The rules of engagement

I've been reading a lot of stuff lately online arguing on the side of police and civilians alike. The police and their supporters are saying that they see the worst of humanity and every situation is a threat, they have to be ready to take action to protect their own lives and the lives of those around them. On the other side of conversation, you have people saying that being ready to counter a threat is one thing, shooting to kill with 7 bullets at a man with no visible weapon in their hand is another.

I used to be in the military, and although I was not in the infantry, I was not "paid to kill people" as some would describe them, I still had to understand "rules of engagement". Because when you're in combat, the threat is always there too. Soldiers on the other side aren't waving their rifles in the air shouting, "I'm armed and I'm going to shoot you!" In fact, unlike the good old days prior to terrorism, the new enemy soldier looks like everyone else. They pretend to be a regular civilian to blend in and then ambush you when you are vulnerable and complacent. Worse, our enemies like to set booby traps and blow us up. So I think I can declare with relative certainty that a soldier's threat level, in a combat zone, is much higher than that of a typical police officer.

Also, and thank goodness that this doesn't happen on every combat mission, but in places like Bosnia, soldiers saw families and their livestock and animals slaughtered and left on display in their front yards just because of their ethnicity. That does a lot to mess up a Canadian soldier's brain. We're not used to seeing stuff like that and it does something to a person. It invokes anger, a desire for revenge against the perpetrators (in this case it was typically the Serbians). But we kept our cool.

During the thousands of deployments on UN missions and combat zones, Canadian soldiers rarely if ever shot and killed innocent civilians. We may be holding our weapons at the ready, but we don't shoot anything that moves. We are under strict orders as to what we can shoot, why we can shoot, and how much we can shoot. And let me tell you, if you stray from those orders, you are in some deep shit, pardon my language.

My point is, jobs that put your life in danger require preparation and alertness. They require the ability to defend yourself. But excessive force is never, ever right. Period. If I need to put 7 bullets in your back because you're not obeying my order, but your hands are empty, I'm sorry but there's something wrong with this picture. The rules of engagement have been tossed out the window and anything goes. That's not right, in my humble opinion.