The Wikileaks collection

[Fuchs]

Yet again, someone attempts to apply peacetime civilian 'rules' or law to a combat situation. Doesn't work. Never has. No matter how hard a lot of people try...

Well, SWAT teams would disagree.
They're not allowed, not supposed and not used to go killing people at the next block because there was a shooting incident.

A force of roughly 130,000 personnel taking only about two KIA on an average day cannot claim to be in a war that justifies the treatment of 30,000,000 people like "sentenced to immediate death on mere suspicion" because of maybe 50,000 insurgents and at the same time fulfill a mission that IIRC required providing "security".

[Danny]

You are wrong. You have a habit of making statements for which there is no basis in fact.

SWAT teams would not in fact concur with your assessment. In the U.S. law enforcement is still restricted by the SCOTUS decision in Tennessee v. Garner and can only use their weapons in self defense. Period. If you go back and study the ROE, there is provision - albeit muddled and faint (and I wish that this aspect would be corrected for the benefit of the troops) - for direct action kinetics against groups that have been named as the enemy (designated terrorists or declared hostile forces).

Categories, definitions, and so on - you know? Slow down and rethink this thing. You're swinging wildly and hitting nothing.

[Cecil Turner]

Well, SWAT teams would disagree.
They're not allowed, not supposed and not used to go killing people at the next block because there was a shooting incident.

Don't mean to be a pedant, but you can't argue a violation of Geneva in one post and then make an analogy to civil law in the next. It's not even internally consistent. Similarly, I find discussions of "suspects" carrying RPGs completely unpersuasive.

[Ken White]

as I think it offers a capability that seeks an equal and opposite reaction and thus is prone to provide or provoke a violent incident not desired or required in far too many cases.

Well, SWAT teams would disagree.

I'll also point out that they are not exposed to warfare-like conditions all day, every day for a year or so at a whack...

That can affect your thinking and attitude.

A force of roughly 130,000 personnel taking only about two KIA on an average day cannot claim to be in a war that justifies the treatment of 30,000,000 people like "sentenced to immediate death on mere suspicion" because of maybe 50,000 insurgents and at the same time fulfill a mission that IIRC required providing "security".

Easy to say when you haven't been in or are likely to be in that situation, those who have been look at it differently. Whether they should or not is another question but I can assure you they long have, currently do and probably always will.

Your argument aims at the force -- wrong target. They are doing what comes naturally (in a great many senses of that phrase). Better you should aim at the politicians who put them in a situation where your civilian rules do not -- cannot -- and will not apply.

If you send an Army to another Nation, they are very probably going to break things and not be nice; nature of the beast. If you send a SWAT team or the European equivalent on an arrest where they are likely to be an (or provide some) excessive force, then sooner or later, you will have an 'incident.' Violent entities do violent things. If you do not want violence, do not send an exploding cigar

Probably not all bad that those things exist -- violent entities are sometimes needed. A lot of places in the world, a lot of people are not as nice as you or as Europe is today. For your sake, I truly hope Europe can stay that way -- but I won't bet on it...

[jmm99]

re: this

from Mendel
[1] Mike, I had a close look at that van, because the "rebuttal" video made much of it; but the van that was shot had what looks like white paint on the roof (to keep off the heat, I presume), and the one that appears earlier doesn't.

[2] (Oh, and I'd love to see the result of a weapon seizure like that carried out on any suburb of a Texas town. )

1. I've been stuck at home for the last couple of days (Net access via dialup), so I didn't have a chance to look at the long video. So, the bottom line is that we don't know where the white-roof van was before it appears in the video, except for the witness who stated it was eyes-on when the shooting began.

2. I wouldn't "love to see" a weapons sweep in either TX or MI. Such a sweep of the Northern Michigan county where I live would produce a lot of weapons. BUT, in both MI and TX, the weapons would likely be at most semi-automatics (civilian) vs. automatic (military). If you did the same thing south of the TX border, you would probably find some automatic weapons. Not to make too big a point of that since our forefathers in WWI and WWII managed considerable havoc with bolt action and semi-automatic rifles.

