Baseops.Net
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Whoops. Sorry - I'll try and figure this out... standby.
OK - I "published" the forums on Tapatalk now. Please let me know if this works... pretty sketchy instructions on their site (they push an "up sell" for Premium Installation).
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Tapatalk has now been installed on the Forums. The next time you log on via your mobile device, you will see a prompt that lets you know the Forums are now Tapatalk compatible and that you can download the app from the Android Marketplace or Apple App Store.
Tapatalk is a mobile app built specifically for forum access. Different from mobile skin or mobile version that comes with the forum system, Tapatalk allows user to have a unified interface to access multiple forums at the same time.
www.tapatalk.com
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This is a good topic to start on the baseops SIPR website... (yes there really is a baseops SIPR site).
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Not sure why the media and everyone is keying in on his sideline prayers - pro athletes have been praying after touchdowns for many years, yet Tebow is the first to actually be seen in a negative light for praying? Maybe if he had multiple DUIs and illegal firearm charges like most of the stars he'd be more warmly received.
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Smokey - any chance you want to contribute corrected / more accurate gouge to the website so that I can replace the out-of-date information?
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Sorry folks - the problem we've been having originates with the search function (non-Google search) that, as I just found out, also is employed by the NEW CONTENT link. I'll fix this temporarily (which may result in another crash tomorrow morning...)
But, we are working on a long term fix to this issue - I've had to call in several other guys for help. Bottom line: we are attempting to install a server-sided fix that will allow the search to run efficiently AND not crash the server. More tomorrow...
Thanks for your patience!
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The forums are back up and running after the fourth consecutive outage.
We have isolated the problem to the search function in the forums - unfortunately, due to the nature of military aviation-related searches, I have had to allow three-character searches (for strings such as "UPT" and "U-28", etc.) thus the server can get bogged down when consective and/or multiple simultaneous searches are being performed.
So, to combat this problem, I have changed the default search to a Google Site Search -- it searches the same forum posts, but uses outside resources and presents the results in a Google Search-like interface. You still have the option of performing a traditional IPB-Forums-style search (displaying most recent posts, number of replies, etc.) by clicking on the little drop-down tab to the right of the search box (top-right of page) and selecting "Forums" as the search method.
I am trying to have additional software workarounds installed to bring even more functionality and efficiency to the search feature - but this may take some time...
v/r
BASEOPS
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Sorry for the intermittent connectivity. It seemed to be a high customer load drawing network resources. I've increased the number of connections - we'll see if this fixes it long-term.
In the future, you can always communicate via the baseops email or the baseops facebook page as well during forum blackouts.
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Sorry for the SQL ERROR and the forums being down the last day or so. I finally got my customer support folks to fix this and am trying to learn what they did so I can resurrect it myself next time.
v/r
BASEOPS
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Link to the White House flickr photostream where the shot comes from (including hi-res)
Here's the official caption that contains the individuals in the photo.
Negative. BG Webb is one of two ACGs. JSOC now has 4 GO/FOs... (as opposed to the two it had just a few years ago).
JSOC Heirarchy:
CO - VADM McRaven (soon to be CDR USSOCOM)
DCG - BG LaCamera (formerly JSOC J3)
ACG - BG Thomas (formerly DDSO and prior to that JSOC CoS)
ACG - BG Webb (formerly at AFSOC)
Man, I hate to be the a-hole in the room, but has anyone seen a body?
How about a photo with a 7.62mm hole in a forehead?
I'm not near a SIPR or an intel brief, but we had pics of Uday and Qusay within hours. Why not this time?
No disrespect to our brothers that probably killed his ass dead, but does anyone else have a wierd feeling about this?
SC
You aren't going to find anything on the SIPR ref. this msn. Uday and Qusay were obliterated by a conventional army unit using TOW missiles in broad daylight after a long barricade situation. This mission is in a whole different class... legendary...
Any chance that the hero's will be identified at some point? I suspect not considering the profile of their target and their secretive nature in general. Even though these guys don't do the job they do with hopes of earning medals or recognition, you can't help but want to acknowledge and praise the men who achieved this victory.
Trust me, these men would rather not be singled out. They aren't in it for accolades or recognition. They've been responsible for literally thousands of EKIA (none of which have garnered nearly the fanfare of this Op) and are happy to remain in anonymity.
I just hope our patriotic OSD civilians don't leak the operational details while chasing a moment of press glory.
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Here are additional links to open source articles on this topic:
http://thecable.fore...osama_bin_laden
The timeline of the mission to kill Osama bin Laden
Posted By Josh Rogin Monday, May 2, 2011 - 2:45 AM Share
The mission to kill Osama bin Laden was years in the making, but began in earnest last fall with the discovery of a suspicious compound near Islamabad, and culminated with a helicopter based raid in the early morning hours in Pakistan Sunday.
"Last August, after years of painstaking work by our intelligence community, I was briefed on a possible lead to bin Laden. It was far from certain, and it took many months to run this thread to ground," President Obama told the nation in a speech Sunday night.
