Archive for the 'War & Warfare' Category

In response to my post below on Camp Pendleton 8 Update (I think the comment might have been intended for my post on Room Clearing), Mike at Cop the Truth says:

“Stacking” is merely the way a team lines up “as***** to appetite” in preparation for storming a building, room, bus, plane, etc. The “stack” helps the assault team stay together, thereby cutting down on “friendly-fire” incidents. It also assigns specific areas of responsibilty to each man, according to skill level, assigned weapon, leadership role, etc. It provides for the maximum efficiency and safety of every member of the team, and the team, itself, and is used both by the military and the police, especially SWAT teams.

My response: Exactly!

You never know how much detail to include, and besides, I really don’t know how completely what the Marines do matches up with what a SWAT team does, for example.  There might be additional elements of the military version in use in Iraq that is not in the SWAT version, or vice versa.

Either way, the point is still the same.  “Room-clearing” is a rapid, deadly and precise procedure with the intent to kill those in the room.  It is not an opportunity to enter a room, sit with the occupants, and discuss their political or religious views.

We should all remember that war is a rough, deadly business when we see collateral damage resulting from it.  When we send our boys to conduct war, they will conduct war.  They are doing what we — through our elected leaders — have told them to do.

A ragged copy of Ernie Pyle’s “Here is Your War

I want to give a brief perspective on “room-clearing” procedures of the type used in Falujah (and apparently in Haditha, and I would guess in the future in Ramadi).

I commented in an earlier post that I didn’t know what a “stack” was (pertaining to the term as used by the NYT article on Haditha).  I still don’t, because a stack is not something that is, it is something a team does.  It is not a noun — it is a verb.

I use the term because it came up in the context of the Haditha incident.  Apparently, room-clearing procedures were used in Haditha.

Folks, let me be as clear as I can be on this.  Listen carefully for a moment.  I will be brief.  If Marines feel threatened and believe the enemy to be in a house or room, and the order is given to “clear” the room, well then … the Marines will clear the room.  They will do it the way that they have been trained to do it.  This method, this protocol, these procedures — they are designed to kill the enemy and protect Marines.  It is a fast and furious and deadly thing.

The procedure is executed within a couple of seconds.  No, I did not say it begins within a couple of seconds.  I said it is executed within a couple of seconds.  Finished.  Past tense.  Then on to the next room.

There is no protocol, no time, and no provision (AND THERE NEVER CAN BE) to identify and delineate friend from foe.  Such a thing does not comport with room-clearing.  Any attempt to delineate friend from foe would result in the countless deaths of Marines.  The entire protocol presupposes that there is enemy in the room to be cleared.

There is a moral to this little story.  Do not unleash the Marines unless there is a true need.  And when the Marines are unleashed, they will follow their protocol and do what they are trained to do.  It is to be expected, and frankly, I would have it no other way.

From time to time, this will result in the deaths — however tragic — of innocents.  Another result?  The protection and safety of Marines.

Kathi makes a comment that I thought was worthy of a post (it was too hidden as a comment). Here it is. Thanks to Kathi.

Don’t know if someone has already passed these on? But here are sites set up for 7 of the 8.

HM3 Melson A. Bacos http://www.patriotdefensefund.com/

LCPL Tyler A. Jackson http://www.fightingfortyler.com/

PFC John J. Jodka http://innocentmarine.com/

CPL Marshall L. Magincalda http://www.helpdefendourmarine.com/

LCPL Robert B. Pennington http://www.defendrob.com/

CPL Trent Thomas http://www.defensefundformyhero.com

LCPL Jerry Shumate http://friendsofjerry.blogspot.com/

End of comment. Editorial remark: See also:

http://journals.aol.com/kasee267/SupportingtheTroops/entries/524

Prior:

http://www.captainsjournal.com/2006/06/22/the-camp-pendleton-8/
http://www.captainsjournal.com/2006/06/16/not-far-enough-camp-pendleton/
http://www.captainsjournal.com/2006/06/15/my-phone-discussion-with-camp-pendleton-and-marines-in-shackles/

Permit a novice to weigh in on the recent SCOTUS decision.  This 185 page document should make for interesting bed time reading, which I will do later.  For the time being, it appears that:

1. The rage we feel at the “justices” of the left, who have given us some of the worst decisions ever made (and who, by the way, I predict will be reversed on many things in the coming years), is justified.
2. This rage should not cloud our judgment as to what the decision really says.

This decision has no teeth.  First of all, the SCOTUS Blog says:

The Court expressly declared that it was not questioning the government’s power to hold Salim Ahmed Hamdan “for the duration of active hostilities

In “New Taliban and Al Qaida Strategy,” I scoped out what I believe to be a revised “going-forward” plan for the terrorists and insurgents in Iraq and the Taliban in Afghanistan. It primarily involves the terror tactics used heretofore, such as beheadings, torture and other acts of brutality. But there are two elements present in this approach that seem to have been previously absent.