The points, of course, are (1) refutation of the "eyewitnesses" who claimed the neighborhood was unarmed and peaceful; and (2) that weapons were used by insurgents in the neighborhood before, during and after the 2007 clear operation.

Regards

Mike

[Fuchs]

@Danny;
What's your problem with my text? I quoted Ken's assertion that you cannot use peacetime rules in a combat situation and disproved it by referring to SWAT teams (that for sure get into combat situations sometimes and adhere to the law).

That's factual - while your reply doesn't seem to be related to what I wrote except for unfounded criticism.

@Cecil:
I'm sorry if my post required too much mental agility, moving from one aspect of a topic to another one with a pause of only five days.
(1) The GC stuff was context of the 2007 incident.
(2) The criminal law aspect was relevant as the context in which SWAT teams and police operate. I referred to the police in order to show that armed & dangerous suspects can be handled without killing them with an attack helicopter.

- - - - -

@Ken:
I wonder whether you talk about U.S. troops, Western troops or troops in general because I'm sure neither of us has the knowledge base to make such broad assertions as you did for all armed forces of the world.

Keep in mind that the French Gendarmerie has combatant status and belongs to their ministry of defence & military, for example. I have a suspicion that France would have been able to raise a military force of 100,000 troops that can handle such tiny groups of armed suspects more police-like in Iraq if they had tried hard (if they had done the mistake of participating in the war of aggression and subsequent occupation).

Maybe a less violent behaviour in a "provide security" mission is not fully out of reach, but just impossible for certain forces or branches?



The thing that irritates me much more is a different one; the attitude .

See, I have no holy cows. It's difficult to make me enthusiastic about anything. I'm a skeptic.
As such a person, it's entirely out of my grasp how one could stand so firmly by the own institution after such an embarrassing performance. Blaming politicians is a cheap excuse. The 2003-2010 performance in Iraq was poor. The internal conflict ran out of steam by 2007 and the participating institutions succeeded to learn some lessons after four years.
Seriously, that's a disaster. Imagine what we'd think of WWI generals if they had ordered 1914-style attacks as late as 1918!

Failure is usually a great argument for the insight that better ways need to be sought. The "surge" stuff doesn't qualify in my opinion. Not at all.

Well, how could one stay conservative and stick to one's institution and its natural mode of operation after experiencing its gross failure? Wouldn't the natural reaction be to consider radical ideas and changes because incremental improvements won't cut it?

Isn't the chain of war scandals coupled with the inability to provide security for years enough to question discipline and competence, to acknowledge that previously acceptable levels of discipline and competence proved to be unsatisfactory and expectations need to be raised?

Look at this. It seems obvious to me that the expectations for discipline needs to be raised.
A more police-like (policemen aren't saints, but apparently still better than many soldiers) behaviour would likely have kept the war at an (even) lower intensity, probably keeping the foreign forces out of the internal conflicts. The police is rarely if ever the main target in conflicts between organised criminals, after all.

[Entropy]

What's your problem with my text? I quoted Ken's assertion that you cannot use peacetime rules in a combat situation and disproved it by referring to SWAT teams (that for sure get into combat situations sometimes and adhere to the law).

Just because some of the tactics and gear may appear similar on the surface does not mean they are the same thing nor does it mean they are governed by the same sets of rules and legal regimes.

[slapout9]

Just because some of the tactics and gear may appear similar on the surface does not mean they are the same thing nor does it mean they are governed by the same sets of rules and legal regimes.

That about says it all IMO. SWAT stands for Special Weapons and Tactics that means when they were created they were for special situations....not to be used in a general purpose fashion. What happened with the attack Helicopter was bad.... but it was a consequence of the horrible thing called War..... not bad Soldiers.

[sapperfitz82]

Someone may have already mentioned this.

I was in this part of Baghdad from Jan to June 2007. We took ground fire every time we flew without gunship escort from Jan to Mar or thereabouts.

