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J A N U A R Y 2 0 1 5 V O L 5 5
President’s Message
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Chapter 16 Newsle er Organiza on and Responsibili es:
Editor: Glen Craig Sec ons:
Message from the President: Dave Shell Treasurers Report: Kevin Pa on Sec. Rpt (Staff Mee ng Minutes): Paul Bagshaw Sick Call/Obituary: Chaplain Butch Hall Blast from the Past: Glen Craig Special Recogni on: Paul Bagshaw Upcoming Events: Paul Bagshaw Calendar: Dave Shell Human Interest Story: Chapter at large SFA Na onal HQ Update: Dave Shell A er Ac on Report: Jim Lessler Membership Info: Roy Sayer Adver sements: Glen Craig
Suspense:
Newsle er published (Web): 1st of each odd numbered month Input due to editor: 20th of each even numbered month Dra due to President: 27th of each even numbered month Final Dra due 29th of each even numbered month
New Year’s Eve 2004 “Dressed to Kill”
Happy New Year! As always, New Year’s is a me of reflec on, and this New Year’s Eve my thoughts are of a day 10‐years past when my ODA was working out of Firebase Gardez in eastern Afghanistan. Gardez is a mid‐sized Afghan city of approximately 70,000 residents, located in a river valley standing at nearly 7,600 . above sea level. I’m sure it hasn’t changed since, but the roads were unpaved and po ed, the buildings constructed mostly of cob (mud), basic plumbing and wastewater management was non‐existent, and the popula on at the me is best described as contrary. They were a people for whom daily life was a constant struggle due to poverty, bi er cold, hunger, illness, and oppressive overlords, major and minor. In those days the provincial office for the United Na ons High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) was located in the heart of the city. The UNHCR consisted of a mul ‐na onal staff manned by ci zens of Europe, Asia, Africa, and North America. I don’t recall that there were any Americans on the UNHCR staff, but such was the nature of the coali on; we did the figh ng, and most everyone else did the infrastructure development. I do recall that shortly a er arriving in Gardez the UNHCR was quick to reach out to us, which surprised me, because of a common delusion among both official and non‐official en es abroad (to include the US State Department) that close associa on with the US military somehow put them at greater risk of violence. In any event, I quickly learned why the warm welcome. Gardez, as described above, was less hospitable to the UNHCR than it was even to us. For starters, they had no
security, neither plans nor trained personnel; they had no means of logis cal support, save for a budget that was by design intended to boost the local economy; and they were o en viewed by the indigenous popula on with suspicion, because they were an intrusive element of power opera ng in the midst of a very rigid tradi onal power structure. The reality was that the UNHCR needed us. They needed us to run to their aid in the event of a ack, either at their compound or while they were moving around the province. They also needed plugged into our weekly threat assessments, which they especially valued as they had no other reliable means of knowing when and where they might be at risk. Lastly, they needed food, because Gardez had very li le available, and what they did have was usually not to the liking of foreigners. Ini ally, I invited them to our Firebase for Christmas dinner where we dined on lobster and steak with all the trimmings, and laid out a dessert bar that was excep onal given the austere environment. There were quite a few notables in a endance, to include the provincial governor, Hakim Taniwal, who was murdered by the Taliban in September 2006 at his official residence in Gardez. The UNHCR folks were greatly impressed, some even no ceably moved by the feast, having had not much more than mu on for some me. Of course, no good deed goes unpunished, and a erwards they insisted that we join them for a New Year’s Eve party at their compound. A er accep ng, they begged us to provide the groceries. Out of pity we agreed. Most would think that popping over to a li le celebra on just a few miles away would be the simplest of tasks, but they know nothing of the military bureaucracy involved in moving from Point A to Point B. Our slice of the event had to be managed like any other opera on outside the wire, to include security while at the UNHCR compound, QRF, coms plan, ba le drills, etc. We took half the team, leaving he other half to secure the Firebase, and set out a er dark. For a New Year’s Eve the city was eerily quiet, with not a reveler anywhere, and mostly dark. The main thoroughfare was trafficked with commercial lories we called “jingle trucks”, because of their intricate and elaborately colored facades spor ng chains dangling in a manner that caused them to chime as they moved. The temperature was a balmy minus 10°F, but was nowhere near the coldest we experienced that winter. We arrived at the compound to a very warm welcome by the UNHCR Deputy Director, and proceeded to liven up the evening in a manner that was in keeping with the best tradi ons of SF A‐Teams opera ng downrange. In the process, we were able to co‐opt several important key leaders, extending our reach throughout the province. It would have been nice to really cut loose that night, but given the circumstances it was an unacceptable risk, so we departed about 0130 and headed back to the Firebase. The movement was uneven ul and upon return we conducted the post‐mission on the vehicles and went to bed knowing that we could sleep in a bit. While not the most raunchous New Year’s Eve I ever spent, it stands out in my mind for its extremes: 1) it was the best armed I ever was at New Year’s Eve party; 2) it was the farthest from home; 3) it was a ended by folks from more than a dozen na ons and offices, local and interna onal, and they all spoke English; 4) there was an alcohol prohibi on for US military personnel per General Order #1 (no so for civilians); 5) a er li le more than one month on the ground we were able to establish ourselves as important and relevant players in the security of the province; and lastly, 6) I was there, sharing that experience with my ODA. Need I say more? De Oppresso Liber!