The U.S. forces, and especially the Marines, were keenly aware of the fact that factions of malcontents, thugs, criminals and other shady elements of society would band together into heterogeneous groups and cause general harm to the effort of the coalition forces. This was described in the Marine Corps “Small Wars Manual,” 1940 Edition. The two new elements we are seeing now include (a) the use of non-combatants as shields, and (b) an aggressive propaganda war to allege U.S. troop atrocities.

I have discussed in earlier posts, Haditha, Hamdania, and then Guardsmen being charged with civilian deaths near Haditha. The Marine Times carried an AP story about the proliferation of charges against U.S. troops, and so the issue is being recognized by the MSM (although I see the article as being somewhat wobbly, coming to no real conclusions and providing no substantive framework for this phenomenon — an interesting failure given the title of the piece, Experts: Put atrocity accusations into context). At least one of these three instances involved the use of civilians as human shields, and two others involve the killing of civilians in the heat of battle (the circumstances will be brought to light at trial).

In any battle in the Sunni triangle, my bet is that we will be able to find “witnesses” who would be quite willing to testify to U.S. troop “atrocities.” The effects of each of these (and similar future) instances will be fourfold:

1. To diminish the U.S. public resolve.
2. To make the U.S. troops hesitate when in potential danger, thus making Iraq a much mroe dangerous place for them.
3. To proliferate instances of accusations against U.S. troops as the insurgents and unsympathetic public better learn how to engage in this slander.
4. And thus to dishearten the U.S. troops.

The U.S. troops will be impaled squarely on the horns of a dilemma: do I defend myself if I feel threatened, thus ensuring charges if I kill a civilian who later is found out to be unarmed or used as a shield, or do I hesitate, thus ensuring my harm?

Do you think I am stretching things a bit? In “Spinning Haditha,” W. Thomas Smith, a Marine, makes the following insightful statement:

I went on to explain that Haditha had everything to do with the war in Iraq being a counterinsurgency. And every student of military science understands the ugly nature of insurgencies; where insurgents are un-uniformed, unconventional fighters who move freely throughout the community during the day, and become bushwhackers at night. They routinely use women and children as human shields, and often coerce the latter into the service of operating guerrillas.

This is particularly effective against U.S. forces, because the enemy knows that no matter how much stress they may be under, American soldiers will go to great lengths to avoid killing women and children; and even hesitate (at great risk to themselves) when they see women and children shooting at them.

There are the horns of the dilemma. Each and every time a Soldier or Marine fires and a civilian is killed, he can just about count on some other civilian being a “witness” to the incident where the account has him guilty of murder execution-style. Whether this is true or not, the seed is planted in the minds of the Soldier and Marine and eventually becomes a cancer.

American Forces Press Service reports that:

Alleged incidents of misconduct, such as those surrounding the Nov. 19 deaths of 24 civilians in Haditha, Iraq, do not reflect the honorable service of the overwhelming majority of coalition forces in Iraq, a U.S. general in Iraq said today.

“Almost without exception, the dedicated men and women who serve as part of Multinational Corps Iraq perform their duties in an exemplary manner every day,” Army Brig. Gen. Donald Campbell, chief of staff of Multinational Corps Iraq, said via satellite in a Pentagon news briefing.”

In my opinion, this is profoundly unhelpful. As far as the General knows, the U.S. forces perform their duties completely and without exception. At the very minimum, he should have waited until the trial was finished before anything was said about what some small percentage of our troops do. The General doesn’t know for sure. He is speculating on Haditha.

And this is the heart of the matter. Will the U.S. brass react to this new strategy by participating in the proliferation of charges against our troops, or will our troops get the benefit of the doubt? Will our troops fear defending themselves, or will they react as they are taught to?

The Marines are taught that their purpose is to “locate, close with and destroy the enemy by fire and maneuver.” Will they be free to do this?

This is an admittedly small and inadequate tribute to the honor, character and courage of Staff Sgt. Christian Bagge, a double-amputee who lost one leg above the ankle and another above the knee to an IED in Iraq about a year ago. Today … he runs with the President. This is way cool. By the time we pass away, most of us will never be half the man that Staff Sgt. Bagge is right now.

Iran is taking a hard line position on the U.S.  According to a commentary in the Washington Post (hat tip to Blogs of War):

Two weeks ago, the secretary of Iran’s Expediency Council, dismissing the United States as a paper tiger, said: “Something very important is happening. . . . The Americans are no longer saying that Iran must be deprived of its nuclear rights forever. Iran has accomplished a great thing.”

But we should remember that this commentary is by Richard Perle, and like everything else he writes or says, it is moralizing, preening, self-serving and condescending.  When Richard Perle speaks, it is the “gospel according to Richard.”  This, in my opinion, leads Perle to believe that the Bush administration has “blinked.”  This might just be a fatal error for Perle’s analysis (and for Iran, if they agree).

In fact, there is much behind this decision to go political with Iran.  According to a Washington Post article:

The troubled Iraq war also hangs over Iran diplomacy. Administration officials have little confidence in the intelligence on Iran’s programs, while allies overseas view U.S. actions through the prism of Iraq. That concern has forced the administration to emphasize diplomacy to avoid the breach with its allies that characterizes the Iraq war. 