Apache support that flew below 1000 ft AGL was shot at and often grounded during TIC's. Iraqi's disdained Apaches from what I saw. The Apache pilots usually would not slow down enough to fire accurately and so an AK wielding individual felt he had a pretty good chance of squaring off and possibly damaging one. Sounds incredible but I watched it happen a fair amount. I say this to put to rest any thought an Apache would cause people to act suspicious.

This unit was doing great work at this time. We helped with their market protection program and they did a fantastic job of protecting the populace from the rash of carbombs and ETJ killings that were tearing Baghdad apart at this time. They (I think about this time in fact) parked their IFVs and MBTs and started exposing themselves more IOT get closer to the populace. Our entire focus during this time was working with the locals.

We were being targeted with EFPs and this unit lost quite a few men to them, as I remember. The total absence of backlash is a testament to their self-control and professionalism. Just to keep things honest, I do despise them as dirty nasty legs, but credit where it is due.

I get pretty disgusted by this war crime crap. Seriously, get bent. I have worked directly with these same men (2-16 and the Crazyhorse Apache drivers) and have seen them operate with incredible restraint in the most trying conditions. The gun battle in Fadil in which Apache pilots waited for clearance to engage men that were shooting and hitting them from the ground comes to mind. BTW, two of those pilots were injured by ground fire.

These men owe nobody an explanation for their actions. They are the best we have and the most honorable in the world.

And anyone who runs TOWARDS a gun battle should expect to be shot, all else aside.

[jmm99]

The German investigation and possible prosecution of Oberst Klein and his Oberfeldwebel because of the Kunduz gas tankers bombing has ended in dismissal of all charges - Hat tip to Igel for his post in "Germans in Afghanistan" (post #40).

It is one thing to critique (whether informed or not) how warfare was conducted and dispute "best practices" (as to which, reasonable - and unreasonable - people can disagree). It is quite another thing to allege that that conduct was a "war crime".

----------------------
The interview linked by Fuchs (Danger Room What’s Next in National Security U.S. Soldier on 2007 Apache Attack: What I Saw) has a couple of quotes on the tactical situation which are similar to what sapperfitz82 tells us:

McCord: ... [context - he has just carried the wounded girl from the van] ...
I was told to go pull security on a rooftop. When we were on that roof, we were still taking fire. There were some people taking pot shots, sniper shots, at us on the rooftop. We were probably there on the roof for another four to five hours.

Wired.com: How much sniper fire were you getting?

McCord: It was random sporadic spurts. I did see a guy … moving from a rooftop from one position to another with an AK-47, who was firing at us. He was shot and killed.
......
Wired.com: Wikileaks presented the incident as though there was no engagement from insurgents. But you guys did have a firefight a couple of blocks away. Was it reasonable for the Apache soldiers to think that maybe the people they attacked were part of that insurgent firefight?

McCord: I doubt that they were a part of that firefight. However, when I did come up on the scene, there was an RPG as well as AK-47s there…. You just don’t walk around with an RPG in Iraq, especially three blocks away from a firefight…. Personally, I believe the first attack on the group standing by the wall was appropriate, was warranted by the rules of engagement. They did have weapons there. ....

So, again, more testimony that Al-Amin was far from an unarmed, peaceful neighborhood.

Regards

Mike

[jmm99]

from a post on 09-27-2009 by STS:

There is a time and a place for surgical, precision and hi-intensity MOUT. I have freely transitioned between the three, sometimes on the same day doing all three, depending on METT-TC.

While some units are enamored of "the one way" and hone their skills to be perfect at one skill set, I will settle for "good enough" at a wide range of skills which will allow the tactical flexibility to prosecute targets in a variety of ways.

The ROE is usually THE definitive variable on what is allowed, which has the unintended effect of causing escalation with regards to a situation. If others find themselves in that situation, then the transition from precision (or surgical) MOUT to hi-intensity must be trained on or else they will quickly find themselves out of their depth when that situation arises.

With regard to the enemy, here is a little personal vignette:

We were doing some training with a LE SWAT team (a double booked range...what are the odds!) and we watched them, and they watched us.

