| September 3, 2007 Edition |
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Operation Phantom StrikeHow the U.S. military is demolishing al Qaeda in Iraq.Mario Loyola The Weekly Standard On August 15, several hours after night fell over Baghdad, an air assault squadron of the 3rd Infantry Division launched the first attack of Operation Marne Husky. A dozen darkened transport and attack helicopters took off and headed south along the Tigris River, carrying a full company of infantry--about 120 young riflemen with night goggles and weapons loaded. Their objective was a hamlet several dozen miles away. At about 11 P.M., the force landed and rapidly surrounded several small structures. The occupants were taken by surprise. Five suspected insurgents were captured. By 4 A.M., the entire team was airborne again. Every night since then similar scenes have unfolded at dozens of locations in and around Baghdad--all part of a larger operation named Phantom Strike. The attacks involve units of all sizes and configurations, coming in by air and land. In some cases, the units get out quickly. In others, they pitch tents for an extended stay. The idea is to keep the enemy--al Qaeda and its affiliates--on the defense and constantly guessing, thereby turning formerly "safe" insurgent areas into areas of prohibitive risk for them. Full Story |
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| QUOTE OF THE WEEK |
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Character is higher than intellect. A great soul will be strong to live as well as think. Ralph Waldo Emerson |
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| PROFESSIONAL ARTICLES, EDITORIALS AND OPINIONS |
Can We Win the Ideological War?The American ConservativePatrick J. Buchanan Asked during World War II why the British continued to fight so ferociously, Churchill is said to have snorted, "If we stop, you'll find out." The question arises in the war on terror: we know who the main enemy is, al-Qaeda, the men and movement responsible for 9/11, but what are they fighting for? What is their war all about? A year ago, in Salt Lake City, President Bush, addressing the American Legion, sought to define the war from his perspective: "The war we fight today is more than a military conflict; it is the decisive ideological struggle of the 21st century. On one side are those who believe in the values of freedom and moderation-the right of all people to speak, and worship, and live in liberty. And on the other side are those driven by the values of tyranny and extremism-the right of a self-appointed few to impose their fanatical views on all the rest." Certainly terrorists who massacre innocents are fanatics. Certainly, the caliphate bin Laden's acolytes would establish would be tyrannical. But if the enemy were only a cabal of terrorists, hell-bent on establishing a tyranny, they would not be on the verge of expelling us from Iraq and perhaps from Afghanistan. Full Story Good news, but not for DemocratsThe Boston GlobeJeff Jacoby It's a war, and it's the Middle East, so glad tidings can go sour and there are never any guarantees. But for all the caveats, the news from Iraq has been heartening. For months, observers have been crediting General David Petraeus's "surge" with remarkable progress on the ground. That message has come not only from longtime supporters of the war, but from some tough critics as well. Michael O'Hanlon and Kenneth Pollack, analysts at the left-leaning Brookings Institution, jolted Washington with their July 30 op-ed column, "A War We Just Might Win." Eleven days later, the German newsmagazine Der Spiegel, which had long pronounced the war a misbegotten disaster, radically revised its view. "The US military is more successful in Iraq than the world wants to believe," journalist Ullrich Fichtner reported. So much so that the outcome the Bush administration "erroneously predicted before their invasion -- that the troops would be greeted with candy and flowers -- could in fact still come true." Full Story Back From HellBaghdad's Haifa St. StoryNew York PostRalph Peters If you saw any news clips of intense combat last January, you were probably watching the fighting unfolding on Baghdad's Haifa Street: 10 days of grim sectarian violence. Until we put a stop to it. The boulevard of Sunni-inhabited high-rise apartments erupted in shootouts pitting the "Haifa Street Gang" and its al Qaeda allies against heavily Shia Iraqi army units. It was a recipe for massacre, as terrified residents - those who remained - cowered in their apartments. Then the U.S. Army moved in. Commanders must've felt tempted to just level the former Saddamist stronghold. Instead, they decided to rescue what they could. Our troops cleaned out the terrorists with what Brig. Gen. Vince Brooks - one of the Army's rising stars - termed "very focused kinetic effects. Full Story |
| BREAKING NEWS FOR THE PROFESSIONAL |
Front-line lessons from the Iraq surgeDaily NewsMichael Totten While American politicians bicker among themselves from eight time zones away about whether the surge led by Gen. David Petraeus is working or not, I returned to Iraq to see for myself. This trip - from which I returned this month - was my fourth reporting stint in the country since the conflict began. And this time, what I saw was overwhelming, undeniable and, like it or not, complicated: In some places, the surge is working remarkably well. In others, it is not. And the only way we will know for sure whether the tide can be turned is to continue the policy and wait. I know that's not what many Americans and politicians want to hear, but it's the truth. On my first stop, I embedded with the 82nd Airborne Division in the Graya'at area of northern Baghdad. There, the soldiers live and work in the city 24 hours a day. Their sector has been so thoroughly cleared of insurgents that they haven't suffered a single casualty this year. Full Story Disaster Training in the E.U.Fire ChiefHolger de Vries A