ROE? Yea right! Us, and a few of our other allies only follow the ROE. What about the other countries that never followed those rules or anything Geneva Convention put out. What about Vietnam, Saddam, Hitler? Did they follow the rules? Nope. 9/11? They purposely targeted civilians.
I say turn the hole country into a glass parking lot.

Nick, good thing your not on the chopping block for BK. But give it time man!

kill em all!
YEAH!

Rules
When we apply Rules to War and actually follow them. Then why bother. War is Hell. War is waged because all civil means to settle a dispute have been exhausted. Collateral damage is on the heads of those they caused the War to be fought. And Media involvement and armchairs Generals make it a circus. War is for Soldiers. Let them fight unrestrained and with the motive and conviction to win. I don't advocate civilian brutality, but things have gone way off the deep end to cater to this point.

We have not won a war in 65 years. Why? We have civilized it and tried to make Wars "Police Actions". It does not work. When we stop conquering an enemy, stripping it of all weapons, and executing those that wont cease fire and submit,..... We haven't gained a thing. We will not solve the reason we involved ourselves in the first place. And all of our citizen soldiers we allowed to be killed, and the grief their families felt, was in vain. Every war since WWII has either been a failure, or a continued Police Action that never ends.

How many wars have been involved in though where it'* our business in the first place? Vietnam, Korea, Desert Storm...all of those we had no business in being there. We just felt like being the big guy on the block and throwing our weight around. Afghan? Sure we can go there because of the Taliban hitting us first. Iraq though? We don't need to be here. Saddam wasn't our problem until we made him our problem. The UN has plenty of other capable countries that could have enforced it'* rules on him.

True that!!! And what wasn't considered, was the stabilty Saddam brought the area. Funny thing to say about such an evil man. Ya. But IMO it was a lesser evil than the power 'Vacuum' his removal caused. None of the players there are "niceguys' or moral by modern standards. We took out one brutal man, and it sucked in many others trying to take his place. And it seems all parties there haven't the least respect for human life, or other views. Like Mouse states, we had no business there or the others to begin with. But we are there. Time to take the leashes off and bring home as many alive as we can. Conquer, stabilize, pull out. Then dont repeat the original mistake. When we learn not to use our military as World Police.

We are beginning to pull out of the Middle East...again. By September out numbers will down significantly throughout Iraq.

I was so very glad to hear the news about the gradual pull out when announced. Its about time.

Yep, there is still a war going on though. We will still be in the Middle East, just in different areas.