Movies - Rules of Engagement

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	Movies - Rules of Engagement

Rules of Engagement is a 2000 American movie starring Samuel Jackson and Tommy Lee Jones, directed by William Friedkin.

It is a military and legal drama exploring but not definitively answering the question of how much force may legitimately be used by United States troops in self-defense.

Synopsis

:"The situation arises when Colonel Terry Childers is ordered to protect the US Embassy in Yemen after a large group of demonstrators surround the building. Childers’ orders are to evacuate the ambassador and his family if the situation turns violent. During the mission the ambassador's security remains intact, but results in the loss of three soldiers, and more than 80 Yemeni men, women and children. When he returns home, he faces a court- martial for violating the rules of engagement by killing unarmed men. Childers contends that the protesters were armed and had opened fire on the Embassy. Problems arise when the prosecution team and the people in the President's cabinet withhold evidence. This leaves no witnesses to prove Childers's case."

:"The question of Childers's guilt or innocence turns on the specific "rules of engagement" that apply to the military situation in play. According to these rules, Childers has committed no crime if there were indeed a few armed terrorists in the crowd firing on his men. This would seem to present the opportunity for exploring an area of moral ambiguity: can a man be innocent of murder even if he has killed unarmed civilians, including women and children? The script by Stephen Gaghan neatly sidesteps that question ..."

The key incident takes place in Yemen, where an unruly crowd of men, women and children demonstrate outside the U.S. embassy. Everything hinges on whether the crowd (a) was armed, and (b) fired first.

Western conceptions of military ethics judge the following acts:

unacceptable: for uniformed troops to fire indiscriminately at unarmed civilians
justifiable: for uniformed troops to return fire on armed attackers regardless of attire

The film's suspense and drama stems chiefly from the clash between these two ethical principles and uncertainty about the number and type of weapons possessed and used by the demonstrators.

According to U.S. military law, Childers could be found guilty of murder for killing 83 "unarmed, peaceful" people. But if enough of them were carrying weapons and they opened fire, he would be found innocent.

Sparking the drama was the Yemeni government's claim that no weapons were found with the bodies of the dead and injured. So it initially looks like Childers snapped and ordered a senseless massacre.

Later on, we find out that a videotape recording everything was deliberately destroyed and (tantalizingly) the audience is shown a flashback indicating that the crowd was indeed heavily armed and had opened fire first.

Real-world implications

A similar incident actually occurred in Fallujah. U.S. troops using a school building as a headquarters were confronted by demonstrators. Reports varied as to what happened then. By one account, the troops opened fire without provocation. According to another account, U.S. troops took fire from a dozen armed men and returned fire.

The publicity around the real-world Fallujah incident inflamed anti-U.S. sentiment in a way mirroring the dynamics of the film.

The death of a Vietcong soldier

In the beginning of the film (c.1968) Terry Childers shoots one of two POWs he has just taken. Childers doesn't receive any punishment, for what some might call a war crime. Some people have claimed this ruins the movie, as one can argue that from the very beginning Childers is a war criminal.

Childers was attempting to persuade the other prisoner (a colonel) to get on the radio and call off his nearby soldiers, who are slaughtering some of Childers' men. Childers threatened to first kill the Vietcong radio operator and then the colonel, and waited for a few seconds before executing the former. The retired Vietcong officer is summoned as a character witness to the trial three decades later, and states that had their roles been reversed he would have taken the same action.

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