| June 4, 2007 Edition |
|
Fire the incompetents, find the PattonsLos Angeles TimesMax Boot THE NAVY IS ON a tear. Last week, for the sixth time in six weeks, a skipper was relieved of command. The latest to get the sack was Cmdr. E.J. McClure of the guided missile destroyer Arleigh Burke, which had a "soft grounding" while heading back to port in the well-charted waters off Norfolk, Va. These firings have sparked debate in military circles, with some critics from the other services charging that the Navy is guilty of a "zero defect" mentality that would have robbed it of such distinguished leaders as Adm. Chester Nimitz, the World War II hero who grounded his first command in 1908. But even if the Navy is going, so to speak, overboard, there is a good case to be made that the ground-combat arms go too far in the other direction by not holding their commanders responsible for a lack of results. This was the essence of a complaint made recently by Army Lt. Col. Paul Yingling, who wrote in the Armed Forces Journal that "a private who loses a rifle suffers far greater consequences than a general who loses a war." Yingling was complaining about, as the title of his article had it, "A Failure in Generalship," and he was right to do so. But the same complaint could be lodged with equal justice about some of the lieutenant colonels and colonels who have commanded battalions and brigades in Iraq and Afghanistan. Those are positions roughly equivalent to a ship commander in the Navy, and in a decentralized war like the one in Iraq, they are the key combat leaders. There are precious few examples of an Army or Marine tactical commander being fired for ineffectiveness. One of the few exceptions occurred during the initial invasion of Iraq in 2003 when Marine Maj. Gen. James Mattis replaced a regimental commander he felt was not advancing fast enough. More commonly, it takes extreme misconduct, often of a sexual nature, to get a ground-forces commander fired. Full Story |
 |
| QUOTE OF THE WEEK |
| There are but two powers in the world, the sword and the mind. In the long run, the sword is always beaten by the mind. Napoleon Bonaparte |
| PROFESSIONAL ARTICLES, EDITORIALS AND OPINIONS |
Operation GratitudeThis Memorial Day weekend, while most folks are heading to the beach, Operation Gratitude will be kicking off one of its biggest events of the year, what the group's founder, Carolyn Blashek, calls their "Patriotic Drive." The drive will have the group packing boxes starting this weekend and running non-stop until July 1--boxes that will be shipped to American servicemen in Iraq throughout the summer.I spoke with Blashek this morning, and she told me they hope to send at least 50,000 packages to the troops this summer, and then another 50,000 during their holiday drive, which kicks off on Veteran's Day. She tells me that their last holiday drive "was by far their biggest," with over 58,000 boxes shipped. They'll have "hundreds and hundreds" of volunteers packing boxes every weekend for the next four weeks in an effort to break that record. Blashek says the packages include non-perishable food items that the troops can take with them when they go out on patrol--beef jerky, gum, candy, etc. They also include a variety of personal care items--sunscreen, foot powder, lip balm. And finally, entertainment items--CDs, DVDs, flash drives, decks of cards, and what Blashek says is the most popular item: Beanie Babies. If you're wondering why American troops would be clamoring for Beanie Babies, here's a letter the group got from a Marine stationed in Iraq: Operation Gratitude The Army We NeedWe can't fight The Long War with the forces we have.Weekly StandardTom Donnelly In wartime Washington there is but one point of bipartisan agreement: The land forces of the United States are too small. Hillary Clinton may be trying to make her fellow Democrats forget her vote to go to war in Iraq, but she insists that "it is past time to increase the end-strength of the Army and Marines." Sen. Barack Obama agrees, and even the New York Times has editorialized that "larger ground forces are an absolute necessity for the sort of battles that America is likely to fight during the coming decades." On the Republican side, the leading candidates are straining to one-up each other on the issue. Rudy Giuliani wants to enlarge the Army by about 70,000 from its current strength of 510,000 active-duty soldiers. Mitt Romney thinks 100,000 is a better number. John McCain is working with his advisers to formulate his answer, but he might well trump his rivals. And with Donald Rumsfeld at last departed from the Pentagon, even President Bush has opened his mind. Announcing the Iraq "surge," the president allowed as how he was "inclined to believe that we need to increase the permanent size of both the United States Army and United States Marines." As a political matter and as a strategic impulse, this is long overdue. But it is only a starting point. In the near term, given the stresses of dual surges in Iraq and Afghanistan and the deleterious