"Today, at my direction, the United States launched a targeted operation against that compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan. A small team of Americans carried out the operation with extraordinary courage and capability. No Americans were harmed. They took care to avoid civilian casualties. After a firefight, they killed Osama bin Laden and took custody of his body," he said.
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http://www.npr.org/2...aden-was-hiding
Did Pakistan Know Where Bin Laden Was Hiding?
by Alan Greenblatt
Credit: NPR
text size A A A May 2, 2011 Gen. Ashfaq Kayani, the Pakistani army chief of staff, spoke to cadets at the Kakul Military Academy on April 23.
"The terrorists' backbone has been broken and, inshallah [God willing], we will soon prevail," he said in his speech, which was broadcast on state television.
The fact that Osama bin Laden was living roughly a mile away from Kakul in a fortified compound has proved embarrassing both for the Pakistani military and for its civilian government, calling into question whether they knew about his presence in Abbottabad — or how they could have failed to know.
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I second Summerlin - it puts you just minutes away from Red Rock Canyon.
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Here is the direct link (until they move it) to the folder containing the IRC MQF. You will need access to the AF Portal to access this link.
Full URL is: https://www.my.af.mil/afknprod/ASPs/docman/DOCMain.asp?Tab=0&FolderID=OO-ED-SA-01-3&Filter=OO-ED-SA-01
I will update the links on the baseops.net home page and internal pages soonest.
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This is a significant difficulty when:
- Manning comes from a wide range of platforms and a wide range of experience, many of which have no core knowledge of CAS, ISR, or the related disciplines, and
- Personnel are only in the platform for a very short, temporary tour, which makes a VERY steep learning curve for the crews and a challenge to maintain corporate knowledge in the organization.
I concur; the 100% RFF manning for this program poses many problems - this program was definitely not dealt a good hand of cards. Back when the concept of this program was still on paper-only, I wondered how this would evolve. When CDR AFSOC did not express interest in resourcing/manning/owning this program and it was handed over to ACC, followed immediately by the Message stating there would be no PCS, and all manning would be single rotations... I knew this platform would not be interoperable with its SOF Air counterparts in theater.
One of the biggest advantages to the way we did (and still do) business is the establishment of long-term relationships between the SOF Air (whether it be ISR or other mission set) and the "user" on the ground. Training with the same people back in garrison, seeing the same faces on VTC at home and deployed, multilat training, and of course the many, many rotations supporting the same teams leads to a comfort level with you as a person, your unit, and your platform. I'm not sure how to overcome this one without completely changing the manning for the unit.
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1.) Regarding this platform and anything else that even remotely infringes on the OPSEC "grey area" -- we have a Baseops site on the SIPR side... and not long ago I added a ton of stuff on this platform. When in doubt, go on the Red LAN.
2.) As far as your customer not knowing what your platform can do (capes) - that can only be overcome by closely marrying your unit (supporting force) with your user/customer. This means close integration, sitting side-by-side with your customer, spending as much time learning/listening/studying their CONOPs as you do mission planning on the aircraft side, and building relationships (which will be hard to do with one-and-done rotations by the aircrew). How do I know what I am talking about? I did that mission 6 years ago - the one that spawned the current generation of platforms.
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Instead of a poll, I want to solicit some detailed feedback.
1. I'd like to find out what (if any) online resources folks are using to help them write OPR/EPRs for themselves and/or subordinates. I know of www.afwriting.com and a few other resources, but did not know if/how people use them.
2. What are some items in your "wish list" of elements to include in an online resource (e.g. adding to an OPR/EPR site that already exists or when creating a brand new site)?
Apart from the obvious benefits, often we can generate the basic bullet, but are lacking the "zinger" of an introduction - or need a better push-line - or in second/third year of a Joint Staff Tour, your OPR is becoming a bit "stale". I am curious to find out what resources are out there and how we can (if at all possible) better our current processes.
v/r
BASEOPS
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Not sure how many have been tracking the recent personnel changes. With the nomination of Gen Clapper to DNI from his role as USD(I), a vacancy was created. As expected, ASD/SOLIC Vickers was recently nominated by POTUS to the position of USD(I). Mr. Vicker has a storied SF background and has been a longtime supporter of USSOCOM while in his ASD position.
