| April 30, 2007 Edition |
|
The LAPD 15 years laterLos Angeles TimesWill Beall, author of the novel "L.A. Rex," is an officer with the LAPD's South Bureau gang homicide unit. I WAS IN MY DORM ROOM at San Diego State, listening to the Led Zeppelin cover of "When the Levee Breaks," when I first saw George Holliday's amateur video of the Rodney King incident on CNN. It looked like those grainy films of Selma, Ala., in 1965, and the brutality turned my stomach. They didn't really talk about Rodney King when I went through the Los Angeles Police Academy a few years later. The department just tore its clothes and sat shiva for those officers, and we didn't speak of them or the deadly riots that followed their acquittals 15 years ago. I went on thinking that those cops were racist brutes. My first year as a cop, 1998, my perspective was changed a little by a third-striker who went by the moniker of Nine-Nine. He carjacked a woman right in front of my partner and me - at Florence and Normandie, no less, the infamous epicenter of the riots, where Damian "Football" Williams bashed in Reginald Denny's head with a concrete block and danced his sadistic jig for the news helicopters. After Nine-Nine's carjacking, there followed a vehicle pursuit, a foot pursuit and a fight. That was the first time I had to use my baton. It wasn't pleasant for me, and I know it wasn't pleasant for Nine-Nine. And if there'd been a video, it wouldn't have been pleasant to watch. I'm not an LAPD apologist, and this isn't John Wayne in "The Green Berets" telling David Janssen that you can't make an omelet without breaking a few skulls. It's just that civilians have the option of walking away from a fight. But cops often don't. Some of these hard-core felons are apex predators, red in tooth and claw, and they don't want to be arrested. They'll run from you. If you catch them, they'll fight you. And if you let them, they'll kill you. It happens faster than you think, and you don't have the option of slowing the fight down to advance it frame by frame. Full Story The BTW staff would like to thank Lewis Purdue and Baron's Online for allowing Blackwater USA to post Mr. Purdue's full review of the book Blackwater by Jeremy Scahill. The review first appeared in Barron's on April 2, 2007, and an abbreviated version appeared in the Blackwater Tactical Weekly on April 9, 2007. |
 |
| QUOTE OF THE WEEK |
| "Always presume that the enemy has dangerous designs and always be forehanded with the remedy. But do not let these calculations make your timid." Frederick the Great |
| PROFESSIONAL ARTICLES, EDITORIALS AND OPINIONS |
The Pentagon Cash CrunchWar is a pay-as-you-go businessThe Weekly StandardTom Donnelly The Senate majority leader's "position is irresponsible. . . . We won the war but we are in danger of losing the peace. [Our adversary] is counting on the United States and Europe losing interest--and losing our will--and not staying the course. . . . Funding in the supplemental would support . . . the only [friendly] government that now exists." George W. Bush criticizing Harry Reid? No--Joe Biden complaining about Trent Lott's slow-walk on the supplemental appropriation for Kosovo in April 2000. Two months earlier, General Wesley Clark, the U.S. commander in that war, told the Senate, "Force readiness could be adversely affected if we do not receive timely passage of the . . . supplemental funding." Biden and Clark were correct; during the Balkans wars the Army routinely postponed repairs and juggled training schedules while the Clinton administration and the Republican Congress went through a highly choreographed handbag fight over war costs. In those halcyon days, the supplementals averaged about $2 billion per year, less than 1 percent of defense spending. The two 2007 defense supplemental requests will total about $170 billion--not counting the billions of vote-buying pork tacked on by the Democratic congressional leadership--that is, almost 40 percent of the 2007 baseline defense budget request. The Democrats today are sinning on a far larger scale. Full Story 'The Central Front'General David PatraeusOn April 26, around the same time the Senate passed a war spending bill containing a timetable for withdrawal from Iraq, Gen. David Petraeus, the commander of Multi-National Force-Iraq, delivered an impressive briefing on the state of the war to reporters at the Pentagon. Petraeus said his remarks were roughly what