severe storm has raged over the territory. An extremist group, which is part of a global terrorist network, has taken advantage of the chaos the storm has caused and detonated several explosive devices that severely damaged critical infrastructure. It is suspected that dirty bombs and toxic chemical agents have been used or may yet be used. Initially the capacity of the affected areas to conduct damage assessments is insufficient; additional assistance is requested. When a disaster occurs somewhere in the United States, aid from neighboring states can be quickly mobilized. Personnel and equipment can move freely between state borders; procedures are similar if not identical and there is no language barrier. In Europe, mutual aid is a bit trickier and large-scale incident training is critical. The above scenario is part of one that European Union emergency management officials were given to deal with in a multi-nation disaster drill. Full Story Deadly Persian ProvocationsNewsweek InternationalReuel Marc Gerecht Two weeks ago, the bush administration announced it may designate Iran's Revolutionary Guard as a terrorist organization-the first time a foreign military body has received that label. Days later, a top U.S. general in Iraq accused Tehran of training Shiite militants inside the country. The moves came at an already precarious time in U.S.-Iran relations, and have greatly worried Washington's European allies, who see the steps as a prelude to war and fear they will make ongoing nuclear diplomacy with Tehran much more difficult. Such fears are unfounded, however, and rest on several basic misunderstandings. For one thing, the terrorist label is nothing new, and thus will do little to change the current state of play. For another, Iran represents a much greater threat than Europe typically recognizes. It is not a status quo state that favors stability, as most pundits and governments portray it. Iran is, instead, a radical revolutionary force determined to sow chaos beyond its borders. Assuming that normal negotiations can bring it around is, therefore, a grave mistake. The mullahs don't want peace in Iraq-just the opposite. War may come, but not because negotiations break down. The likely trigger is an Iranian provocation. Full Story Pervez Musharraf's battle for survivalDaily TelegraphCon Coughlin Pervez Musharraf has arguably the most dangerous job in the world. He lives under the permanent threat of assassination, whether from Islamic extremists or political fanatics. To protect him from the deadly attentions of suicide bombers his daily official routine is secret, and hardly a day passes when his security staff does not uncover some new plot to murder the Pakistani dictator. Having survived numerous attempts on his life since seizing control of the country in 1999, General Musharraf still manages to take a relaxed attitude to living under the constant threat of death. He has the unnerving habit of saying to visitors: "You're taking your life in your hands just sitting next to me", which is meant as a light-hearted remark but often persuades his guests to vacate the premises at the earliest opportunity. Full Story Tal Afar SWATU.S. Special Forces train an elite Iraqi police unit.Weekly StandardJeff Emanuel The day begins at 0500, when the sun is still out of sight and the weather cool. As the pickup truck pulls up to the inside of the front gate of the Forward Operating Base (FOB), the men begin to emerge from the pre-dawn darkness, dressed in various assemblages of civilian and military clothing ("they usually wear the same thing every day," says a U.S. Special Forces soldier) and carrying AK-47s, having just been searched by the base guards. An American Special Forces sergeant jokes with the men--25 of them--in English, as they load their weapons in the back of the truck and walk to another checkpoint for a more exhaustive search, which must be completed before they are allowed onto the base. The drill is the same every day--the same show time, the same process, the same searches--yet the men appear good-natured about it, as though they have long since learned to compartmentalize such trivial discomforts, and have accepted that, in order to accomplish something difficult, and to join of an exclusive group, such discomforts and hassles must be tolerated with a smile. Full Story |
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| SECURITY FOR THE PROFESSIONAL |
Into Thin AirHe's still out there. The hunt for bin Laden.Evan ThomasNewsweek The Americans were getting close. It was early in the winter of 2004-05, and Osama bin Laden and his entourage were holed up in a mountain hideaway along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border. Suddenly, a sentry, posted several kilometers away, spotted a patrol of U.S. soldiers who seemed to be heading straight for bin Laden's redoubt. The sentry radioed an alert, and word quickly passed among the Qaeda leader's 40-odd bodyguards to prepare to remove "the Sheik," as bin Laden is known to his followers, to a fallback position. As Sheik Said, a senior Egyptian Qaeda operative, later told the story, the anxiety level was so high that the bodyguards were close to using the code word to kill bin Laden and commit suicide. According to Said, bin Laden had decreed that he would never be captured. "If there's a 99 percent risk of the Sheik's being captured, he told his men that they should all die and martyr him as well," Said told Omar Farooqi, a Taliban liaison officer to Al Qaeda who spoke to a NEWSWEEK reporter in Afghanistan. The secret word was never given. As the Qaeda sentry watched the U.S. troops, the patrol started moving in a different direction. Bin Laden's men later concluded that the soldiers had nearly stumbled on their hideout by accident. Full Story Bridging the GapAfter a stormy break with the U.S., European leaders are forging a new Atlantic alliance.Newsweek InternationalStryker McGuire Forty-four years ago, a few months before his