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From wired.com
Remember that nerdy-let-lethal kid from the Tom Hanks biopic about the U.S.'s proxy fight in 80s-era Afghanistan, Charlie Wilson's War? That's Michael
Vickers, a longtime Special Forces and CIA guy. Last night, President Obama quietly nominated him to one of the Pentagon's highest offices. Call it a trend: in the last few months, architects and advocates of stealth wars against terrorists have risen to the highest levels of the intelligence community. Pending Senate confirmation, Vickers will be the next Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence. It's a powerful job, responsible for all Pentagon intelligence assets, which represent nearly 90 percent of the $75 billion intelligence budget. For the last three years, it's been two jobs in one, doubled up as the Director of National Intelligence's top man in the Pentagon. And history suggests that wherever Mike Vickers goes, aggressive counterterrorist activity goes with him."He enjoys the trust and confidence of the secretary and deserves this big promotion," says Geoff Morrell, Defense Secretary Robert Gates' spokesman. "He's
obviously someone Secretary Gates has known for years and years, going back to their days at the CIA, and they've worked very closely together." Hanks's movie (based on George Crile's book) might have taken some liberties with Vickers' character. But his background in covert action is unparalleled for a public figure. He served over a decade in Special Forces in the 1970s before joining the CIA. In the 1980s, Vickers hunted terrorists in Lebanon with a CIA "operational task force" and played a leading role for the agency in the 1983 invasion of Grenada. That was all before he became the "principal strategist" for what he later described to Congress (PDF) as "the largest and most successful covert action program in the CIA's history": the U.S.-supported Afghan insurgency against the Soviets. During that time, he became tight with a certain senior CIA official named Robert Gates.
When Gates took over the Pentagon in December 2006, it wasn't long before he roped Vickers in. Since mid-2007, Vickers has been Gates' deputy for overseeing the Special Operations community, a behind-the-scenes job that's become central to counterterrorism and, in Morrell's words, "an increasingly important portfolio of this department." One of Vickers' first tasks was to draw up a strategy for hunting al Qaeda's affiliates beyond Iraq and Afghanistan, something aides jokingly called the "take-over-the-world plan." Next, he prevailed upon Gates to elevate irregular warfare to a core military function. As Vickers told Congress in 2007, "We are in a long irregular war that requires U.S. Armed Forces to increasingly adopt indirect, unconventional and clandestine approaches."
He meant what he said. An August expose in the New York Times about the U.S.' undeclared wars in Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia named Vickers as an architect and noted, "the Pentagon is becoming more like the C.I.A." And Vickers is in good company. In August, James Clapper, the previous Pentagon undersecretary, became the new Director of National Intelligence, nominally the leader of the intelligence community. Unlike his predecessor, Dennis Blair, Clapper is, as CBS News described him, "a big supporter of increased use of drones." A few weeks before, over at the CIA, John D. Bennett, the former head of CIA quasi-military operations - with some secret dabbling in drone activities- took charge of all CIA spying operations. These three appointments reflect an unannounced shift that the Obama administration quietly made at the end of 2009. As a backstop to the counterinsurgency war in Afghanistan, Special Operations leaders pushed for a leading role in going after extremist and insurgent enclaves on the Afghanistan-Pakistan border. "Every single night they are banging on these guys with a pace and fury that is pretty impressive," an anonymous administration official told Bob Woodward for Obama's Wars. (Even General David Petraeus, previously not a fan of body counts, has bragged about the intensity and lethality of the Special Forces raids.) And they're a supplement to the CIA's cross-border Pashtun proxy force and intensified drone campaign. As Woodward reports, President Obama decided that the public doesn't need to know that he ordered cross-border operations into Pakistan, reasoning that "all hell would break loose" if he came clean about the U.S. war in Afghanistan's neighbor and the U.S.' "Major Non-NATO Ally." But if intense, undeclared war against terrorists is what you want, it makes a lot of sense to promote Vickers- and Clapper, and Bennett.
Morrell says there isn't yet a pick to succeed Vickers as the assistant secretary of defense for (deep breath) special operations, low-intensity conflict and interdependent capabilities. And while Clapper and Gates have yet to determine if the Pentagon undersecretary for intel will remain the Director's chief of defense intelligence, Morrell adds, "from our perspective, there is no need for that arrangement to change." Representatives from Clapper's office didn't respond to requests for comment.
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The Lion, the Starfish and the Spider
by Chief Warrant Officer 3 Bruce E. DeFeyter
“You can’t always get what you want, but if you try sometime, you just might find you get what you need.”1
Today policy-makers, law-enforcement officials and military leaders struggle to come up with innovative ideas for neutralizing terrorist organizations and their activities. One such idea, not given much thought until after Sept. 11, is attacking terrorist financing structures, methods and sources.2
Attempting to destroy terrorists by denying them financing or interrupting their money stream is unlikely to succeed as a sole point of effort for at least three reasons. First, organizationally, terrorists are structured to slip behind, around and underneath centralized organizations, rules and bureaucracies. Second, terrorist organizations can conduct operations for literally pennies on the dollar, and any serious effort to interrupt these financially insignificant activities will have serious second- and third-order effects on the larger financial community. Third, even with the thousands of laws enacted and the historically unprecedented cooperation between partner nations, terrorism continues to escalate by nearly every conceivable measure.3 Bluntly put, counterterrorism financing reform simply doesn’t work.
This is not to say that the United States and the larger worldwide community should ignore terrorist financing — instead, it should take a different approach, using the lion, the African predator, as a model. In order to understand the predator model, we need to define who our enemy actually is and understand the three reasons given above for the failure of financing reform. Only then will we be able to structure a more effective mechanism for interdicting terrorist organizations through their financing rather than by trying to starve them out of existence.
