Pros And Cons Of Operation Redwing

War is defined as “active hostility or contention; conflict; contest” (Webster Dictionary). However, no matter how hostile war may be, it must be fought with a certain manner or of ethical value. These types of moral complex dilemmas of war can be referred to as the “fog of war” (Wead 70). In war, soldiers must make decisions of life and death. As Marcus Luttrell explains, “I know everyone would like to think war is black and white. You can write every scenario that ever happened, in every war, with every engagement down in a book and tell us what you want us to do when it happens but war is not black and white, it is gray and if you don’t fight in the gray area you are going to lose” (Luttrell 6:50). From the perspective of the soldier or

Operation Redwing began as a well-planned four man Navy Seal team reconnaissance mission. The mission was to scout a village deep behind enemy lines, east of Asadabad in the Hindu Kush of Afghanistan. The target was Ahmad Shah, a senior Afghan leader responsible for the death of many US soldier. On the second day of the planned seven, a group of goats with three goat herders crossed the path of the four Seals. After restraining the three herders, the critical decision needed to be made. The three men insisted they were not Taliban and unarmed, therefore due to the rules of engagement and the ethical dilemma the seals could not harm the herders. The options that were presented to the group of Seals was to kill the herders and continue the mission, or release the men with the knowledge that the small army within the village would likely be informed of their presence, compromising the mission of this high value target. Without radio contact they made the decision to release the herders and head up the mountain to reconnect with their command and be extracted. From a utilitarianism point of view the clear decision would have been to kill the three men and complete the mission as planned. However, this ideology is not always the best for situations like these. Here Jus in Bellum was instituted by the Seal team to determine their final decision. However, this decision lead to a gun fight with an approximated fifty

In past wars like the Algerian insurgency, about two guerrillas were killed for each one captured and for Vietnam, about nine Viet Cong guerrillas were killed foe each one captured. For Iraq however, for each insurgent killed, three were captured (West 348). The issue of this was that prisons were filling and fewer than one in ten that were captured were al Qaeda fanatics or held relevant information. The prisoners were held for less than a year and commanders even complained that “they were fighting the same insurgents twice” (348). In Forward Operating Base Warrior, Kirkuk, Iraq, a US Army soldier whose name is withheld by mutual agreement stood behind four kneeling, blindfolded insurgents with a 9mm to their heads. As explained within the military review, “these same insurgents were captured and handed over to the Iraqi government twice before. Each time they were released to fight again” (Wead 70). Furthermore, these same insurgents used an IED to injure US soldiers of the same command earlier that same day. The platoon leader, swearing to protect his men, pulls the trigger and puts bullet into the back of each prisoners head. Most would argue that he was doing the best thing for his men and maybe he was. However, according to Jus in Bello, Geneva Law and the Hierarchy of Loyalty he was wrong. According to Jus in Bello the prisoners of war must be treated in a fair manor. Regardless of the