Why is it that the media ....
apparently equates professionalism in killing with unrestrained bloodthirstiness ?
From the linked article, Killer Elite Switching Sides in Mexico Drug War (bold added):
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...the Kaibiles fought relentlessly [JMM: really ??] to earn a reputation for massacring civilians, epitomized by the December 1982 Dos Erres slaughter. At least 250 men, women and children were methodically killed by 40 of the elite troops at the village of Las Dos Erres.
One rather below average unit in the Americal Division managed much the same feat, didn't they ?
Regards
Mike
Don't know, wasn't there.
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Originally Posted by
carl
I think the circumstances of that fight, from the little I know, indicate that the Guats just walked into an ambush in a lightly populated area. I know that units can have bad days, but this was a so called "elite" unit.
Like your British Officer said, there are SOF and there are SOF. Not that the SOF label proves much of anything in combat. The average two tour 11B Specialist in the 82d or the 10th Mountain has more combat experience than do most SOF types...
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They should not have had a bad day in what seemed at the time to be a straight up small unit patrol action. Local knowledge, rules of engagement, intel etc didn't seem to have much to do with it.
Those things always have something to do with it.
What, exactly, is "a straight up small unit patrol action?" :confused:
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They were hunting the LRA and walked into an ambush shortly after dawn. I just can't see properly trained jungle and forest fighters doing that especially if they were brought in special for the purpose.
First problem is AFAIK we do not know what the terrain was like; Was it jungle or savannah (rain forest trained folks would have problems in open savannah...); on a trail or not; we do not know how many people each side had; we do not know if the Guatemalans had local 'scouts' or guides who may have been turned; I believe they were on a specified mission to capture Kony's deputy honcho -- that implies some intel (false?) or possibly a set up; we do not know what weapons were involved; we do not know the ranges involved; how much recent rest had each side had; was it really an ambush or was it a meeting engagement. You may know enough to make judgments. I do not.
As I understand it one of the LRA's most important survival factors is their exhaustive knowledge of the terrain. If one is used to looking at terrain from a thousand or more feet or even from moving vehicles, a three foot hump in the ground may be totally invisible or not seem like much -- when you're on foot, 50 meters from that hump, you may or may not notice it for several usually vegetation related reasons and even if you do, you cannot see over it...
You can't see it, I have. I've seen it happen to British, French, Australian, Korean (N and S), Chinese, Thai, Viet Namese (N & S) and US units, several of those units high speed SOF types. War's like that -- it (war, not those in it) doesn't play fair and anyone and everyone involved can have a bad day. IIRC eight Guatemalans were killed and five wounded but they killed 15 of their attackers (sounds like an all round bad day to me...).
Those in it don't play fair either but that's another story. Hollywood, most Fiction Writers and Many Historians have much to answer for... :rolleyes:
Be nice if it was that simple...
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Originally Posted by
carl
a "straight up small unit patrol action" is a small unit walking through the forest looking for another small unit and they have a fight.
It almost never is and the outcome of the fight depends on many variables -- for this event, almost none of which we seem to know. I know I don't...
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And from what I was told the Guats weren't very good so maybe they couldn't do those things.
Maybe they were, maybe they weren't. Good that is. Micro terrain is almost as silly as human terrain. terrain is terrain -- and 'reading' it is fairly straightforward. Reading what it hides is never straightforward.
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The other thing I was told at the time was this. They figured that 15 LRA were killed because a MONUC helicopter gunship that eventually showed up fired 5 rockets at something or other. MONUC then figured that each rocket should kill 3 people ergo 15 LRAs must have been killed.
What I recall reading was that the Nepalese came in on the birds and did a mop up and got the count. Also reacall an account that said 8 UN KIA and 15 UN WIA.
You can make your mind up anyway you wish -- I don't have enough information to do more than ask questions -- which I very strongly suspect no one who was not actually there on the ground could answer...
Sorry, Bill -- I missed this last night.