Define the enemy
In any conflict, it is imperative to understand exactly who the enemy is. It is generally understood that terrorism is a tactic and not an organization or group. Consequently, if we do not further define the enemy beyond a tactic, we risk fighting this war alongside other ill-defined wars declared on poverty, drugs, cancer and obesity. Therefore, for the purpose of this paper, a terrorist is better defined as a nonstate actor, someone who acts on the international stage outside the knowledge or permission of the state to which he or she owes allegiance. The quintessential nonstate actors are Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda.
The nonstate actor is the ultimate persona non grata, operating across country lines and boundaries, restricted by nothing but conscience. By definition, nonstate actors do not have a state (or legitimate authority) to report to and can be involved in criminal activities, such as selling drugs, smuggling weapons or, of course, terrorism. Primarily, nonstate actors remain behind the scenes and out of sight of the state, emerging only to make demands, threats or attacks.
Ori Brafman and Rod Beckstrom, authors of the book The Starfish and the Spider, also define and classify most nonstate actors as decentralized organizations. It is this organizational definition that will illuminate a significant difficulty in attempting to attack a nonstate actor.
Current game
Brafman and Beckstrom note several interesting “rules” about decentralized organizations, which they call “starfish.” First, “When attacked, a decentralized organization tends to become even more open and decentralized.”4 In plain language, an already dark and secretive organization, when attacked, becomes more dispersed and darker; meaning that it becomes exponentially harder to find.
Furthermore, the increased decentralization does not affect the organization’s performance — in some scenarios, performance actually improves. Granted, there might be some “trophies” captured in the attack, but the larger organization continues to exist in a more nebulous fashion. Furthermore, the starfish, operating in a more open environment, are more capable of mutating.5 That mutation allows starfish to adapt and change more quickly than centralized organizations can react by passing laws or effective legislation. Finally, and more ominously, smaller, autonomous, decentralized organizations have a habit of sneaking up on centralized organizations, or spiders.6 That effect has been noted separately by Jeanne K. Giraldo and Harold A. Trinkunas, who observe, “A decentralized, networked al-Qaeda composed of self-funded cells is more flexible and less vulnerable to attack.”7
The second major reason that financing reform will not work is that there has never been a single case of a terrorist organization that ceased to exist as a direct result of financing problems. This is due, in no small part, to the fact that nonstate actors conduct operations for literally pennies on the dollar. Thomas J. Biersteker and Sue E. Eckert note several high-profile terrorist operations and their associated costs, such as the 2002 Bali bombings ($20,000-$35,000); the 1998 U.S. Embassy bombing in Africa ($50,000); the 1993 World Trade Center bombing ($18,000); and more recently, the 2004 Madrid attack, estimated to have cost less than $10,000.8
Simply put, the cost of any single one of these operations could have been bankrolled by an average middle-class American family. Imagine the difficulty, complexity and absurdity of attempting to pass legislative and financial laws that can distinguish between a nonstate actor bent on terrorism and an American family taking out a loan to purchase a recreational vehicle or a home. Giraldo and Trinkunas deal with the issue squarely: “The truth is that such small amounts cannot be stopped,” no matter how badly we wish otherwise.9
Finally, the third reason for change is obvious — the 2007 report from the National Counterterrorism Center noted a steady increase in terrorist events, even excluding operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.10 This increase is in stark contrast to the decrease in the number of terrorists assets being frozen. “In the 16 weeks after the 9/11 attacks, 157 suspected terrorism fundraisers were identified, and assets valued at $68 million were frozen. The numbers fell after the initial rush by authorities. The totals for 2005 — $4.9 million frozen in the accounts of 32 suspects or organizations — suggest the effort is losing intensity.”11 As stated above, counterterrorism financial reform has been and is failing. These statements are consistent with the theory described and articulated by Brafman & Beckstrom. Therefore, armed with theory and facts, why do we insist on pursuing a method that is clearly failing?
Predator model
Since it is difficult, if not impossible, to pass financial or legislative laws that will starve nonstate actors into inactivity, is there another way? As stated earlier in the paper, the African predator model might be a better choice and strategy for dealing with terrorists and their money. The African male lion, with his pride, patrols an area of more than 100 square miles. Often, the pride will stake out a watering hole in the knowledge that sooner or later, dinner will have to come for a drink. As the prey drinks water, the lions position themselves along the exit route and “cherry pick” dinner off the trail. Could we not use money the same way to lure nonstate actors into our sights?
The predator model would have several advantages. First, it would use money to our advantage by illuminating and possibly destroying a dark network, without disrupting average American families. Second, money can serve as a means of centralizing starfish and thus making them more vulnerable to attack by traditional law-enforcement mechanisms. Third, it would overcome the problems noted earlier with attempting to “starve” nonstate actors into nonexistence.