In hard negotiations, the Bush administration constructed, together with the international community, a package of rewards for dropping the enrichment and reprocessing programs.  Cheney raised an objection to where this might take the U.S.:

Officials said there was essentially no dissent among Bush’s top advisers on joining the talks. The Pentagon raised no objections, and the only cautionary tone came from Cheney, who said that the shift should not lead the administration down a “slippery slope,” in which they end up retreating from their core red line: an end to enrichment and reprocessing — the two paths toward fissile material. The group agreed to hold their red line.

It would appear to me that the Iranian thinking on this is wrongheaded.  There is apparently no desire to rush to war with Iran, especially when these issues are seen through the prism of Iraq.  However, the needed steps have been taken.  The international community has been briefed.  They have been courted.  They have even participated in the development of the package of incentives to lure Iran away from a nuclear program.

When the difficult time comes, that is, when Iran refuses to end the program, and the decision must be made either to end the program ourselves or let Iran go nuclear, the U.S. will say, “we did our best.”  Besides, you were involved just like we were.

Additionally, it gives the U.S. intelligence community the time to QA (quality assure) the information it is giving the administration.

Iran sees this as a win for them.  The U.S. sees this as a win-win.

And so Richard Perle is still on the outside looking in.  Just the way it should be.

The Marine Times is carrying a story from the AP on the number and gravity of charges against GIs increasing.  It is worth the read, but I still contend that it isn’t happening the way it is portrayed (at least, not in the absence of compelling evidence which we should be able to ascertain after a trial, and not in the main; if it is happening, it is not to the extent that it is purported to be).  It is entitled “Experts: Put Atrocity Accusations into Context.”

I float a view in two earliers posts (Haditha Hoax and Future Knee-Jerk Reactions, and New Taliban & Al Qaida Strategy) that this is part of an overall pattern of propaganda by the enemy.

Time will tell who is right.

**** SCROLL FOR UPDATE **** 

The Counterterrorism Blog has an interesting commentary on whether Iran helped to bag Zarqawi by giving up his location.  They say:

In fact, a credible Moroccan newspaper, La Gazette du Maroc, is affirming that Zarqawi was caught thanks to Iran and was the first gift to the US.

Sounds like a conspiracy theory? Maybe not.

Citing Iranian sources and Iraqi sources close to ex PM Alawi, the paper states that Jordanian intelligence may have gotten help from Iran in pinpointing Zarqawi’s location. A few weeks ago the Iranian FM met with King Abdullah in Amman to allegedly negotiate the deal.
Then a few days later the Iranian FM was in Bagdad meeting with Iraki PM AL Maliki and allegedly US Ambassador Khalilzad.
Coincidence or not the US position softened around that time when for the first time Secretary of State Rice announced a possible ouverture to Iran.
People close to Reza Pahlavi, the Shah’s son, also believe that Zarqawi was indeed handed by Iran as part of a package.

Keep in mind that this info is really very speculative but might not be as far fetched as one thinks.

I don’t think that this is far fetched, but it still seems of dubious quality to me.  I have serious doubts about it.  First, U.S. and Iraqi (but mostly U.S.) forces have interdicted Iranian IED supplies at the border for many months now.  It is a well-known fact that much of the IED technology and materiel being used in Iraq comes from outside Iraq, and more specifically, from Iran.

Iran stands to gain by a Shia-led Iraq, as Iran is a Shia theocracy.  While it might have been strange bedfellows for the Iranians to assist Zarqawi, Iran benefited (or so the thinking went) from the insurgency and the potential undoing of the democracy being put into place in Iraq.  There was a very pragmatic reason for Iran to assist Al Qaida in the terrorism it perpetrated.

So the question is, why would they do it?  I see no compelling reason.  It is a non-starter (in southern-speak, “that dog won’t hunt”) to say that Iran wanted an end to the violence and a stable government, just as long as the government was Shia.  An end to the violence would mean that the U.S. is no longer distracted from what will be the main focus of 2007 — Iran.  Further, certainly Iran was not foolish enough to believe that the gift of an individual, no matter how important, would dissuade the U.S. from preventing a nuclear Iran.

However, let’s assume for a moment that this is real.  Certainly, one is forced to believe, Condi and W are not wobbly enough to actually amend foreign policy over something so significant as a nuclear Iran (which has implications not just for the region, but for the next century) for the sake of an individual.  In fact, this would seem to be counter to the thinking heretofore.  The U.S. has not gone wobbly over peace between Pakistan and India, even for the sake of Osama (I am not saying that Pakistan has offered Osama for the sake of warring with India; but it is important to remember that the U.S. has made “friendly” with India over their nuclear program, to the chagrin of Pakistan).

It makes for an interesting thought-experiment, but it seems to me to be counterintuitive.

Update #1: Matt Drudge is reporting that:

Iran’s supreme leader rejects nuclear talks with the US, saying not beneficial
Tue Jun 27 2006 09:25:10 ETIran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has rejected the prospect of talks with the United States on the nuclear program, saying nothing would be gained, state television reported Tuesday.“Negotiations with the United States would have no benefit for us, and we do not need them,” the television quoted Khamenei as telling Senegalese President Abdoulaye Wade.

Developing… 

I think that this confirms my view.