Eventually, we started to compete, as we are wont to do...

Long story short, they attacked we defended (10 on 10) and we defended like we were taught. Concertina in the stairs, crew served covering the avenues of approach, etc. We won. Crew served weapons vs. SWAT = dead SWAT.

They defended, we attacked. We attacked hi-intensity (using a borrowed M-113 as cover) and using "bait" to troll for shots... Again, we won.

There was some good natured discussion afterwards (after a full day of fun, including one night iteration) which basically boiled down to "don't attack a well defended position with SWAT tactics"

SWAT stuff is nifty and a very acceptable TTP IF certain other criteria are met. Simply doing it because that is the only thing you know is the wrong answer.

If an insurgency has reached the "armed conflict" stage, I'd vote for a combination of investigative police (special branch), field force police (gendarmerie) and special tactics police (taking the best features of the provincial recon units in CORDS-Phoenix), augmented with foot-mobile infantry (heavy on patrol and sniping) to control the environment. I would also vote for a vigorous civil affairs component (with built in security; e.g., the USMC CAP program) reaching down to the lowest political unit that needs to be reached.

Now, having said all that, I have to say that is a pipe dream for even the US; and that no such force exists or is likely to exist which can take on large projects such as Iraq and Astan. So, our GP force becomes the "go to" by default, again and again.

Regards

Mike

[Ken White]

...I quoted Ken's assertion that you cannot use peacetime rules in a combat situation and disproved it by referring to SWAT teams (that for sure get into combat situations sometimes and adhere to the law).

However, I replied inferring that (a) SWAT teams do not always obey the law. (b) they are not in constant or extended combat with enemies capable of significant local overmatch which significantly affects one's defensive and offensive mindset and actions; and (c) combat infantry rules and law enforcement rules, even for paramilitary elements, differ. There's a reason for that latter.

Those are the points, they are all fact, not supposition and they discredit your thesis.

I referred to the police in order to show that armed & dangerous suspects can be handled without killing them with an attack helicopter.

I'll use that to point out that the police do not have an armed attack helicopter and suggest that if such an aircraft is available and allowed to be used, the probability of death from above is quite good.

There's a reason the police don't have such equipment. There's also a reason that Armed Forces do have it. Regardless, if it's available it will be used because no commander is going to deprive his troops (or police officers) of a combat advantage. Unless the politicians make it uncomfortable to do so -- in which case those politicians are likely to reap what they sow.

Again, you're attacking the wrong target -- Armies do army things, police do police things. If you believe that armed forces should not do police things (and I'd agree with that), then your disagreement, at one level, is with the politicians that sent the wrong people to do a job. A job whose parameters and outcomes is totally predictable...

I wonder whether you talk about U.S. troops, Western troops or troops in general because I'm sure neither of us has the knowledge base to make such broad assertions as you did for all armed forces of the world.

Can't speak for you but I've seen forces from 17 nations in combat situations, all for weeks, most for months at a time and I've seen about that many more in combat training situations also, from all seven continents and a great many races -- I'm comfortable that those numbers easily translate to 'most if not all.'

Keep in mind that the French Gendarmerie has combatant status and belongs to their ministry of defence & military...

I've long contended that we need such an organization for the foreign internal defense role -- but US LE tradition opposes that so we're unlikely to ever have a paramilitary force.

Maybe a less violent behaviour in a "provide security" mission is not fully out of reach, but just impossible for certain forces or branches?

I've also long contended that we, the US, do not do those missions well and should avoid them. I don't think what you suggest is impossible, I do believe it is quite difficult and is indeed particularly difficult for Americans. I also believe that achieving that degree of 'discipline' would adversely affect capability in near peer combat -- and maintaining that capability is IMO, far more important than trying to do or being able to do lesser missions like COIN and internal defense.

See, I have no holy cows. It's difficult to make me enthusiastic about anything. I'm a skeptic.

Sure you do -- have holy cows, that is. You believe that better discipline can eliminate adverse incidents or reduce them significantly. True but I doubt you've tried to 'discipline' a bunch of Americans.