Less than two weeks after 9/11, President George W. Bush noted, “Money is the lifeblood of terrorist operations,” and a few days later, Gordon Brown, then-finance minister for Great Britain, echoed that sentiment: “If fanaticism is the heart of modern terrorism, then finance is its lifeblood.”12 So if money acts as the lifeblood of terrorists, why can’t we use that to our advantage by taking the analogy further?
Imagine that a terrorist organization is like a human body, with its different elements acting as the heart, brains, legs and arms. Most dark networks will employ a series of cutouts and security measures to isolate and protect the organization from penetration. The only common thread throughout the organization is money. It flows from the collectors to the brains and outward to the limbs, and it identifies people associated with the organization by their very contact with it. Instead of automatically shutting down financial ties when they reach arbitrary thresholds of $10,000, why not monitor, investigate and infiltrate the organization through its money stream? Instead of making modern banking methods risky for terrorists, we should make the banking systems of the U.S. and partner nations attractive and encourage terrorists to come to our “watering hole.”
That technique would have several advantages. First and foremost, we would control the playing field and rules, as opposed to Third World hawallas (debt transfers) and other traditional financial methods. The rules that we control do not have to be made public, and we could institute random measures that would vary on a daily or weekly basis, requiring banks to submit names, accounts and activities to a central database for further investigation.
Second, we should not disrupt terrorist financial networks when we discover them. Instead, we should use our system of banking to trace the money as it comes into accounts and to see where it is transferred and who is accessing it, thus using money to illuminate a potentially dark network. This illumination would then give military and police forces the surgical precision to remove “cancerous lesions” instead of randomly seizing property and accounts by arbitrary activity and associations. Third, this illumination would generally provide intelligence agents with access points for penetrating the organization through distributors, suppliers and trainers in order to gain access to the network’s plans and intentions.
Another significant reason for encouraging nonstate actors to use our financial networks would be that it would give us the ability not only to monitor financial activity but also to set up financial deception operations designed to degrade terrorist networks. Joel Garreau, author of the article “Disconnect the Dots,” suggests that there are different ways of fighting terrorist networks.
Garreau makes the first point by recognizing that networks are not built along the lines of physical infrastructure. Instead, “they are political and emotional connections among people who must trust each other in order to function.”13 Trust is the key point of attack in a network — not the leadership, and certainly not the finances. “There’s no reason organizational glitches, screw-ups, jealousies and distrust that slow and degrade performance can’t be intentionally introduced.”14 Money might be one of the easiest ways to do just that. Accounts that are suddenly flush with money — or conversely, empty — could and will cause friction, as individuals attempt to explain unusual activity. Tensions would gradually build until the unity that was previously taken for granted would be ineffectual, as the group would have to sort out issues of trust and betrayal, thus turning the network in on itself. >Top
Caveats
Clearly, there would be some stipulations with regard to encouraging nonstate actors to use our financial networks. First, if the organization we are investigating knows that it is being monitored through its financing, the game is up, and we will need to send in police, lawyers and bankers to arrest, collect and seize what they can before the terrorists disappear. Secondly, and more challenging, the network would have to be exposed when it is ready to commit catastrophic operations that would result in the loss of life and or property. The trick would be to determine what thresholds need to be established in order to safeguard lives. Will the U.S. need to intercept the nonstate actor before it detonates a small bomb with no expected loss of life? These are the questions policy-makers and law-enforcement agencies will need to grapple with early on in the investigation in order to deal with them as they occur.
Risks
The current practice of freezing assets is virtually without real peril. Freezing assets, as well as legal and financial reforms, reward politicians and law-enforcement officials with the illusion of success — it provides headlines, figures and what appear to be results. Yet, as noted earlier, the very organizations that are supposedly the target of the reforms continue to exist and even flourish. The predator model is not without risks. It would be an extraordinary politician who would publically admit that a terrorist group that was being monitored had committed an act of violence on their watch. The public backlash could unseat all but the most stable or successful politicians. Next, much of what goes on would be done in secret, and accolades would have to be given anonymously as “tips” that brought down the terrorists. Again, very few political establishments are willing to take on that kind of risk without some political recognition for their actions when things go right. Finally, if money was introduced into terrorists’ accounts in the attempt to destabilize the network, as Joel Garreau suggests, the average citizen might not be so understanding, especially if the terrorists were able to carry out a successful operation under the eyes of the very people who put it there. However, it might be prudent to remember the adage, “With great risk comes a great reward,” and realize that the current game, with little to no risk, carries no reward at all.
Conclusion
Terrorism is increasing,15 in spite of a plethora of legal and financial efforts enacted to control it.16 This is due, in no small part, to the relatively tiny amounts of money it takes to launch spectacular attacks.17 According to the authors of The Starfish and the Spider, our very efforts to attack decentralized networks might be contributing to their proliferation and success.18 Because current methods are failing, it is only prudent that we change strategies in an attempt to thwart nonstate actors and their intentions. Because terrorists seem to have a preference for using our financial networks, why can’t we use that weakness to our advantage by centralizing them through the predator model outlined here?
