns upstream turn out to be an unfair smear of the Admiral - we're glad that's so, and happy to post same.
The still-incoming returns makes me start to wonder if the Gareth Porter piece is an intentional or unintentional info op...
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