ROE

I lived an ROE nightmare. We fought a war with a loose-leaf binder holding Rules of Engagment that changed almost daily and was filled with constantly changing map coordinates of prohibited targets and allowable free-fire zones. You could fight and kill MiGs in the air, but you couldn't attack the airfields. You could engage them until they went into the 20 mile ring around Hanoi or ten miles around Haiphong or within twenty miles of the Chinese border. You had to visually identify them even when you were equipped with weapons that could shoot beyond visual range.

SAMs sites could be built with impunity and only attacked after completion and when they fired upon you. Gun emplacments could be attacked unless they were on dikes or near certain buildings. Targets that looked very lucrative were passed by on the way to insignificant ones because the President and his SecDef were only gradually increasing pressure on the enemy. We lost a lot of guys doing that.

It's at least that bad today:

You Have the Right to an Attorney

The enemy doesn't wear a uniform or carry a Geneva Convention card. He strikes at random and often remotely without concern for who might be in the area at the time. Death and destruction rather than military efficiency are his motives. He cares not whom he kills because any death is viewed as proper for his cause. He abides by no rules of armed conflict.

He knows our rules as well as we do. He knows our humanitarianism and the ragged line we must walk as we try to gain the confidence of the civilized people of an uncivilized region. He has no compunction regarding the use of unarmed women and children as shield for his activities.

He is winning because we are reluctant to fight a war and would rather play to the press. Young men will be frustrated and die because of this.