he had been saying in the previous couple of days to members of Congress--minus Speaker Nancy Pelosi, it should be noted, who was too "busy" to attend Petraeus's briefing. For the speaker's benefit, and for the benefit of our readers, we print here brief excerpts from Petraeus's opening statement and responses to questions--which didn't get nearly the amount of attention they deserved, and which are worth reading in full. PETRAEUS: The operational environment in Iraq is the most complex and challenging I have ever seen. . . . Today, members of al Qaeda, extremist militias, and Sunni insurgent groups seek to destroy what Iraqi leaders are trying to build. Political parties with ethno sectarian interests, limited governmental capacity, and corruption add additional challenges, and exceedingly unhelpful activities by Iran and Syria--especially those by Iran, about which we have learned a great deal in the past month--compound the enormous problems facing the new Iraq. The situation is, in short, exceedingly challenging, though . . . there has been progress in several areas in recent months despite the sensational attacks by al Qaeda, which have, of course, been significant blows to our effort and which cause psychological damage that is typically even greater than their physical damage. Iraq is, in fact, the central front of al Qaeda's global campaign and we devote considerable resources to the fight against al Qaeda Iraq. We have achieved some notable successes in the past two months, killing the security emir of eastern Anbar province, detaining a number of key network leaders, discovering how various elements of al Qaeda Iraq operate, taking apart a car bomb network that had killed 650 citizens of Baghdad, and destroying several significant car bomb factories. Nonetheless, al Qaeda Iraq remains a formidable foe. . . . The extremist militias in Iraq also are a substantial problem and must be significantly disrupted. . . . Full Story The Democratic Debate: What, Us Weak on Defense?National ReviewByron York On Tuesday, Republican presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani accused his Democratic opponents of being weak on terrorism. "The Democrats do not understand the full nature and scope of the terrorist war against us," Giuliani said. On Thursday, at their debate in Orangeburg, South Carolina, two of the three leading Democratic candidates did their best to prove Giuliani right. During the debate, moderator Brian Williams of NBC News brought up Giuliani's comment, and the candidates quickly pronounced it a "myth." But Williams then turned to Sen. Barack Obama, second in the polls but gaining fast on the frontrunner, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton. "If, God forbid, a thousand times, while we were gathered here tonight, we learned that two American cities had been hit simultaneously by terrorists," Williams said, "and we further learned beyond the shadow of a doubt it had been the work of al Qaeda, how would you change the U.S. military stance overseas as a result?" The question was specifically focused on a military response, but Obama didn't talk about the military, or any use of force at all. "Well, first thing we'd have to do is make sure that we've got an effective emergency response, something that this administration failed to do when we had a hurricane in New Orleans," Obama said. "And I think that we have to review how we operate in the event of not only a natural disaster, but also a terrorist attack." "The second thing," Obama continued, "is to make sure that we've got good intelligence, A, to find out that we don't have other threats and attacks potentially out there; and B, to find out do we have any intelligence on who might have carried it out so that we can take potentially some action to dismantle that network." Full Story |
| BREAKING NEWS FOR THE PROFESSIONAL |
