Sacred Symbols+, Episode 82: The Fallout of Fallujah

Indeed.

Colin Moriarty

Glad you liked it!

Colin Moriarty

Thank you! I did want to focus more on the game, but we got sidetracked for sure.

Colin Moriarty

Thank you to all of the Service Personnel, I appreciate you beyond measure.

BlindRiot

Thank you so much for doing the work to get a bonafide Service Member/journalists take on this situation. It was a fascinating episode.

BlindRiot

This was a very... different podcast for this channel. Colin did a very admirable job as an "interviewer" to try to bring it back, bring it back, bring it back to the topic of the game. In the end, this reminded me a lot of a Rogan podcast. I didn't hear much insight about Six Days in Fallujah, but I did hear a very interesting conversation between two cool people, I learned a lot, and I'm glad I listened!

Dave Carsley

Timothy, we tell the same story :D. Stay safe hooah.

Sena

That’s why I like this community, brother. We can have conversations on complex topics and not immediately start screaming at each other and assume bad motivations from the other person

Timothy Martin

Appreciate the thorough and detailed response, Timothy. Really - thank you. Turns out the question of accountability is even more complicated than I originally thought.

Andres

Andres, I understand the sentiment fully. As Steven said in the show, civilian casualties are a tragedy felt many times more deeply than any other loss. With that being said, civilian casualties can be minimized but not eliminated. The reality of the modern battlefield is that combat is chaotic and horrifying. Its absolute chaos. Life and death decisions are made in seconds or less. So when we say "held accountable" what do we mean? Case in point (a real example from a close friend), you are working a Traffic Control Point (TCP) in Baghdad, a car speeds towards the checkpoint ignoring the signs (in Arabic) and the floodlights, Soldiers engage with a 240B and kill a family of 5. Terrible tragedy. How do you "hold someone accountable"? To clarify and earlier point, CDE assigns a decisionmaking authority to a kinetic strike based on the probability to injure or kill civilians or damage critical civilian infrastructure. Its kind of like "Bin Laden is on a bus full of schoolchildren, can we blow it up with a JDAM?" The answer is "maybe" but it would likely need to be the POTUS himself to pull the proverbial trigger This is going to come as a slight surprise but killing civilians isn't in and of itself a "war crime" as horrible accidents or decisions made in the fog of war are real (think the band of brothers ep where the dude almost grenades a French family, that stuff happens pretty often). Deliberately targeting civilians IS a war crime. Edit: Sorry for the late response, Patreon is not good about sending me updates when people respond

Timothy Martin

Thank you for listening!

Colin Moriarty

Great episode, learned some stuff I didn’t know

Robert Schultz

Thank you for your service. =)

Colin Moriarty

Thanks for listening.

Colin Moriarty

Thank you. And welcome!

Colin Moriarty

Thank you. It's good to be back in the interviewer's chair a little bit.

Colin Moriarty

I like having these kinds of chats, because I think they're productive. I'd be THRILLED to have people on to challenge my own views, or to be able to challenge theirs, but they won't accept.

Colin Moriarty

Thank you! He'll be back.

Colin Moriarty

I hear what you're saying, but I do think it's accounted for to the very last moment it reasonably can be, and -- as has been explained here and I believe on the show -- there comes a time when things are unknowable.

Colin Moriarty

Thank you! I'm working on it.

Colin Moriarty

I've heard.

Colin Moriarty

Thank you! I'd like to have him back when the game is out and we've both played it.

Colin Moriarty

Thank you. I'm listening to the audience and am trying to bring onboard more folks for interviews when the topics and opportunities present themselves.

Colin Moriarty

Cool glad to hear to our military tries to minimize civilian casualties as much as they can. Maybe they should try harder. Edit: & publicly disclose every time they failed to do so as well have those in positions of power held accountable for it.