The predator model allows terrorists to use our financial systems, like prey at a watering hole. The only difference is that we need to enact a series of random checks and triggers to identify suspicious movement. Once that movement has been identified, it can be turned over to investigative services who will try to trace the organization rather than arrest individuals for prosecution. Since we control the banking rules and methods, we might even be able to insert a question of trust into the network by inserting funds into various accounts or deleting them. That course of action would carry some caveats and some risks. In the end, it would be better to take that new course of action than to continue spending disproportionate sums of money on a method that has been proven to fail.
Notes:
1 Mick Jagger and Keith Richards, “You Can’t Always Get What You Want,” 1969.
2 Jeanne K. Giraldo and Harold A. Trinkunas, “Terrorist Financing: Explaining Government Responses,” in Jeanne K. Giraldo and Harold A. Trinkunas, eds., Terrorism Financing and State Responses: A Comparative Perspective (Palo Alto, Cal.: Stanford University Press, 2007), 283.
3 Adam Blickstein, Global terror increasing, says US state department (30 April 2008), (http://www.democracyarsenal.org/2008/04/global-terror-i.html) Accessed 25 May 2008.
4 Ori Brafman and Rod Beckstrom, The Starfish and the Spider: The Unstoppable Power of Leaderless Organizations (Portfolio Hardcover, 2006), 21.
5 Brafman and Beckstrom, 40.
6 Brafman and Beckstrom, 41.
7 Jeanne K. Giraldo and Harold A. Trinkunas, “The Political Economy of Terrorism Financing,” in Giraldo and Trinkunas, eds., Terrorism Financing and State Responses, 16.
8 Thomas J. Biersteker and Sue E. Eckert, Countering the Financing of Terrorism (New York: Routledge Press, 2008), 6.
9 Nikos Passas, “Terrorism Financing Mechanisms and Policy Dilemmas,” in Giraldo and Trinkunas, eds., Terrorism Financing and State Responses, 31.
10 National Counterterrorism Center, 2007 Report on Terrorism (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 2008), 36.
11 Kevin Johnson, “U.S. freezes fewer terror assets,” USA Today, 30 January 2006. (http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2006-01-29-terror-freezes_x.htm) Accessed 12 September 2008.
12 Craig Whitlock, “Al-Qaeda Masters Terrorism On the Cheap,” The Washington Post, 24 August 2008 (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/08/23/AR2008082301962_pf.html). Accessed 11 September 2008.
13 Joel Garreau, “Disconnect the Dots,” The Washington Post, 17 September 2001: C1.
14 Garreau.
15 National Counterterrorism Center, 2007 Report on Terrorism.
16 Whitlock .
17 Biersteker and Eckert, 6.
18 Brafman and Beckstrom, 21.
This article was written while Chief Warrant Officer 3 Bruce E. DeFeyter was a student in the Warrant Officer Advanced Course at SWCS. He is assigned to the 3rd SF Group. He has served on ODA 3123 and ODB 3120 for six years as the assistant detachment commander, detachment commander and company operations warrant during three rotations to Afghanistan in support of Operation Enduring Freedom. He has also served at the JFK Special Warfare Center and School as a doctrine writer assigned to the Directorate of Training and Doctrine. Mr. DeFeyter holds a bachelor’s in management and administration from Excelsior College in Albany, N.Y., and a master’s in defense analysis from the Naval Postgraduate School, Monterey, Calif.
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Wall Street Journal
September 18, 2010
The Weekend Interview
How the Surge Was Won
America's longest-serving general in Iraq says that when they realized the U.S. presence in their communities was permanent, allies came 'out of the woodwork.'
By DAVID FEITH
On Sept. 10, 2007, Gen. David Petraeus climbed the steps of the U.S. Capitol to testify that the surge in Iraq was succeeding. Already derided by MoveOn.org as "General Betray Us," he was lambasted by then-Sen. Hillary Clinton for his testimony's "willing suspension of disbelief."
On Sept. 10, 2010, Gen. Raymond Odierno—Gen. Petraeus's main partner throughout the surge—sits in a New York hotel room and reports matter-of-factly that in today's Iraq "sectarian violence is almost zero."
What a difference three years makes.
"Yes, there's still some terrorism but it's not insurgents anymore," says Gen. Odierno. "In 2004, '05 [and] '06 you had an open insurgency against Iraq as a whole. It was many different groups fighting to really decide what Iraq's future will be. We're beyond that now—I think people know where Iraq is moving."
Gen. Odierno has served in Iraq longer than any other general—including 40 of the past 46 months. He recently completed his tour as U.S. commander in Iraq, where his final task was to draw down U.S. forces to 50,000 troops and hand nationwide security responsibility over to the Iraqis. On Sept. 1 the general ceded command of the remaining U.S. troops—six brigades whose mission is "advise and assist," rather than combat—to Gen. Lloyd Austin.