A ruthless foeWashington TimesMichael O'Hanlon In its 230 years of independence, the United States has faced a wide range of military opponents. We started of course with the British; the North fought the slave-holding South in the Civil War; we fought native Americans as well as the Mexicans and Spanish during other parts of the 19th century; we opposed Kaiser Wilhelm's Germany in World War I and Adolf Hitler as well as the Japanese in World War II; during the Cold War we waged war against North Korean, Chinese, and Vietnamese communists. Against this historical backdrop, two facts stand out about our collection of enemies in Iraq, with a particular focus on the ex-Ba'athists and the terrorists who produced the bulk of the violence over the conflict's first three years. First, they are a small group relative to the population within which they are found. And second, even by the standards of our nation's past enemies, they are a despicable lot. Remembering these two simple yet often overlooked facts is crucial for understanding the kind of war we fight today. Often, we fail to depict the conflict in such terms. The Bush administration conjures up the image of a strong global al Qaeda movement to motivate America's support for the war. Full Story A failure in generalshipArmed Forces JournalLt. Col. Paul Yingling For the second time in a generation, the United States faces the prospect of defeat at the hands of an insurgency. In April 1975, the U.S. fled the Republic of Vietnam, abandoning our allies to their fate at the hands of North Vietnamese communists. In 2007, Iraq's grave and deteriorating condition offers diminishing hope for an American victory and portends risk of an even wider and more destructive regional war. These debacles are not attributable to individual failures, but rather to a crisis in an entire institution: America's general officer corps. America's generals have failed to prepare our armed forces for war and advise civilian authorities on the application of force to achieve the aims of policy. The argument that follows consists of three elements. First, generals have a responsibility to society to provide policymakers with a correct estimate of strategic probabilities. Second, America's generals in Vietnam and Iraq failed to perform this responsibility. Third, remedying the crisis in American generalship requires the intervention of Congress. Full Story Don't Blame Iran for IraqTime MagazineRobert Baer Administration claims that Iran has been supplying arms to Iraq's Sunni insurgency have never made any sense. Coming soon after Washington initially accused Tehran of arming Shi'ite militias, they have seemed like a weak attempt to remake its case tying the country to attacks on U.S. troops in Iraq - the vast majority of which are carried out by Sunni, not Shi'a, forces. One of the unshakable foundations of Iranian foreign policy is support for Iraq's Shi'a, who now more than ever are bloody foes of the country's Sunni minority. And if for some unfathomable reason Iran were arming the Sunni insurgency, would it leave behind evidence to implicate itself? In April 1983 an Iranian surrogate group blew up the American embassy in Beirut. Forensic investigators sifting through the rubble determined with a fair amount of certainty that the bomb maker had inserted explosives inside the firing chain, ensuring a "signature" was not left to tie the attack to Iran. Iran never claimed the attack, the suicide bomber was never named, and if it weren't for a still classified lucky break, we would have had no evidence the Iranians were behind it. It is unlikely in the intervening years Iran lost its touch. It certainly isn1t clumsy enough to leave serial numbers or factory markings on weapons going to the Sunni insurgency. Full Story The Saudi Arrests: How Big a Plot?Time MagazineScott MacLeod The arrest of 172 Islamist militants by Saudi security forces represents another blow to al-Qaeda, but it also sheds light on the group's determination to use its base inside war-torn Iraq to spread its jihadist campaign to Saudi Arabia and the wider Arab world. According to a statement issued by the Saudi Ministry of Interior on Friday, Saudi security forces broke up more than seven jihadist cells that had been engaged in an array of activities against the authorities. The statement did not identify al-Qaeda by name, but described the suspects in typical official codewords for the organization, such as "deviant group" and those who had "adopted the takfiri thought [judging Muslims as infidels] toward Arab and Islamic peoples, governments and leaders." The key objectives of these cells, it said, were suicide attacks against Saudi oil installations, public figures and military bases inside and outside the countries. The ministry said that one of the cells had sent recruits to an unspecified foreign country to receive aviation training for use in suicide attacks, copying the operational method of the 9/11 attacks in the U.S. According to