effects of more than a decade of neglect, almost any plan to expand U.S. land forces will help. But the larger project of rebuilding the Marines and, especially, the U.S. Army to sustain the demands of a new era will require as much thought as money. And it's a job that will fall mostly to our next president; the Bush administration can only begin the process. To properly size and shape American land forces--so that the Marine Corps and the Army complement each other--we must answer five questions. Full Story The lessons of VietnamLos Angeles TimesHenry Kissinger THE IRAQ WAR has reawakened memories of the Vietnam War, the most significant political experience of an entire American generation. But this has not produced clarity about its lessons. Of course, history never repeats itself exactly. Vietnam and Iraq are different conflicts in different times, but there is an important similarity: A point was reached during the Vietnam War when the domestic debate became so bitter as to preclude rational discussion of hard choices. Administrations of both political parties perceived the survival of South Vietnam as a significant national interest. They were opposed by a protest movement that coalesced behind the conviction that the war reflected an amorality that had to be purged by confrontational methods. This impasse doomed the U.S. effort in Vietnam; it must not be repeated over Iraq. This is why a brief recapitulation of the Indochina tragedy is necessary. It must begin with dispelling the myth that the Nixon administration settled in 1972 for terms that had been available in 1969 and therefore prolonged the war needlessly. Whether the agreement, officially signed in January 1973, could have preserved an independent South Vietnam and avoided the carnage following the fall of Indochina will never be known. We do know that American disunity prevented such an outcome when Congress prohibited the use of military force to maintain the agreement and cut off aid after all U.S. military forces (except a few hundred advisors) had left South Vietnam. American dissociation triggered a massive North Vietnamese invasion, in blatant violation of existing agreements, to which the nations that had endorsed these agreements turned their backs. Full Story |
| BREAKING NEWS FOR THE PROFESSIONAL |
Rising to a New Generation of Global ChallengesForeign AffairsMitt Romney Less than six years after 9/11, Washington is as divided and conflicted over foreign policy as it has been at any point in the last 50 years. Senator Arthur Vandenberg once famously declared that "politics stops at the water's edge"; today, the chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee declares that our major political parties should carry out two separate foreign policies. The Senate unanimously confirmed General David Petraeus, who pledged to implement a new strategy, as the commander of U.S. forces in Iraq. Yet just weeks later, the Senate began crafting legislation specifically designed to stop that new strategy. More broadly, lines have been drawn between those labeled "realists" and those labeled "neoconservatives." Yet these terms mean little when even the most committed neoconservative recognizes that any successful policy must be grounded in reality and even the most hardened realist admits that much of the United States' power and influence stems from its values and ideals. In the midst of these divisions, the American people -- and many others around the world -- have increasing doubts about the United States' direction and role in the world. Indeed, it seems that concern about Washington's divisiveness and capability to meet today's challenges is the one thing that unites us all. We need new thinking on foreign policy and an overarching strategy that can unite the United States and its allies -- not around a particular political camp or foreign policy school but around a shared understanding of how to meet a new generation of challenges. Full Story The Islamists Are Coming!And they've got their lawyers with them.Weekly StandardDean Barnett Bill Sapers doesn't much look like the kind of guy who would find himself staring down radical Islamists or their friends. A 79-year-old accountant, approximately five-foot-six, bespectacled and soft-spoken, Sapers personifies the "distinguished gentleman." But the Islamic Society of Boston, after vainly tussling with him in court for roughly 18 months, would probably dispute that characterization. Until the Islamic Society of Boston (ISB) sued Sapers in late 2005 and gave him a small and unwanted measure of fame, he was far from a public figure. Until then, Sapers had been an anonymous businessman who busied himself with civic activities in his spare time; he has worked with the Anti-Defamation League and is a member of the foundation for Boston's Roxbury Community College. It was in the course of his duties for the college that Sapers's path crossed that of the ISB. At a meeting of the board in 2002, a fellow board member reported a coup: "Saudi Arabia was going to build the college a