Iraq: Out of the desert into Mosul (closed)

[Bill Moore]

It is interesting that ISIS did a lot of targeted killings and assassinations of people in the ISF over the past few years. This apparently did a lot to hurt the morale of the ISF. The reason it is interesting is that is exact.y the kind of thing the VC did in South Vietnam those many years ago. In fact that was what Fall was talking about when he spoke of one side outgoverning the other; it is hard to govern when all the administrators for one's side are dead.

So regardless of how fashions in countering insurgencies change, insurgencies don't change so much. They all seem to make great use of assassination

This is real UW which we're restricted from doing. Fall provided a lo t of good insights that are as appreciated as they should be.

[ganulv]

This is real UW which we're restricted from doing. Fall provided a lot of good insights that are as appreciated as they should be.

So are you saying that JPEL doesn’t actually exist? Or that it needs to be longer and less burdened by restrictions?

[Bill Moore]

So are you saying that JPEL doesn’t actually exist? Or that it needs to be longer and less burdened by restrictions?

We are required by our laws to target militarily appropriate targets. That is fine for 5th column guerrilla warfare, but it isn't how you effectively displace and replace existing governance structures. I'm not arguing we should do this, but we need to be aware of it. As Fall once pointed out, when we did our village assessments in Vietnam we assumed control if we built a school and kids were going to it. He pointed out we were often blind to the fact that the communist shadow gov appointed the teachers. Gov appointed teachers were a critical target for the VC. I see similar parallels in our current fight. We often don't understand it because it is outside of our perceptions model. A JPEL means little if we don't understand the adversary's strategy. We blindly focus on HAM and targeting foot soldiers when the real H VIs are often a different flavor.

[carl]

This is real UW which we're restricted from doing. Fall provided a lo t of good insights that are as appreciated as they should be.

Oh I don't know. The insurgent kills, the counterinsurgent arrests and jails. The latter is harder than the former but the effect is the same if you run the jails right and don't let them out.