the Interior Ministry, the security forces confiscated weapons, computers, cell phones and more than 20 million Saudi riyals (more than $5 million) in cash. Full Story The Military: Faith Under FireNewsweekEve Conant Army Chaplain Roger Benimoff heard the IED blast and saw the smoke rising. From his vantage point at a forward-aid station on the morning of June 7, 2005, he peered through a fog of dust as .50-caliber machine-gun fire erupted in the distance. Then the guns went silent. Benimoff helped medics get stretchers ready for the wounded. But when the soldiers of Fox Troop returned to station near Tall Afar, all they had was the bloodied corpse of one of their men. Benimoff began a familiar death ritual. The heat was closing in on 100 degrees; a smell of diesel fumes filled the air. Benimoff gathered the medics around the corpse of their comrade in the shade of an armored personnel carrier. Ignoring the din of rumbling engines and radio chatter, he began to pray in a strong and reassuring voice, quoting Psalm 121: I lift up my eyes to the hills-where does my help come from? My help comes from the Lord, the Maker of heaven and earth. He prayed for the soldier's family. He prayed for the medics who had wanted so much to help. He prayed that God would look down upon their small circle and surround them with his love. Full Story |
| JOB OPPORTUNITIES FOR THE PROFESSIONAL |
|
TO FILL OUT AN APPLICATION AND SUBMIT YOUR RESUME CLICK HERE Questions regarding Security Consulting or Training at Blackwater (252) 435-2488 or email dcarter@blackwaterusa.com. |
| SECURITY FOR THE PROFESSIONAL |
Terror Watch: The Case of the Missing AgentNewsweekMichael Isikoff and Mark Hosenball A former FBI agent who disappeared during a trip to an Iranian island in early March was there to meet with a notorious fugitive from American justice, according to U.S. law-enforcement officials and former colleagues. The purpose behind ex-FBI agent Robert (Bobby) Levinson's trip to Iran's Kish Island remains murky, though his associates tell NEWSWEEK he was working with a former NBC News producer on what may have been a quixotic plan to coax the fugitive, Dawud Salahuddin-charged in the 1980 Washington, D.C.-area murder of an Iranian dissident-to return to the United States and turn himself in. The Iranian government has harbored Salahuddin for more than 25 years, and some U.S. officials believe he has been a low-level asset for Iranian intelligence. (Salahuddin confessed to the crime in a number of media interviews, but as a fugitive has never been tried in a court of law-and since the U.S. has no diplomatic relations with Iran, there is no extradition treaty.) Now living in Tehran, Salahuddin, an American who was born David Belfield, appeared to confirm his knowledge of Levinson's whereabouts in an e-mail exchange with NEWSWEEK. "Levinson is fine," he wrote NEWSWEEK in an e-mail Tuesday. "Major news attention is not what he needs at the moment." Full Story U.S. sees progress on Darfur solution, peacekeepingReutersThe United States said on Sunday that Sudan was "falling in line" on accepting a major U.N. peacekeeping force for Darfur and welcomed progress at weekend talks towards a political settlement to the conflict. "There's enough international pressure now and enough support from (Sudan's) allies" for such a force, Andrew Natsios, Washington's special envoy on Darfur, told Reuters, citing Egypt and China in particular. He said there was now a "broad international movement" behind the deployment of a so-called "hybrid force" of more than 20,000 U.N. and African Union peacekeepers and police in the western Sudanese region where four years of fighting have killed at least 200,000 people and displaced some 2.5 million. Full Story The Counterinsurgency Fight: Think Globally, Lose LocallyWashington PostJames T. Quinlivan and Bruce R. Nardulli For nearly 50 years, many Americans saw the communist states as a vast monolith, able to act as one in the service of a single unified doctrine. Because that monolith was able to reach anywhere in its attack on democracy, America's leaders believed it needed to be confronted everywhere. As a result, the United States tried to confront the monolith around the globe at immense expense in blood and treasure. In retrospect, that view and the policies it led to were mistaken in many ways. Beneath the flag of international communism marched a motley array of nations, parties