Andres

Apocryphal story retold from my time in Iraq: Marines storm a building, take casualties, fall back Army dude asks Marine "Should we drop the house? Call for Arty? Air Strike? TOW Missile?" Marine dude: "Nah, just send in more Marines. Whatever number we just sent in, double it"

Timothy Martin

As a Marine, 2012-2020, Fallujah is talked about as our ass kicking moment (chosin resevoir, battle of belleau wood type of moment), we stormed into a heavily fortified Fallujah, took a lot of casualties but ultimately secured the city. We turned over occupation of the city to the Army and they get completely overwhelmed prompting the Marines to come back and retake Fallujah.

Sena

great discussion really enjoyed it

Jack Doheny

EXCELLENT episode. As a new Patreon this was just so good, and I don't typically gravitate toward this topic, but I couldn't help but be drawn in. Very good, bravo.

Eebo85

Enjoyed the episode immensely, reminded me just how much I miss fireside chats. Few things inform me and make me think as much as they did. You can read about a topic all day, but nothing compares to what we can gather directly from someone living it. Love how you have a conversation with them, using your natural curiosity as a good back and forth.

Andrew Clark

Thank you for this episode Colin! Steve was a great person to speak on this. I for one am tired of some of these outlets just writing rage pieces just to gather some attention, that BS needs to stop. What’s funny about all this is this interview is what should of happened at Polygon or IGN or Kotaku, it was a perfect opportunity for them to regain some credibility and balls and at least try to be objective but instead it only goes further to show how shitty these sites are. Again thank you Colin! You guys continue to be my #1

Jeff Caseres

Fantastic episode! Steve was great you definitely need him back for more interviews.

Matthew Major

Brother, I'm going to try and correct some misconceptions in the above comment as a currently serving Artillery Officer in the Army. Caveat that although I have multiple Iraq deployments, I was not present in the Battle of Fallujah. 1) White Phosphorus is used in grenade, mortar, rocket and artillery rounds. The most common version is M825 and M110. It is used for obscuration and marking, primarily obscuration. I have fired hundreds (if not thousands) of these rounds in my military career. 2) Every one of these rounds is accounted for through existing ammuntion management programs. Fire mission logs (called a record of fire) exist from every fire mission executed in training and in combat. Bottom line, records exist of all. White phosphorous rounds can absolutely be used in an urban setting and not be characterized as employment of chemical weapons (as defined under Geneva). The distinction typically lies in the proximity to ENY or civilian formations when used. To understand this further, the DoD utilizes Collateral Damage Estimates (CDE) to determine the effect munitions may have and the probability for civilian casualties. BL: It is a complex process with decisionmakers at many levels. CDE is designed to MINIMIZE civilian casualties, not eliminate them entirely. Unfortunately with any war in the era of high explosives and densely populated urban environments civilian casualties are a terrible result. Happy to answer any questions

Timothy Martin

I enjoyed the episode and appreciated the added perspective. Thought it wasn’t necessarily directly relevant to the topic, I wish they hadn’t glossed over something in particular. I feel that if the military can buy white phosphorus and deploy it in urban areas (which is using it as a weapon, not a smoke screen), they can keep track of how much they used and where. They’re our military and they need to be accountable to the American people about why they made decisions and the full ramifications of them. Sorry to be on the rant wheel... I just really get frustrated with how we know atrocities happened in the Middle East, but a lot of the reporting is speculation because the government is concealing information.

Tristan Abraham

This was such a great episode. I hope you have more people with such interesting perspectives like this on Sacred Symbols Plus in the future!

Marc L

Restrepo is quite good.

Jake Z

I feel like a Moroccan-Italian man with a Swedish nationality and a background in aerobics would have been a better source for this interview Col. 🤣😂 I really enjoyed this episode. Hopefully we see Steve on here again!

Colin, I'm watching now. I just wanted to say, you're such a good interviewer. Please continue to do these kinds of interviews on Sacred Symbols Plus. It kinda feels like having Fireside Chats back. :)

Brandon Kirzeder