You not only believe in strong discipline and in everyone doing what they're told -- which is highly unlikely -- you appear to believe, quite mistakenly in my view, that military forces should always behave in accordance with the tenets of civil law. So you have several holy cows. Or holy Moose -- they aren't accurate enough to be cows,

As such a person, it's entirely out of my grasp how one could stand so firmly by the own institution after such an embarrassing performance.

Because the institution did what it was designed to do. The fact that it did not do what you and some others wanted it to do or not do is immaterial. The fact that it did not do a good job on things it had not trained to do reflects on the senior officers responsible for its doctrine and training and on the politicians who tell it what to do, not on the institution per se.

Blaming politicians is a cheap excuse.

Not an excuse at all, a contributing factor -- but as I've said elsewhere, your problems are with America (generically) and America in Iraq (and / or Afghanistan, specifically). The first exists as it now does due to the ministrations of those politicians, the second issue was purely their responsibility. They had an Army that was not prepared to do what they thought they wanted -- and it was their responsibility to know. They sent that Army to do a job it had not been trained to do -- that's their responsibility. The Army did what it was told, unprepared partly due to own error, partly due to political error. So the institution coped as best it could given its highly bureaucratic structure. Most of the relatively junior people in it did and do their best. Don't shoot at the wrong target.

The 2003-2010 performance in Iraq was poor. The internal conflict ran out of steam by 2007 and the participating institutions succeeded to learn some lessons after four years.

We can agree on that.

Seriously, that's a disaster. Imagine what we'd think of WWI generals if they had ordered 1914-style attacks as late as 1918!

Comparing the pressure cooker of either World War with an off the wall minor incursion in a distant nation by elements of the Armed forces of another nation that barely realizes it is in a war is like comparing a SWAT team to a Combat Infantry Unit -- it just won't work. The structural differences are too great.

Well, how could one stay conservative and stick to one's institution and its natural mode of operation after experiencing its gross failure? Wouldn't the natural reaction be to consider radical ideas and changes because incremental improvements won't cut it?

I might and you might; most Generals will not because they're terrified of failing so they will stick with the old unless they're in the pressure cooker of a world war -- then they adapt or get relieved. Shot or hung in some nations...

Isn't the chain of war scandals coupled with the inability to provide security for years enough to question discipline and competence, to acknowledge that previously acceptable levels of discipline and competence proved to be unsatisfactory and expectations need to be raised?

Sure. The only question is how you do that and still raise a force of adequate size. To paraphrase the old management adage, you can have it small and highly competent, mid size and fairly competent or big and marginally capable. We opted for mid size and fairly competent.

A more police-like (policemen aren't saints, but apparently still better than many soldiers) behaviour would likely have kept the war at an (even) lower intensity, probably keeping the foreign forces out of the internal conflicts. The police is rarely if ever the main target in conflicts between organised criminals, after all.

Heh. I've got two sons who are police officers and have been for years. Both were also in the Army and will tell you in a second that different skills, mindset and action sets are required. One of them BTW is on his Department's SWAT team and he makes derisory comments about their 'combat' skills and the fact that many members of that team are what we here in the US call "wannabes." They wannabe like soldiers -- but aren't...

Different strokes. Very different...

[JarodParker]

I read a lot of the comments on internet and on this forum before watching the video. And when I finally did get around to watching it, my reaction was, “this is it?” Frankly I can’t understand what all the hoopla is all about.

I'm sorry if my post required too much mental agility, moving from one aspect of a topic to another one with a pause of only five days.

It’s not that your posts require mental agility, I think the problem is that your argument seems to shifting. It’s like a defendant arguing in court, “hey I’m innocent, but if you really think I committed the crime, then I’m mentally ill and if you don’t believe that then it was self-defense.”

Keep in mind that the French Gendarmerie has combatant status and belongs to their ministry of defence & military, for example. I have a suspicion that France would have been able to raise a military force of 100,000 troops that can handle such tiny groups of armed suspects more police-like in Iraq if they had tried hard (if they had done the mistake of participating in the war of aggression and subsequent occupation).

