Don't Confuse the "Surge" with the Strategy

[SWJED]

19 January SWJ Blog - Don't Confuse the "Surge" with the Strategy by Dave Kilcullen.

Much discussion of the new Iraq strategy centers on the “surge” to increase forces in-theater by 21,500 troops. I offer no comment on administration policy here. But as counterinsurgency professionals, it should be clear to us that focusing on the “surge” misses what is actually new in the strategy – its population-centric approach....

[carl]

There is an interesting article in today's New York Times about one of the first units to implement the new strategy.

It states the unit is familiar with the area they are starting to live in because they have spent some time patrolling the same neighborhood in vehicles and then returning to a remote base. Now they don't leave the "hood".

It seems a pretty important and fundemental change to me when our forces implement one of the very basic "counterinsurgency best practices"; namely, staying in the neighborhood overnight, every night.

I was very surprised to hear that we had not been doing that over the past summer and fall. I guess I just wasn't paying attention.

No wonder the level of violence did not go down. The bad guys just waited until we drove by and then slit another throat.

[Stan]

Carl, a somewhat different topic, but the menu is the very same.
You are in a place where one would think that the locals' lack of education precludes the wise (US) from being had.

Way too ignorant...They indeed are watching and learning our every move. My ITI courses in West Point, VA showed me in two days just how easy it would be to figure me out and get me coming out the door from or to work.

Here in Estonia, we not only video tape all or our EOD response calls, but look at them over and over again. There's a common denominator and somebody is watching US and learning fast, as they are doing elsewhere. They have time.

Old habits are hard to break, unless they kill you first !

Regards, Stan

[slapout9]

Stan,why don't you catch some of them instead of just looking at the same videos?

[Stan]

Hello Slapout !

Funny you should mention that, on trial for the last three days is a 62 year-old man accused of initiating the last 11 IEDs in the capital over a three year period.

DNA tests would catch him, or so they say. He's not yet guilty from a legal aspect.

Not that easy. We are an EOD civilian organization under the rescue services, the police don't do EOD, post blast, etc. and the military by law only clean up their own back yards (installations). Different society, rules, so on.

He was not in any of the videos. Some folks are content with remaining anonymous, no sense of individuality or recognizability. The old saying, that the criminal will always return to the scene is in this case correct. But, when will that happen ?

I'll keep you advised !

[Stan]

It gets even better (rather worse).

Two significant events herein.

Two years ago, a young female bored with life decided to call into the 112 center (911) with a bomb threat to one of the largest shopping centers in the capital. 10 to 12 minutes later, she would call again with yet another bomb threat to another very large shopping mall around the corner. The next day, amused by her accomplishments, tried again. The 112 operator told the police that a young girl was calling from a phone booth at "this" corner, and a patrolman immediately was dispatch and apprehended the young girl. After all was said and done, she was too young (15) and returned to her parents with nothing else under law left to do. She's free to this day to try again, should boredom come callin'.

Now that you think were having troubles, let this one roll by you !
The justice system here has basically two large books to use for trials involving explosives.

An explosives register - meaning, what is legal (or without a permit) what is illegal to have in one's possession. It contains generic things like construction grade TNT, etc.

The Estonian handbook of Law (I have no idea what they call it anymore). Let's call it the UCMJ.

Now, enter Joe the Russian bomber, found with a F-1 hand grenade in his house during a routine police raid.

Joe is in the county courthouse accused but he has a sly lawyer who costs a bundle to keep around. Welcome to the former eastern republics. Money talks and Bravo Sierra walks.

The judge looks for an F-1 grenade in the register, it's not there (imagine that . The judge then looks in the UCMJ, also not there.

Joe is free. Profound ? That's because it is.

Better yet, the police ask the EOD elements to assist as they have found strange things in the apartment they recently raided. Everything's there, detonator, explosives, wiring, clock, small box, etc.

In the US, the FBI or ATF could conclude that all the elements were sufficient to construct an IED. Well, we can't do that yet. Remember the register ?

Slapout, looking at videos may seem stone-age, but we're dealing with a system that insists on REAL evidence, and feelings have little room.

Regards, Stan