Now on leave from the Army, the general will become commander in mid-October of the Joint Forces Command in Norfolk, Va. So in his midtown Manhattan hotel suite, he's wearing his "civvies" (civilian clothes): running sneakers, plaid shorts and an Under Armour polo shirt. At six-foot-five with a bald, bullet-shaped head, he's an imposing figure—if somewhat less so than when he appears on television with four stars on his shoulders and 35 years of decorations on his chest.
In typically reserved military fashion, he doesn't talk of U.S. "victory" even as he readily elaborates on Iraq's great promise. Gen. Odierno served his first tour in northern Iraq's so-called Sunni Triangle, as commander of the Fourth Infantry Division from March 2003 to April 2004. The high point came in December 2003, when soldiers from the division captured Saddam Hussein hiding in a spider hole near his hometown of Tikrit.
There were low points, though: The Sunni Triangle had a high volume of Saddam loyalists, so Gen. Odierno's division faced fierce resistance. It earned a reputation for aggressive tactics including indiscriminate arrests and abuse of detainees. In an extreme case, some soldiers from the division allegedly handcuffed two detainees together and forced them into the Tigris River, reportedly causing one to drown. The goal, soldiers said, was to establish authority and gain control.
By the time the surge was devised in 2006, the U.S. military considered such behavior a potent—and avoidable—recruiting tool for the insurgency. The surge "shows we learned to adapt, to change. We changed our organization, we changed how we were equipped, and we changed how we did our operations—all while in contact [with the enemy]. That's an incredible feat," says Gen. Odierno.
A key principle of the surge was that the soldier's task is ultimately to protect the Iraqi population, not to hunt the enemy at all costs. Such thinking derived from counterinsurgency pioneers like the French colonel David Galula and was synthesized for the modern U.S. military in a field manual authored primarily by Gen. Petraeus in 2006.
"In 2007 I would go out and Americans would show up in a community where they hadn't been in a while. For the first three days, no one would talk to any of the Americans," he recalls. "But as soon as they started setting up their base—usually meaning they put T-walls around a couple buildings—[iraqis] would come out of the woodwork. Why? Because when they saw the T-walls go up they knew it was gonna be somewhat permanent, that [the Americans] were going to stay . . . not just gonna come through here for a few days and leave us and we'll be slaughtered."
So how should the U.S. determine when is best to withdraw forces—and what does the surge suggest about the effectiveness of setting withdrawal deadlines? "I think," says the general before a long pause, that making deadlines "conditions-based is important because you really do have to constantly assess to determine what really is going on on the ground."
Asked how the experience in Iraq bears on U.S. policy in Afghanistan, he adds: "With Iraq it was a little different. We actually had a signed agreement that set up these deadlines." In the case of the Afghan surge, of course, the White House has unilaterally set a withdrawal timeline beginning in July 2011.
Iraq's surge was perhaps most crucial for successfully allowing national politics to take hold. Today, as Gen. Odierno tells it, Iraq's remaining violence is far less significant than the democratic, nationalistic consensus that has emerged nationwide. "Every Iraqi I talk to has a strong belief in democracy and how important it is for Iraq because of what they've been through."
What about the constant specter of foreign influence? "Everybody I talk to, I mean every political leader, every military leader, every citizen—and if you're there living and reading their newspapers and what they're saying—it's very clear they want to be their own country. They don't want anybody—the United States, Iran, anybody—telling them what to do." Eighty-five percent of Iraqis believe Iran is trying to harm their country, he says, citing polls commissioned regularly by the U.S. military and embassy.
Nonetheless, Iraq remains unable to form a government more than half a year after national elections didn't yield a clear winner. Gen. Odierno predicts a governing coalition will emerge by October because Ramadan has ended and Iraqi politicians are feeling that "it's really time to do this." He believes that Iraqis "have bought into the political process" and are waiting for their government to "start moving forward," but they remain at risk of becoming disillusioned.
It's a serious warning. Though it seems trifling compared to what Vice President Joe Biden offered the day before in a little-noticed interview with the New York Times. Asked about Iraq's political jockeying, Mr. Biden—the Obama administration's point-man on Iraq—volunteered that what troubles him is the prospect that if there's no new government in six months, the Iraqi military may decide to intervene: "My worry will be that generals in the [iraqi] military will start saying: 'Wait a minute, which way is this going to go?' . . . I worry then that it goes from right now everybody saying, 'Salute Iraq' to 'Whoa, let's figure this out.' And what is now a unified command" would splinter.
"The worst-case scenario is that you have fracturing of the military," Gen. Odierno says in response. "That said, we've seen none of that so far. In fact the thing I've been most pleased with is how the military has remained neutral . . . although this is new to them, going through this democratic process."
A moment later, the general returns to the positive. "I think sometimes we don't realize the importance of Iraq in the Middle East as a whole," he says. "A strong, democratic Iraq with a developing economy could really be a game-changer in the Middle East."