You can have all the suspicion about how the Gendarmerie would’ve performed in Iraq but since they’re not there, we’ll never know.

A policeman also needs to do snap judgments sometimes and may be tired.
Nevertheless, we expect him not to kill without a reason that withstands a judge's curiosity - or else he faces and deserves serious problems.

What you seem to be missing is that police officer’s actions are not judged in hindsight after all the facts come out but based on their perception at the moment they had to make the snap judgment. And 99% of the time the police officers are cleared of criminal liability in internal investigations and in court. The average juror might not have a “full working knowledge” of police work but that’s why expert witnesses are brought in to explain laws, policies and realities.
People have been shot by the police for reaching for their wallets, under their seat, etc. A toddler was killed by a SWAT team when her father was using her as a human shield. Another SWAT team raided the wrong house and killed the resident who grabbed his gun probably thinking he was about to be burglarized.

I agree with those that have stated that you can’t use LE policies in a war zone. But if you want to use a police analogy then the pilots can only be judged based on their perceptions at that moment… not based on an obviously edited, enhanced and captioned video. They perceived a threat and they took action.

On a few nice sunny Southern California days, I was stuck conducting tours for guests at the police academy. It was usually some sweet old ladies (and sometimes kids) with nothing better to do on a weekday. And every single time we got to the practice range, I was asked the same question… “why don’t you teach your police officers to shoot suspects in the arm or the leg?” (and one lady asked, “why not shoot the gun out of their hand?” ) And our answer was, “because the officers don’t want to go home in a casket.” See, it’s not that their lives are more important than anyone else’s but they’re also not any less important. They are not throw away people that have the luxury of second guessing themselves when that split second could mean their lives of their partner’s.

Well, SWAT teams would disagree.
They're not allowed, not supposed and not used to go killing people at the next block because there was a shooting incident.

Are you seriously making this analogy? Which SWAT teams are you surveying? Also a great deal of police officers are former military. For instance, LAPD SWAT is like 80%+ former Marines (many from Recon).

A force of roughly 130,000 personnel taking only about two KIA on an average day cannot claim to be in a war that justifies the treatment of 30,000,000 people like "sentenced to immediate death on mere suspicion" because of maybe 50,000 insurgents and at the same time fulfill a mission that IIRC required providing "security".

Yea, I’m gonna go ahead and disagree with your characterization here. And also 50,000 fighters… that’s like a couple of divisions even in a conventional fight. But the fact that they utilize insurgent tactics acts as a force-multiplier.

Also, you keep referencing "low" casualties to define this as not being a war; so what's the magic cut-off number? And how long do these numbers have to be sustained?

You’ve made your disdain for the US clear a long time ago and it seems to me that you had already convicted all American soldiers as war criminals long before this video was released. So, I think we're all just going in circles here.

[motorfirebox]

(2) The criminal law aspect was relevant as the context in which SWAT teams and police operate. I referred to the police in order to show that armed & dangerous suspects can be handled without killing them with an attack helicopter.

That is an incredibly dishonest statement. There is a significant difference between a series of individual engagements--which is what SWAT times and the like deal in--and a prolonged campaign against an organized entity. One of the more glaring differences lies in the goals of those engaged: SWAT and other police entities tend to engage people and groups whose main goal is to escape. Criminals do not, as a general rule, seek out cops--they generally take great pains to avoid cops. Our military, by contrast (and militaries in general), is and was fighting networks which are actively belligerent.

[Fuchs]

An interview

http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2010...nd/#more-23793

[Ken White]

"“War is cruelty. There's no use trying to reform it. The crueler it is, the sooner it will be over.”"

Can't fight nice without doing more harm than good. Also proving that some people should not go to war, it is too damaging on their psyches. Some can stand it, some cannot.

Proves too that people focus on the significant act or action to them, not on the total action and that people tend to believe what they're told and have seen as opposed to what may actually be the case.