Cops or Police in Counterinsurgency COIN
Moderator's Note
This thread contains two old threads 'Send more cops' and 'Cops Show Marines How To Take On Taliban'. It has been renamed 'Cops or Police in Counterinsurgency' following today's post.
There is another related thread, but that refers to COIN coming home to assist law enforcement (mainly in the USA):http://council.smallwarsjournal.com/...ead.php?t=5424 (ends).
Hat tip to Leah Farrell on:http://allthingsct.wordpress.com/
An interesting article by Spencer Ackerman, on his blog, entitled 'Three Cheers For A Law Enforcement Approach To Terrorism': http://attackerman.firedoglake.com/2.../sendmorecops/
He starts citing President Obama's speech:
Quote:
Although our intelligence community had learned a great deal about the al Qaeda affiliate in Yemen — called al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula — that we knew that they sought to strike the United States and that they were recruiting operatives to do so — the intelligence community did not aggressively follow up on and prioritize particular streams of intelligence related to a possible attack against the homeland… this contributed to a larger failure of analysis —- a failure to connect the dots of intelligence that existed across our intelligence community and which, together, could have revealed that Abdulmutallab was planning an attack.
Ackerman's reflections ends with:
Quote:
A joint approach is the right approach if you want to see everyone’s information. But it is to say that within that joint entity, (my emphasis) analysts need — wait for it — a law enforcement approach to terrorism.
Spencer Ackerman is a new name for me and his wiki entry is: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spencer_Ackerman . He is a reporter for The Washington Independent.
Leah's blog has a follow-on piece, drawing on her Australian experience: http://allthingsct.wordpress.com/201...-to-terrorism/
Taken from it:
Quote:
the crucial issue: Intel Agencies collect, they aren’t meant to share. It’s not what they do. Ergo sometimes they’re not good at sharing, even though this is changing....Cops investigate and share. Not all the time..
Many of these issues have appeared post-Detroit on a number of threads: the main Detroit attack thread: http://council.smallwarsjournal.com/...ead.php?t=9331 and the wider discussions on intelligence after MG Flynn's report:http://council.smallwarsjournal.com/...ead.php?t=9412
Here is a UK academic review 'Tracking terrorist networks: problems of
intelligence sharing within the UK intelligence community' by Anthony Field (University of Warwick), not read fully yet and the link:
http://journals.cambridge.org/action...4&aid=6459944#
This is currently free and is part of a collection of pieces on the future of UK intelligence and special forces: http://journals.cambridge.org/action...=0&issueId=04# )
I attended a number of conferences in 2008-2009, which underpin the publication and this is the first aspect that has been published to my knowledge.
This could sit in the 'Law Enforcement' thread, but is more on intelligence IMHO.
Frankly, the "debate" ....
between Law of War advocates (the "military" approach; often coupled with "Let's take the gloves off") and Rule of Law advocates (the "law enforcement" approach) is phony, introduces an artificial dichotomy that does not exist under present US law, and has become a "litmus test" for whether you support the Obama administration or not. In short, a lot of smoke and political spin.
Under US law as it presently exists (subject to change primarily by the executive and legislative branches), we are in a state of armed confict with certain named or defined groups. As such, the US LOAC (Laws of Armed Conflict) apply. Under them, people who are security risks may be detained or interned for the duration of the conflict or until they cease to be security risks: regular combatants under GC III (EPWs); irregular combatants under Common Article 3; and civilians under GC IV. Interrogation across the board is subject to the Army Field Manual. The DTA (Detainee Treatment Act) generally applies.
Detention and internment are separate from prosecutions, whether under domestic criminal law, "war crimes" legislation, or "anti-terrorist" legislation. Here are the two US paths:
1. Prosecution in the Federal courts.
2. Prosecution before military commissions under the MCA (Military Commissions Act).
Frankly, the proponents of each pump up its supposed advantages; and the opponents of each its supposed disadvantages. In so doing, they often manage to expose their abject ignorance of the subject matter.
