Or something like that. I used to hear, growing up in El Paso, that the ROE were handcuffing “Our Boys” in VietNam. Same way the cops say that having to respect people’s rights would tie their hands behind their backs. Like, how would they know? They’ve never actually tried respecting people or their rights. But we’ve seen the pictures, over and over, a weeping mother holding her slain child for the last time… the faces are different, but the soul of that mother multiplied over all the times the ROE were disregarded either for matters of convenience (although the cops or soldiers would never admit that) or for the “safety” of one or more of the Invaders or Police State Storm Troopers domestically, backfires against the trigger pullers.
Or their comrades. Or the sons and grandsons of their comrades when they face the families of their fathers’ and grandfathers’ Victims. That “crazy” suicide bomber with the nine pounds of dynamite strapped to his chest in front of the BX or in a bar habituated by Americans is probably the son or brother of one of those slain infants, held in their mothers arms for the final time.
The person who “signs” his speeding ticked with a “shotgun Ambush” might be the brother or sister or father or son of somebody like Alyanna Jones, the 7 year old kid murdered by the Detroit Po-Po or Etta Collins, the 87 year old grandmother MURDERED through her front door by the Dallas Police in South Oak Cliff more than two decades ago. The same with the victims of soldiers ignoring the ROE.
The “safety” it might have bought them would be temporary. There are still people in the Arabian Peninsula celebrating long ago violations of the ROE (on all sides, too) such as Richard Couer de Leon almost a thousand years ago. And incidents farther back.
The Rules of Engagement and other manifestations of civil behavior aren’t there only and exclusively for the protection of the people who are on the receiving end of your gun-muzzles.
They protect your comrades now, and comrades to come, in generations you’ll never live to see anyway.
Violating them will breed implacable enemies. Ones who will be loathe to surrender to the descendants of your Empire.
“Saving his life” Yeah Right. They’re taking him to to a Torture Center, keep him alive long enough to waterboard him and send the videos to Torture Freak Propagandists, like our Local “Gunny” Bob Newman and Michelle Malkin so they can use them as Pig Porn. How ’bout it, “Gunny”? Like seeing a REAL man in pain? Semper Fi, punk. And it makes the Murderers look like Compassionate Heroes instead of the Violent Perverts they really are.
With attention now drawn on the evangelical skinheads running amok with the US military’s Big Stick, reporter Jeff Sharlet relates a story in this month’s 
“The Israeli air strikes on the Gaza Strip represent severe and massive violations of international humanitarian law as defined in the Geneva Convention, both in regard to the obligations of an occupying power and in the requirements of the laws of war.” Written by Professor Richard Falk, United Nations Special Investigator for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories.
The DoD records for 2007 reveal