assassination, John F. Kennedy traveled to then divided Berlin and gave a round of historic speeches. "Ich bin ein Berliner" is the line everyone remembers, the crowd's roar soaring in approval of the young president whose country would one day liberate the people on the other side of the wall. But there was another line, his last public utterance in Berlin. It came during a speech at Congress Hall, a gift from America to the people of Berlin. "Americans may be far away," he said, "but ... this is where we want to be today. When I leave tonight, I leave-and the United States stays." It didn't turn out that way. Over the decades, America floated in and out of Europe's graces. Probably Washington's darkest hour in Europe since Vietnam was the 2003 invasion of Iraq and its grim aftermath. Full Story Al Qaeda In IraqHow to understand it. How to defeat it.Weekly StandardFrederick W. Kagan Al Qaeda In Iraq is part of the global al Qaeda movement. AQI, as the U.S. military calls it, is around 90 percent Iraqi. Foreign fighters, however, predominate in the leadership and among the suicide bombers, of whom they comprise up to 90 percent, U.S. commanders say. The leader of AQI is Abu Ayyub al-Masri, an Egyptian. His predecessor, Abu Musab al Zarqawi, was a Jordanian. Because the members of AQI are overwhelmingly Iraqis--often thugs and misfits recruited or dragooned into the organization (along with some clerics and more educated leaders)--it is argued that AQI is not really part of the global al Qaeda movement. Therefore, it is said, the war in Iraq is not part of the global war on terror: The "real" al Qaeda--Osama bin Laden's band, off in its safe havens in the Pakistani tribal areas of Waziristan and Baluchistan--is the group to fight. Full Story A Season of Hope in IraqWashington PostMichael Gerson The season now ending with school bells and the return of Congress was supposed to be the "Iraq Summer." A coalition of antiwar groups promised 10 weeks of phone banks, billboards, petitions and protests targeted at 40 Republican members of Congress who support the war. "It's going to be like laying asphalt in August -- hot," boasted one organizer. By this standard, August has been remarkably mild. It brings to mind a couplet by the poet Richard Wilbur: "What is the opposite of riot? It's lots of people keeping quiet." During their summer vacation, Americans discovered that Gen. David Petraeus doesn't take one. And his energy and urgency have shifted the Iraq debate in some fundamental ways. Full Story Enter The EurohawksNew York PostEurope's leaders sound surprisingly hawkish these days, and that's nothing but good news for the Iraq-War-strained Atlantic alliance. Consider maverick French President Nicholas Sarkozy, who in a speech to French diplomats last week raised the prospect of military action against Iran. To be sure, he mentioned it as part of a larger point about the importance of continued diplomacy. But his meaning was unmistakable. If diplomacy fails, he said, the world will face a "catastrophic" decision: "the Iranian bomb or the bombing of Iran." Sarkozy also warmly reaffirmed France's friendship with America, something his predecessor rarely had time for. 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.
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| FRANKS REVIEW |
Tactical Equipment EvaluationBlackHawk`s New Internal Tourniquet SystemAs a police officer of more than two decades I can still clearly remember being taught how important COVER is. We were told a story about a city police officer who went into a Chinese restaurant to pick up food and walked right into an armed robbery. Three bad guys, one good guy. The officer won the gun fight but ultimately lost because a hit to his femoral artery caused him to bleed to death. BlackHawk's new Internal Tourniquet System (ITS) could have saved his life - among so many others. This week we're going to look at the genius of it and all of the various applications it can have.Full Story Can Be Viewed At: http://www.borelliconsulting.com/evals/clothing/bpgits.htm
Recreational Equipment ReviewLights As Emergency ToolsWhen I took Low Light Operations Instructor training one of the things I learned was that we gather LOTS of information through our eyes. About 80% of the information we use to make decisions with comes to us through our eyes. But if it's dark the amount of info we have to work with is reduced and that can be a bad thing, especially under critical or emergency circumstances. This week we're going to take a look at a few flashlights that provide dependable light, are easy to carry and require low maintenance.Full Story Can Be Viewed At: http://www.borelliconsulting.com/recevals/lighttools/emergencyprep.htm |
| CHAPLAINS CORNER |
IN A MOMENT...Moment - an indefinitely short period of time; instant:Destiny... Fate... Life... All can be redirected in a moment... instantly... quickly... in the twinkling of an eye. For Peace Keepers it is always possible that the next moment will be something that will change the course of life and career. Law enforcement (and the Military as far as I am concerned) has been defined as hours of boredom punctuated by moments of stark terror Someone sent a set of photos to me today. They were of a heavy military vehicle involved with the explosion of an IED. The damage was phenomenal. Pieces lay in all directions including axles and motor separated from the body. The heavy steering wheel was badly bent by the body of the driver... The driveshaft was inside the cab just short of touching the dash... Damage was everywhere in, on and around the vehicle. One moment, the intact vehicle is traveling well and the occupants are alive... In another moment the vehicle has disintegrated... Injury and death are instantly present... Concussion from an strong explosion is devastating upon steel, flesh and bone. http://www.blackwaterusa.com/btw2007/article/090307chaplain.htm |
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