I believe it is a good thing that we (US) have two arrows in our quiver. The trick is to use wisdom and discernment in picking which arrow to shoot in each particular case.
The foregoing is obviously a personal opinion commentary.
Regards
Mike
Hey, I like Ackerman's side bar...
under Blog Roll: "Dave Dilegge and His COIN Jedi Knights". We can now all be addressed as "SIR" - have to dream up a good Jedi domain to go with that.
I find Ackerman's 3-para piece to be basic mush. Here are the last two paras of the piece:
Quote:
And here’s where it’s become unfortunate that mainstream political discourse has created negative connotations around a “law enforcement approach to terrorism.” I can guarantee you that if you said to someone, “Hey, do you think that in terrorism investigations, we should create the perspective amongst counterterrorists that their job doesn’t stop until someone is neutralized?” they would say “Yes.” Well, you goddamn hippie: you’ve got a law enforcement mindset. I guess people don’t understand this enough, but intelligence analysts approach their craft rather differently. They look for patterns in information, and pass those patterns up the chain. They do not investigate in the sense of the word that you and I understand from TV. That’s why there was no APB inside the CIA or the National Counterterrorism Center on Abdulmutallab after his father’s walk-in. Abdulmutallab, in the intelligence world, is a data point. He is not a suspect.
Now, if you had the FBI handling the Abdulmutallab portfolio, or people who think like FBI agents, maybe it still doesn’t go anywhere. But maybe they start compiling information and building a case and new information turns up and the guy gets yanked before he’s on the plane. I gather that’s what John Brennan meant when he said yesterday there was “no one intelligence entity or team or task force [that] was assigned responsibility for doing that follow-up investigation.” None of this is to say the FBI has to be given the lead for these sorts of things. A joint approach is the right approach if you want to see everyone’s information. But it is to say that within that joint entity, analysts need — wait for it — a law enforcement approach to terrorism.
Ackerman is hung up on the need for some kind of criminal prosecution in these cases. Whether he opposes military commissions as an option, I can't tell from the piece. However, even if military commissions are used, evidentiary standards have to be met - in Ackerman's jargon, "a law enforcement approach to terrorism."
It is interesting that he uses the term "neutralized" (in the sentence I bolded). Whether he knows it or not, the readers here of threads dealing with Vietnamese Pacification and the Phoenix segment of it, know that "neutralize" meant "kill, detain or convert" (roughly in 1/3 ratios) in that program, which combined the LOAC and law enforcement rules.
The bottom line is that under LOAC (per the US), Abdulmutallab does not have to be prosecuted. He could simply be detained or interned (depending on his status determination under the GCs); and interrogations could proceed or not according to the Army Field Manual.
The general run of those I called above, the Law of War advocates (the "military" approach; often coupled with "Let's take the gloves off"), are equally confused by asserting that reference must be to milkitary commissions. No "gloves off" there - he'd be just as lawyered up (and perhaps with counsel more competent in "Small Wars" issues).
The option not to prosecute in either venue seems to escape both sets of political spinners - as it has also escaped the Obama administration, except as a last resort.
Regards
Mike
PS: detention, as a standalone, often escaped the Bush II administration - depending on the direction of the wind blowing into the Oval Office.
The Corps Of Intelligence Police
We did have LE involved for awhile. The CIC-Counter Intelligence Corps had LE powers. I had a link to a declassified paper which describes their mission in detail but the link went bad:eek: will try again later.
Also for a short time we actually had an SF MP Company or Battalion, I think John T. Fishel knows about them.
Here is the Link. CIC In WW2 Mission and History.
http://www.fas.org/irp/agency/army/cic.pdf
Cops Show Marines How To Take On Taliban
About 70 Marines from Camp Pendleton are spending time with LAPD in order to learn how to adapt Police Techniques to fight gangs. My favorite is stop calling them Taliban and start calling them Gangsters!!!!Yes,the more you criminalize them the more you De-legitimize them. Absoulutely Outstanding!
http://www.nbclosangeles.com/news/lo...-98202989.html