SwiftVets.com

[Arty Guy]

One of the charges Kerry repeatedly made in his various interviews, congressional testimony, etc was that "free fire zones" in South Viet Nam were against the laws of war. For those who did not serve in Viet Nam, we had to get clearance from the local GVN authorities, working through the RVN military, before we dropped any bombs or fired any artilllery anywhere. There were two exceptions. First, if you were under attack you could shoot back. Second, substantial areas of South Viet Nam were designated "free fire zones" where no clearance was necessary.

The bulk of these zones, at least where I served, were completely uninhabited. There were some villages on the maps in these zones but these had, to the best of my knowledge, been abandoned for some time. I don't know, but I suspect that there were very few free fire zones in the Mekong Delta area where Kerry served, since this generally was one of the most densely populated areas of South Viet Nam. I submit that the establishment of free fire zones was evidence of the desire and intent by the US military to comply with the rules and avoid civilian casualties and unnecessary destruction of property.

So the question arises, is the idea and implementation of "free fire zones" in itself a violation of the rules of war. The relevant treaties are the Hague conventions agreed to in 1907. Without repeating all the language, there are two separate, but similar sets of rules, one governing the use of land based artillery against undefended inhabited areas and one governing naval bombardment of undefended inhabited areas. To the best of my knowledge no similar set of rules has ever been agreed to regarding aerial bombardment from airplanes.

Among other things, these rules generally require notice to the local authorities before such a bombardment, and even waive that requirement in some circumstances.

I am not an attorney, but I disagree that "free fire zones" per se were against the rules, since these were all publicly announced. That is, notice given.

Anyone else have any thoughts on this?

[BuffaloJack]

As I understood it when I was in-country, the Free Fire Zones were area that were relatively uninhabited and permanent so that if fired upon, the GIs didn't have to go through a lot of red tape and radio traffic before returning fire. The locals all knew where the Free Fire Zones were and stayed out, thus you normally wouldn't expect to find anything but hostiles in a free fire zone.

[JN173]

I agree with all of the above with the following additions.

Kerry and others stated on several occasions that 'free fire zone" meant you could fire on anything that moved. That is not a correct definition of free fire zones, but anyone acting as if it was correct would be commiting a war crime if they injured a non-combatant. (That erroneous interpretation of the term "free fire zone" is why the term was quickly dropped from the official lexicon.)

Although "where no clearance was necessary" all other rules of war , Geneva and Hague, were still in effect. i.e. One still had to take action to limit injury to known non-combatants while using the force necessay to accomplish the military objective and force protection.
_________________
A Grunt
2/503 173rd Airborne Brigade
RVN '65-'66

[baldeagl]

People who say that are ignorant of military doctrine. For someone who wants to be seen as intelligent beyond the norm, Kerry displays either a inexplicable ignorance of military doctrine or a craven willlingness to exploit the general public's ignorance of military doctrine.

Free fire zone meant that you could engage the enemy under the normal rules of engagement without having to first request permission to fire. As I'm sure you are aware from recent conflicts, American troops, in general, cannot fire upon the enemy without first getting permission from their command structure. Only in a free fire zone can they fire when fired upon without first getting permission to engage.

It has never been acceptable in the US military to fire indiscriminately without regard to the context, which is what Kerry was implying.
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antimedia
USN OST-6 68-74
http://antimedia.blogspot.com/

[BuffaloJack]

If Kerry truly thought that a Free Fire Zone meant that you could shoot anything that moved, then what could we possible expect of someone in command so ill informed about conditions that he would think that the rules of engagement did not apply. Kerry by his statement and his understanding of the defination of a Free Fire Zone exhibits that he actually is "Unfit For Command".

[rbshirley]