Sue Your Defense Department

I thought this item out of London (Daily Telegraph) was pretty interesting.

A decision by the Court of Appeal on Monday upheld a High Court ruling that troops serving abroad are protected by the Human Rights Act despite the challenge by the Ministry of Defence.

The families of soldiers killed as a result of poor or outdated equipment are thought to be most likely to use the decision against the MoD, including the 37 soldiers who have died in the Snatch Land Rover, which has been criticised as too weak to withstand roadside bombs.

Can you image what that might mean for us?

Think of all those people who died in HUMVEEs that were not up-armored, or died in up-armored HUMVEEs when there might have been an MRAP around.  Now think of their wives and parents taking this all to court.

Now, for contrast, think of those people who died while patrolling villages and having their loved ones sue because an over-emphasis on force protection resulted in the development of a flourishing insurgency because soldiers were not getting out of their vehicles and walking around, reassuring the local population and gathering intelligence.

These are the same scenarios, just viewed from a different perspective.

Going back to the article:

Military commanders also fear combat operations could be hamstrung by soldiers using human rights legislation to allow them to question orders.

A former commanding officer of troops in Basra told The Daily Telegraph that the decision would make it extremely difficult to lead "soldiers who are going to question your orders suggesting 'you are breaching my human rights'.

"I think the business of us getting on with the job is going to be extremely difficult.  We are going to be spending a long time risk assessing, whereas our energy should be applied to solving the intellectual problems of winning the campaign."

Sometimes what seems legally reasonable can be operationally unreasonable.

This is not to say that there have not been dumb decisions and bad designs.  It is to say that in making things perfectly safe, we can make then dangerous in combat.  Early on in the F-16 program there were a couple of fatal accidents due to spatial disorientation.  A wife sued the Air Force after her husband died in such an accident. I don't remember the outcome.

I am prepared to say that getting spatial disorientation in the F-16 is easier than in other aircraft.  The low canopy rails and the big bubble canopy with no metal canopy bow in front of the pilot are key contributors.  On the other hand, these are the things that allow the F-16 pilot to see the other person first and thus achieve a position of advantage.  I am not sure about today, but in the "old days" it used to be said that for 80% of all air-to-air kills the target never saw the shooter.

I am hoping this legal approach out of the UK does not jump the Atlantic.  But, then I am leery of Judges who say that we should look to the legal precedents found in other nations.

Regards  —  Cliff