garage," Sapers recalls. Sapers asked exactly what this meant, and was told that the college had been the beneficiary of a deal between the city of Boston and the ISB. Full Story Sunnis revolt against al-QaidaSteven R. HurstAssociated Press U.S. troops battled al-Qaida in west Baghdad on Thursday after Sunni Arab residents challenged the militants and called for American help to end furious gunfire that kept students from final exams and forced people in the neighborhood to huddle indoors. Backed by helicopter gunships, U.S. troops joined the two-day battle in the Amariyah district, according to a councilman and other residents of the Sunni district. The fight reflects a trend that U.S. and Iraqi officials have been trumpeting recently to the west in Anbar province, once considered the heartland of the Sunni insurgency. Many Sunni tribes in the province have banded together to fight al-Qaida, claiming the terrorist group is more dangerous than American forces. Three more U.S. soldiers were reported killed in combat, raising the number of American deaths to at least 122 for May, making it the third deadliest month for Americans in the conflict. The military said two soldiers died Wednesday from a roadside bomb in Baghdad and one died of wounds inflicted by a bomb attack northwest of the capital Tuesday. Full Story The Case for Bombing IranWall Street Journal Op-edNorman Podhoretz Although many persist in denying it, I continue to believe that what Sept 11, 2001, did was to plunge us headlong into nothing less than another world war. I call this new war World War IV, because I also believe that what is generally known as the Cold War was actually World War III, and that this one bears a closer resemblance to that great conflict than it does to World War II. Like the Cold War, as the military historian Eliot Cohen was the first to recognize, the one we are now in has ideological roots, pitting us against Islamofascism, yet another mutation of the totalitarian disease we defeated first in the shape of Nazism and fascism and then in the shape of communism; it is global in scope; it is being fought with a variety of weapons, not all of them military; and it is likely to go on for decades. What follows from this way of looking at the last five years is that the military campaigns in Afghanistan and Iraq cannot be understood if they are regarded as self-contained wars in their own right. Instead we have to see them as fronts or theaters that have been opened up in the early stages of a protracted global struggle. The same thing is true of Iran. As the currently main center of the Islamofascist ideology against which we have been fighting since 9/11, and as (according to the State Department's latest annual report on the subject) the main sponsor of the terrorism that is Islamofascism's weapon of choice, Iran too is a front in World War IV. Moreover, its effort to build a nuclear arsenal makes it the potentially most dangerous one of all. Full Story Why Iran will fight, not compromiseAsia TimesSpengler What can the West offer the Islamic Republic of Iran in return for giving up its nuclear ambitions and kenneling its puppies of war? The problem calls to mind the question regarding what to give a man who has everything: cancer, AIDS, Alzheimer's, diabetes, kidney failure, and so forth. Iran's economy is so damaged that it is impossible to tell how bad things are. Except perhaps for the oilfields of southern Iraq, and perhaps also northern Saudi Arabia, there is nothing the West can give Iran to forestall an internal breakdown. Iranian dissidents put overall unemployment at 30% and youth unemployment at 50%. Government subsidies sustain a very large portion of the population; 42% of the non-agricultural population is employed by the Iranian state, compared with 17% in Pakistan. Within fewer than 10 years, Iran will become a net importer, at which point the government no longer will be able to provide subsidies. Iran's economic implosion is a source of imminent strategic risk. 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 |
MESSING UP THE MULLAHSNew York PostPeter Brookes ACCORDING to a news account supposedly based on a leak from inside the government, President Bush recently signed off on a classified intelligence "finding," authorizing the CIA to undertake a non-lethal covert-action program to destabilize Iran's nearly out-of-control government. If true, it's about time. The target is Iran's nuclear-weapons program - which, according to a new International Atomic Energy Agency report, might be able to produce a bomb in the next two or three years, if unchecked. All the diplomatic begging and pleading - including some very stern letters from the United Nations and the European Union - haven't deterred the maniacal mullahs one iota in their aspirations to make Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei into an atomic ayatollah. The covert-action program is also supposed to stem Iran's support for the various and sundry Iraqi insurgents. No doubt Tehran's very likely assistance to the Taliban