and personalities with a welter of conflicting beliefs, interests and loyalties, most united only in their dependence on the Soviet Union or the People's Republic of China. Sometimes -- very occasionally -- they could act in concert. More often, they could lend empty rhetorical support to political causes as a coalition of those wanting to appear willing while not acting. The United States was least successful in dealing with Global Communism when America approached it as a monolithic opponent. The U.S. was most successful when it developed a sense of the nuances that differentiated the interests of the communist states and worked to exploit those differences by dealing with the special features and needs of each country individually. Full Story Russia's Agent of ChangeWashington PostAnne Applebaum It was October 1987, three weeks before the 70th anniversary of the Bolshevik Revolution. The Soviet elite had gathered in Moscow to mark the occasion. After the customarily lengthy speech by Communist Party General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev, the chairman asked whether anyone wanted to respond. Unexpectedly, Boris Yeltsin, then the Moscow party boss, went up to the rostrum. He spoke for a mere 10 minutes -- and in that 10 minutes changed Russian history. Reading that speech now, it's hard to see what the fuss was all about. Yeltsin complained that the party lacked "revolutionary spirit" and that the Soviet people suffered from "disillusionment." The language was that of a party functionary, which is, of course, what Yeltsin was. But then, unexpectedly, he resigned. And with that extraordinarily canny decision, he won instant notoriety: Never had a communist leader set himself up as a popular alternative to the Communist Party. Within days, half a dozen versions of Yeltsin's speech were being sold on the streets of Moscow, their authors variously speculating that Yeltsin had condemned communism, had supported democracy, had attacked the privileges of the Communist Party leadership. Full Story Remembering the L.A. riotsLos Angeles TimesTHE SMELL OF SMOKE hung in the air long after the riots erupted across Los Angeles 15 years ago today. Markets that had served minority communities were suddenly and permanently gone; shoe stores and stereo shops stood looted and bare. Yet the damage was much more than physical. The police brutality that spurred the anger, and the political dysfunction that allowed it to spread, gave the impression of an ungovernable metropolis. It was a shattered and confused city that stumbled into May of 1992. Some people fled, and even among those who stayed there was a prevailing sense of desperation, of worry that perhaps L.A. simply could not be saved. The riots - and, please, may we at last dispense with "uprising" to describe those calamitous days? - exposed the ethnic fault lines that lay beneath the surface of Los Angeles. There was the justifiable outrage that many African Americans felt toward the L.A. Police Department, then a largely white and hidebound institution with a long history of injurious racism. The tape of LAPD officers gang-stomping Rodney King, then the April 29 mirror-image of young black men dragging Reginald Denny from his truck and bashing his head with a chunk of concrete, became the iconic images of white versus black. Full Story |
| TACTICAL TRAINING & INTELLIGENCE RESOURCES FOR THE PROFESSIONAL |
Training Schedule Now Available for Blackwater North
Mount Carroll, IL – Blackwater USA’s newest facility, Blackwater North, is announcing its 2007 training schedule and enrollment instructions through its website. Students are now able to access the website and review a full training schedule and enrollment forms.
The website is available through www.blackwaterusanorth.com.
Blackwater North is a full service training center providing safe and realistic training environments on eighty acres consisting of seven flat ranges, a known distance range, an unknown distance range, a combat town range, a climbing/rappelling/shooting tower, a dismounted course, and a confidence course. Staffed by fully vetted and screened instructors with military and/or law enforcement expertise, Blackwater allows for the most comprehensive training for government, military, law enforcement, peace support operations, and qualified civilian customers.
Blackwater USA stands in support of security, peace, freedom, and democracy everywhere.