But, he cautions, Iraq won't be transformational by December 2011—the month U.S. troops are due to leave the country, according to the U.S.-Iraqi status of forces agreement. "It's going to be three to five years [after 2011] for us to figure out if this is going right and if it's what we want," he says. "There's a real opportunity here that I don't think the citizens of the United States realize. I really truly believe there's an opportunity we might never get again."
So as the U.S. mission in Iraq moves forward, what should vigilant Americans watch for?
That specter again: foreign influence. But with a twist. In the future, says Gen. Odierno, "I think they'll try to do it economically more than through violence. What happens if Iran and others are able to impact economic development inside of Iraq through political and other connections?" Watch whether parliament gives the green light to private business investment, he advises.
For all our talk about Iran, though, Gen. Odierno is guarded and vague regarding the Islamic Republic's pursuit of a nuclear weapons capability. Has Tehran's ability to influence Baghdad over the past seven years risen and fallen together with the strength of its nuclear program and its stature on the international stage? The general answers that the mullahs' nuclear program actually "hurts them" since "it makes people want to do what they can to ensure that they don't get this capability"—hence closer U.S. relations with Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and Jordan.
As for how the possibility of Iran becoming a nuclear power affects U.S. and Iraqi defense planning, the general offers something of a nonresponse about the importance of developing the U.S.-Iraqi partnership "along several different lines—security, technology, education, economic development." It all sounds like confirmation—indirect, of course—that, notwithstanding the brilliance of the surge, an Iranian nuke would be a game-changer in the region and far beyond.
The general is more willing to discuss—and dispute—the common charge that the Iraq war was a victory for Iran because it removed Tehran's main counterweight. "The assumption that it was a good thing how Iran and Iraq balanced each other is not a good assumption," he says. "They might have balanced each other but how they balanced each other . . . [caused] significant instability in the region." Although Gen. Odierno doesn't say it, Saddam Hussein's rivalry with Iran led him to keep up the fiction of having active chemical and biological weapons programs—an approach that helped bring on a war that has cost scores of thousands of Iraqi lives and more than 4,100 American ones.
"We always forget that we did rid them of Saddam Hussein, and I think Saddam Hussein could have been a real danger down the road," says Gen. Odierno about how the Iraq war affected U.S. national security.
"Secondly, the fact that al Qaeda was targeting Iraq to be the center of their caliphate in order to carry forward terrorism around the world: They failed . . . Now Iraqis are rejecting al Qaeda. Now we have a very important Middle Eastern country who is rejecting terrorism."
Gen. Odierno says that the moment he first thought a surge could work was in December 2006, when he learned that seven of Anbar Province's 13 tribes had decided to fight al Qaeda and join the political process. Fitting, since counterinsurgency doctrine emphasizes the imperative of earning the trust and support of the local population.
But trust earned must become trust maintained. That's the challenge going forward. Already some senior Iraqi leaders are suggesting that the U.S. drawdown is overly hasty. Lt. Gen. Babakir Zebari, the chief of staff of the Iraqi joint forces, said last month that "the U.S. army must stay until the Iraqi army is fully ready in 2020." Ayad Allawi, the leading vote-getter in March's election, recently agreed: "It may well take another 10 years," he told Der Spiegel.
Gen. Odierno says he isn't surprised by such comments. He adds: "If the new [iraqi] government comes on board and says we still think we need some assistance beyond 2011 . . . I think we'll listen."
Mr. Feith is an assistant editorial features editor at the Journal.
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Sorry folks, I've been off the radar this week. IT guys are working this. VPS was exceeding its memory... Thanks for the patience.
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That's far enough. Please discuss the frivolous lawsuit; don't bother speculating about the unit in question (or the identity/mission of any SOF unit for that matter).
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I've mailed out the Baseops.net neck lanyards to all that have contributed so far.
The offer still stands - neck lanyards to all that are willing to spend a bit of time helping me edit/refine the above sections of the site. Any little contribution is welcomed. I'll even attribute your name/unit on the particular webpage if you like.
Still looking for a clear optic on the Little Rock C130 FTU (see above questions). Mahalo!
v/r
Baseops
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Anyone willing to help edit the Little Rock C-130 FTU Page? See above...
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Fellas, thanks for the help.
Please keep the edits coming - I will send out Baseops.net Neck Lanyards (Black and Silver) to anyone that contributes; please PM me your mailing address...
Still looking for a fine-toothed comb redo of the Little Rock 130 Schoolhouse, specifically:
1.) How many different syllabi are there for Pilots, and what are their differences
2.) How many sim rides and how many pro sorties/tac sorties prior to check
3.) Any other significant differences in the flow of the course and/or pre-requisites that must be done prior to arriving
4.) Lodging issues / changes to regulations (on or off-base, etc.)
Thanks in advance!
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Thanks for helping to contribute. I know it is a pain in the ass to edit documents - sounds almost like work! But without your support, we can't keep the site current and able to assist future aviators behind us.
VA Loans
in General Discussion
Posted
I just wanted to revive this topic. We are deep into the summer PCS season and Dan Stevens is still eager to help answer any VA Loan questions anyone may have.