in Afghanistan should be added to the list, too. Full Story Syria's Useful IdiotsWhy are so many commentators denying the obvious about Lebanon?Wall Street Journal Op-edMichael Young On Wednesday, the United Nations Security Council voted to set up a tribunal that will try suspects in the February 2005 murder of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri. Syria is the leading suspect in the case, so the establishment of the tribunal serves as a step toward creating a stable Lebanon. It also poses a clarifying question to the United States: What will engaging Syria mean for building a liberal future for Lebanon? At the moment, it is clear that Syria hasn't stopped meddling in Lebanon's internal affairs. The Security Council only created its tribunal after efforts to establish a similar tribunal within Lebanon were stymied by Syrian allies. Indeed, to understand what is at stake in the Lebanese crisis today, flip through the report released last April by the U.N. commission investigating the Hariri assassination. The commission, led by Belgian prosecutor Serge Brammertz, now assumes that Hariri's assassination was tied to his political activities, particularly his preparations for the summer 2005 legislative elections. Full Story Iraq's Curse: A Thirst for Final, Crushing VictoryNew York TimesEdward Wong PERHAPS no fact is more revealing about Iraq's history than this: The Iraqis have a word that means to utterly defeat and humiliate someone by dragging his corpse through the streets. The word is "sahel," and it helps explain much of what I have seen in three and a half years of covering the war. It is a word unique to Iraq, my friend Razzaq explained over tea one afternoon on my final tour. Throughout Iraq's history, he said, power has changed hands only through extreme violence, when a leader was vanquished absolutely, and his destruction was put on display for all to see. Most famously it happened to a former prime minister, Nuri al-Said, who tried to flee after a military coup in 1958 by scurrying through eastern Baghdad dressed as a woman. He was shot dead. His body was disinterred and hacked apart, the bits dragged through the streets. In later years, Saddam Hussein and the Baath Party crushed their enemies with the same brand of brutality. "Other Arabs say, 'You are the country of sahel,' " Razzaq said. "It has always been that way in Iraq." But in this war, the moment of sahel has been elusive. No faction - not the Shiite Arabs or Sunni Arabs or Kurds - has been able to secure absolute power, and that has only sharpened the hunger for it. Full Story Attacks on U.S. Troops in Iraq Grow in Lethality, ComplexityBigger Bombs a Key Cause of May's High Death TollWashington PostAnn Scott Tyson and John Ward Anderson As U.S. troops push more deeply into Baghdad and its volatile outskirts, Iraqi insurgents are using increasingly sophisticated and lethal means of attack, including bigger roadside bombs that are resulting in greater numbers of American fatalities relative to the number of wounded. Insurgents are deploying huge, deeply buried munitions set up to protect their territory and mounting complex ambushes that demonstrate their ability to respond rapidly to U.S. tactics. A new counterinsurgency strategy has resulted in decreased civilian deaths in Baghdad but has placed thousands of additional American troops at greater risk in small outposts in the capital and other parts of the country. "It is very clear that the number of attacks against U.S. forces is up" and that they have grown more effective in Baghdad, especially in recent weeks, said Maj. Gen. James E. Simmons, deputy commander for operations in Iraq. At the same time, he said, attacks on Iraqi security forces have declined slightly, citing figures that compare the period of mid-February to mid-May to the preceding three months. "The attacks are being directed at us and not against other people," he said. Equally troubling for the IAEA was its diminishing power to monitor Iran's nuclear activities, with the agency's director, Mohammed ElBaradei admitting that inspectors have a "deteriorating" understanding of unexplored aspects of the programme. Full Story Brown to get tough on terrorTimes OnlineDavid Cracknell and David Leppard GORDON BROWN will this week put his personal authority behind a move to allow evidence from telephone taps to be used in court to ensure terror suspects do not escape the law. With less than a month to go before Brown takes over as prime minister, he is determined to take a tough stance in the fight against terrorism and make it one of the priorities of his administration. Tony Blair has hesitated over whether to endorse the use of secret phone taps, which at present is not permissible in court. While the issue has divided cabinet members, security chiefs and senior police officers, one of the chancellor's first acts will be to launch a cross-party review of such "intercept" evidence. The panel, which will be expected to report within a few months, will be made up of Privy Council members, mostly former cabinet ministers. Full Story |