For more information, please visit www.blackwaterusanorth.com or call (815) 244-2900. FREE TERRORISM DAILY NEWSLETTERSince 1999, the Terrorism Research Center has provided a FREE daily compilation of the top terrorism and homeland security stories. Published as TRC's RealNews, the service has thousands of subscribers and is often referred to as the "terrorism early bird", in reference to the open source newsletter provided to senior government leaders each morning. If you are interested in terrorism, homeland security or other international security issues, you will find it an invaluable resource. Subscribe today! | |
| FRANKS REVIEW |
Tactical Equipment EvaluationBlackHawk STRIKE Pouches & Mounting SystemA couple years ago I did a review of the PACA body armor which was worn in a carrier that was covered with MOLLE attachment points. When I did that review I had covered the vest with STRIKE pouches from BlackHawk. The STRIKE system is essentially an upgraded version of the MOLLE system. Since the President of BlackHawk, Mike Noell, started BlackHawk because of an equipment failure with his issued kit, it's a safe bet that he, and his company, will always look for ways to improve upon the military issue items. STRIKE did it from the get go, but now they've evolved it again. Let's take a look.Full Story Can Be Viewed At: http://www.borelliconsulting.com/evals/armor/bhstrike.htm Recreational Equipment ReviewBack Pack versus Bugout BagRecently I've received a few emails asking me why a standard camping backpack, stocked and ready to go for a weekend outing, couldn't serve as a "bugout bag." My answer is this: there's no reason why it can't IF you indeed have it packed and prepared for that weekend away - that you leave for without any notice. The biggest differences are intent of use and notification lead time. With that in mind, and since it's about that time to update information about my bugout bag, I felt this would be a worthwhile article to write.Full Story Can Be Viewed At: http://www.borelliconsulting.com/recevals/campback/bpvsbo.htm r/t
|
| CHAPLAINS CORNER |
ACTIONEducation is when you read the fine print. Experience is what you get if you don't.--Pete SeegerToday was a very long day of special duty. This week is the 400th anniversary of the planting of the cross on the shores of Virginia Beach by the settlers before they moved inland to Jamestown. Today members of all units of the police department stood special duty manning displays at the oceanfront on the Boardwalk to demonstrate and celebrate our history. We talked with thousands of people and exchanged greetings with thousands more. Although the day was long it was enjoyable duty for myself and three other chaplain personnel. Each of us wore a different uniform to represent the four levels within the unit. We had many people express much interest in the fact that a police department had chaplains... and what do we do... We spent much time explaining the work and the opportunity should they be interested or know someone who might be interested. This morning at 0 Dark thirty as I was fighting to awaken and rise from a short night the thought for this message entered my head... Have you ever had an opportunity arise... one upon which you should act... your heart pounded as your pulse quickened... You knew this was something that must be done now!... But you hesitated and the opportunity was lost... The moment passed... The opportunity disappeared... It was too late to act and it was past and over??? Later you wished for the opportunity again but it was gone. I am a people observer. On duty such as we served today I make it my practice to closely observe people as they pass through my duty station and my field of vision. I saw all kinds and sizes of people from dwarfs to giants... small to large... different colors and both sexes... All ages. I am good at seeing. Long ago I learned to do this very well. I like to pick out the military people... Current and veterans... And I like to make sure that children are matched to adults... especially when the children seem to be aggressive or adventurous. Most of the day went very well until late afternoon. As I was watching a very heavy crowd I noticed a most attractive little boy about 2 1/2 years old moving past me. Occasionally he would look up at the adults passing by him and those he was passing by. Once he even shouted "mommy", but no one responded to him. Just as I was making a beeline toward him a woman stopped the child and asked where his mommy was... He did not respond to her as I was there by then and was reaching out to the child. He readily took my hand and went right along with me when I told him I would find mommy. Full Story Can Be Viewed At: http://www.blackwaterusa.com/btw2007/article/043007chaplain.htm
|
|
| BUMPER STICKER |
I DON'T DO NICE |
| CONTACT INFORMATION |
|
The Blackwater Tactical Weekly is a free weekly e-publication. The BTW provides readers valuable information from diverse sources regarding tactical and strategic security issues. Editor-in-Chief – Gary Jackson (btw@blackwaterusa.com) Questions regarding Security Consulting or Training
at Blackwater (252) 435-2488 Editorial Calendar: The weekly theme may change at the discretion of
the Editor based on current events. To view an archived BTW, Click Here |
| LEGAL NOTICE |
| Blackwater USA (the "Company"), provides this Newsletter as a source of diverse information to its readers. The Company does not warrant or endorse the products or services advertised in or reviewed in the Newsletter. The views and statements of the reviewers and commentators presented in the Newsletter are entirely their own, and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Company or its affiliates. The Company does not monitor or warrant the accuracy or reliability of the material provided in this Newsletter or presented at any of the third-party websites to which links are provided in this Newsletter. WARNING: Use of certain of the products and services discussed or reviewed in this Newsletter can lead to personal injury or death. It is critical to follow manufacturers' instructions in using such products or services. The Company will not accept any liability for damages, injuries, or death resulting from the use or misuse of any such products or services. |
 |
             |
|