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Originally Posted by
Bill Moore
My comment was shaped by our transition from the Cold War to MOOTW in the early 90s and the large number of complaints from conventional units who repeatedly said they didn't sign up for Bosnia, Haiti, etc., but that was a relatively short transition period, so I withdraw the statement.
No need to withdraw it, it was and is accurate for the time -- I deliberately referred back to an earlier time to illustrate two things:
It wasn't always that way. It does not need to stay that way -- and IMO it should not.
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...so I'm not sure where you think I said we didn't need them.
Didn't think that.
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Earlier comments about behavior of young conventional soldiers/marines still stand. I have seen how many young GPF soldiers/marines behave towards locals, and you're much more likely to have a serious Strategic Corporal incident (the wrong kind) with GPF than SOF. As you know we still have our share of idiots in SOF, but percentage wise it is much lower, and the behavior isn't accepted as the norm. The way GPF minimizes these incidents is micro-management, which degrades mission performance.
I totally agree with all that, saying only that can be -- and should be -- changed. Our poor training designed to be cheap instead of effective is the major cause of that.
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I think I know where you're coming from about SOCOM fostering that incompetence, but please clarify? Some blame USSOCOM for taking the best NCOs out of the Army, and of course that may be happening to some degree with MARSOC in the Marines also. Outside of that, how did SOCOM contribute to GPF incompetence?
First, on the NCOs (or Officers...). I do not subscribe to that IMO SOCOM has some of the best and some of the worst of those in the Army -- and almost no one that's in between (which Big Army will tolerate because it believes it must, not due to actual need). There are people who make good shooters; there are others who make good SF types. There are a great many very competent people who do not want to do either of those jobs for a variety of reasons. There are places for all three types and those who both want to be and can pass selection should do the SF / SOF thing and the rest can soldier on in the rest of the Army. I will point out that there are folks in the rest of the Army who are every bit as good, combat wise, as the SF / SOF guys and gals, there are actually more of them in the Big Army but they are not concentrated or specialized so they are not as noticeable. So, no to raping units for the great guys. Not true.
I was specifically referring to the fact that big Army lost its focus in the 70s and severely (and quite wrongly) dumbed down training and thus lessened the competence of units to do their missions. Instead of fixing that, the Army wrongly scaled down mission sets. This gave SOCOM an opportunity to pick some mission sets they could logically claim were 'theirs' and get the missions and concomitant funding. Thus, the Army screwed up and SOCOM merely took advantage of their screwup to enhance their capabilities. The upshot was that SOCOM contributed to continued lessened competence in Army combat -- particularly Infantry -- units.
Aside from the adverse impact on the Army, there were unintended consequences for SOCOM, notably the diversion of SF into CIF and Strat Recon missions (as opposed to LRS which is not a SOF mission at all) -- both of which, IMO are wasteful of SF training and capabilities. People are needed to do those jobs, no question -- but IMO, SF should not be the provider.
Full disclosure, I'm not a SOCOM fan. I tried to tell people when Barb Wire Bob was skulking around Congress lobbying for it that it was not a totally bad idea but the way it would likely end up would not be all that good for the Nation. IMO, that has come to pass. What should have occurred was either creation of a new Service or nothing, the current process is the worst of both worlds.
As an aside, if the rest of the Army had the training money of SOCOM it arguably would be in better shape; you get what you pay for and in SOCOM's favor, they have never scrimped on training dollars whereas the big Army -- wrongly -- has.
All immaterial, The Army proper appears to be trying to improve it's training and capabilities (or, more accurately, restore both), SOCOM is here and on balance it does more good than harm but I, for one, wish they'd learn down in Tampa what SF is really supposed to do and stop trying to force it into other things. The US needs competent conventional forces, it needs highly trained Shooters, Strat Recon and SF -- and those are four very different missions requiring, really, at least four different kinds of folks. The fact that SF can switch hit is a plus, no question -- but is it really desirable?