| TACTICAL TRAINING & INTELLIGENCE RESOURCES FOR THE PROFESSIONAL |
Mirror Image Training: Training to Combat TerrorismMirror Image is a tactical and strategic training course developed and owned by the Terrorism Research Center. TRC instructors have trained hundreds of military personnel that are subsequently deployed to active combat operations, as well as large numbers of first responders, law enforcement, and security professionals. Mirror Image is an intensive one-week classroom and field-training program, designed to realistically simulate terrorist recruiting, training techniques, and operational tactics. During the course, participants will receive insight into the mindset and rationale of the terrorist through hands-on experience with the methods and means terrorist employ, education about terrorist ideologies and the cultural dimensions that influence their decision making process. Military, law enforcement, intelligence, and security professionals will, in turn, be able to see themselves as the terrorists see them and understand the weaknesses in their own environment that the terrorists will seek to exploit, and which all too often they miss. Armed with these insights participants will leave the course better able to anticipate, prevent and respond to multiple terrorist threats. June 17-22, 2007: Blackwater Training Center, Moyock, NC A detailed brochure may be downloaded at: www.terrorism.com Questions on TRC training, please contact Betty O'Hearns, Training Coordinator for the Terrorism Research Center. Email: betty@terrorism.com Phone: (727)360-4302 voice or (727)409-1754 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 EvaluationSpringfield Armory 1911 .45ACP Pistol: 7,500 Round ReportOn May 28, 2004 I wrote my first review of the Springfield Armory 1911 .45ACP pistol. On April 17, 2006 I wrote a report for the 5,000 rounds that had been through the weapon - and how it was holding up. In the past 14 months, another 2,500 rounds (give or take a few dozen rounds) have been through it and it's still performing great. I've made some minor changes and, within this review, will note them as well as various carry options that I frequently exercise. Full Story Can Be Viewed At: http://www.borelliconsulting.com/evals/guns/sa19117_5k.htm Recreational Equipment ReviewBuckmaster and Hunter 110 Lite: Companions For The FieldMany moons ago I purchased a Buckmaster Knife made by Buck Knives. It was, and is, a large steel brute of a blade that sold well in the day after the first RAMBO movie. The sheath was very different being made of polymer instead of leather, but Buck's reasons for choosing polymer made sense and - even though I had a leather sheath made for the blade - I sit and look at my Buckmaster in a polymer sheath as I pulled it out of my closet again today. This week's review is going to be about the Buckmaster and a potential companion folding knife for it, the Hunter 110 Lite. Full Story Can Be Viewed At: http://www.borelliconsulting.com/toolknife/buckmaster110.htm |
| CHAPLAINS CORNER |
TAKING THE FIELDWherever your field is... When you enter onto it... You must enter with a combination of proper attitude, vigilance and energy.On that field you may find boredom... pleasure... challenge... danger... If there is a single other human being upon that field, all of these things, and more, are always possible. Some situations require patience and diplomacy... Some situations require action and forcefulness... Still more situations require instant action and command decisions... For any and all of these we must be prepared before they come. Usually there is no time to prepare after they come. I have always been intrigued by the field actions that are later evaluated by personnel sitting in a comfortable room, in comfortable surroundings, who take all of the time that they desire or require to evaluate what a Peace Keeper did in an action on the field. The Peace Keeper had little time to respond to some situation or threat that was presented to them. Response was necessary for survival and accomplishing the job of peace keeping. Success in many situations is determined by how a Peace Keeper responds and how quickly a Peace Keeper responds. Sometimes hesitation or acting too slowly means that the situation is past and now cannot be caught and handled. Some opportunities are lost when action is not soon enough. This past week has been another busy one but much of it was more enjoyable time than I have spent on the field in a long while. I loved the challenges of the new job over the past week. Now, on Monday, I will start a new job that many have assured me that I will enjoy even more than the first new one I am leaving to take the second new one. I am looking forward to more enjoyment and adventure in the next job. Full Story Can Be Viewed At: http://www.blackwaterusa.com/btw2007/article/060407chaplain.htm |
|
| BUMPER STICKER |
Liberal Arts major: will think for food. |
| 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. |
 |
             |
|
