... RENEE MONTAGNE, host:
Next, we have a story that underlines the difficulty of fighting a war amid a civilian population. It's the story of U.S. Marines who had Afghans in their gun sights, Afghans who looked like they might be planting a bomb. The Marines had to decide whether to pull the trigger. Their decision says a lot about the rules of war against insurgents in Afghanistan.
NPR Pentagon correspondent Tom Bowman watched the story unfold during a recent visit to the country, and he joins us now to talk about it. Hello.
TOM BOWMAN: Hi, Renee.
MONTAGNE: Now the rules of engagement have changed lately for troops in Afghanistan.
BOWMAN: That's right. General Stanley McChrystal, the overall commander there, tightened up these rules on when soldiers can fire. And he did this because there was - there were too many civilian casualties in Afghanistan. But this all illustrates the basic dilemma for U.S. troops. They want to kill insurgents who are trying to kill them, but their job is to make sure they only fire when they're very sure of their targets.
MONTAGNE: So, Tom, tell us what it was that you saw?
BOWMAN: Well, Renee, we were in this combat outpost down in southern Afghanistan, in the Helmand River Valley, and we were inside this center, a command center, watching a video screen. They were watching live while these guys were digging a hole for a roadside bomb. And there were other indicators, too, besides digging the hole. There was a guy swimming across a canal with this wire, and the wires are used to detonate the bomb.
Unidentified Man #1: I have two guys on the west side of the cow buoys(ph) running wires across the canal to the west side, where a (unintelligible) an IED the other day. So, they're watching them right now.
BOWMAN: There were a couple of guys keeping watch and stopping traffic. And the Marines were intercepting a radio call from these suspected insurgents while they were doing these other activities.
MONTAGNE: And on the radio, they were saying we're planting a bomb?
BOWMAN: And on the radio they were talking about planting a bomb.
MONTAGNE: So from the Marines perspective, the Afghans really did appear to be insurgents. So what did they do?
BOWMAN: Well, they felt comfortable. They had all the indicators that these guys were insurgents planting a bomb. So they thought about using a machine gun to shoot these guys. There was another combat outpost not too far away. The problem was there was a compound of houses between where the Marines were with their machine gun and the guys planting the bomb.
So then they decided to bring in the helicopters and use the machines guns and the helicopters to shoot these guys. As the helicopters came in, these guys look up in the air and start walking away. One of the guys was carrying a yellow jug - and that's become the icon of the roadside bomb. They mix fertilizer and diesel fuel in this, and that becomes a part of the bomb. And then we saw one of these guys throw this jug into a haystack.
Unidentified Man #2: And hiding the jug into the hay pile right now, and then are walking near the open field, so just wait until33;
BOWMAN: And they were gone. It was all over. They could no longer shoot at them.
MONTAGNE: So why didn't they shoot at them?
BOWMAN: Well, they thought that they were still too close to this compound of houses to allow these helicopters to use their machine guns to shoot, so they decided against it.
MONTAGNE: So, in being very, very careful about shooting at what they absolutely believed to be insurgents, they ended up, in effect, losing these guys. How did that make them feel?
BOWMAN: Well, they weren't happy at all. And some of them stormed out of this command center.
...
McCrystal, the Commandant of the Marine Corps and the usurper punk have castrated the USMC.
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