Dave
Aurburn Veteran’s Day Parade November 8, 2014
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Menton Days and Menton Ball
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Specula on as to the date of Jesus’ birth; dates back to the 3rd century, it was Hyppolytus (170‐236) who first claimed that Jesus was born on December 25. The earliest men on of an observance on December 25; was in the year of 336 highlighted in the Philoclian Calendar, represen ng Roman prac ces. Later, John Chrysostom of An och; born in 348 favored December 25 as well as the same date of birth of Jesus. Bishop Cyril of Jerusalem was also born in Jerusalem (315) and he had access to the original Roman birth census, which also documented that Jesus was born on the 25th of December. So the date eventually became the officially recognized date for Christmas in part because it coincided with the pagan fes vals celebra ng Saturnalia and the winter sols ce. The church offered people a Chris an alterna ve; to the pagan fes vi es and eventually reinterpreted many of their symbols and ac ons in ways acceptable to Chris an faith and prac ce. December 25 has become more and more acceptable; as the birth date of Jesus. However, some argue that the birth occurred in some other season, such as in the fall. Followers of this theory claim that the Judean winters were too cold for shepherds to be watching their flocks by night. History proves otherwise; however, and we have historical evidence that unblemished lambs for the Temple sacrifice were in fact kept in the fields near Bethlehem and guarded by shepherds during the winter months. With that said; it is impossible to prove whether or not Jesus was born on December 25. And, ul mately and truthfully, it does not ma er. The truth is we simply don’t know; the exact date of our Savior’s birth. In fact, we don’t even know for sure the year in which He was born. Scholars believe it was somewhere between 6 B.C. and 4 B.C. One thing is clear: if God felt it was important for us to know the exact date of the Savior’s birth, He certainly would have told us in His Word. A er all the Gospel of Luke; gives very specific details about the event, even down to what the baby was wearing – “swaddling clothes”—and where he slept—“in a manger” (Luke 2:12). These details are important because they speak of His nature and character, meek and lowly. But the exact date of His birth has no significance whatsoever, which may be why God chose not to men on it. The needed facts are these: He was born, He came into the world to atone for our sins, He was resurrected to eternal life, and He is alive today. This is what we should celebrate, as we are told in the Old Testament in such passages as Zechariah 2:10: “'Shout and be glad, O Daughter of Zion. For I am coming, and I will live among you,' declares the LORD.” Furthermore; the angel that announced the birth to the shepherds brought “good news of great joy that will be for all the people” (Luke 2:10). Surely this is the cause for celebra on every day, not just once a year. May the light and love of Christmas bring Jesus Christ’s Peace, Love, and Joy to you and yours: Amen and Amen
Love and Prayers Always; Pastor Butch
Pastor Butch’s Corner
Was Jesus Born on December 25
1st SFG Aid Sta on Dedicated in Memory of SFC Wya A. Goldsmith
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Dinosaurs Luncheon, October 31, 2014
The following members and guests were in a endance: Jim Lessler, Butch & Regina Hall, Glen Craig, Harry Lafevers, Ed & Erma Booth, Mike & Joy
Cassidy, and Ken Garcy.
J. K. Wright Memorial Breakfast, November 1, 2014
The following members and guests were in a endance: Jim Lessler (IMO Tony Green), Al Li le, Paul Hacker, Harry Lafevers, Wayne & Yoko Karvonen, Ed & Erma Booth, Ken Garcy, Mike Barkstrom, Ramiro Alonso, Nick Marvais (IMO Eulis Presley), Dennis Guiler, Butch Hall, Dave & Nipon Shell, and Johnny & Kim King. Chapter 43 members in a endance: Jerry Hampton (IMO Bruce Johnston), and Skip E nger.
J. K. Wright Memorial Breakfast, December 6, 2014
Members Present: Ted Wicoriek, Dennis Guiler, Eugene DeLaMontagne, Alvin Li le, O o Liller, Nick Marvais, Butch Hall, Roland Nuqul, John & Inge Gebbie, Rick Thomas, Glen Craig and Bud Lawson.
Dinosaur Luncheon 12/26/2014
Members Present: Steve Epplelson, Mike & Joy Cassidy, Ed & Emma Booth, Jim & Elaine Lessler and Glen Craig.
Sheepdogs: Most humans truly are like sheep
Wan ng nothing more than peace to keep
To graze, grow fat and raise their young,
Sweet taste of clover on the tongue.
Their lives serene upon Life’s farm,
They sense no threat nor fear no harm.
On verdant meadows, they forage free
With naught to fear, with naught to flee.
They pay their sheepdogs li le heed
For there is no threat; there is no need.
To the flock, sheepdog’s are mysteries,
Roaming watchful round the peripheries.
These fang‐toothed creatures bark, they roar
With the fe d reek of the carnivore,
Too like the wolf of legends told,
To be amongst our docile fold.
Who needs sheepdogs? What good are they?
They have no use, not in this day.
Lock them away, out of our sight
We have no need of their fierce might.
But sudden in their midst a beast
Has come to kill, has come to feast
The wolves a ack; they give no warning
Upon that calm September morning
They slash and kill with frenzied glee
Their passive helpless enemy
Who had no clue the wolves were there
Far roaming from their Eastern lair.
Then from the carnage, from the rout,
Comes the cry, “Turn the sheepdogs out!”
Thus is our nature but too our plight
To keep our dogs on leashes ght
And live a life of illusive bliss
Hearing not the beast, his growl, his hiss.
Un l he has us by the throat,
We pay no heed; we take no note.
Not un l he strikes us at our core
Will we unleash the Dogs of War
Only having felt the wolf pack’s wrath
Do we loose the sheepdogs on its path.
And the wolves will learn what we’ve shown
before;
We love our sheep, we Dogs of War.
Russ Vaughn 2d Bn, 327th Parachute Infantry Regiment 101st Airborne Division Vietnam 65‐66 Added Note: Our Police Officers are
More like our Sheepdogs and the
Military is more like Wol ounds who
hunt down the wolfs in their lairs.
Glen Craig
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Green Berets Took Center Stage in War to Rebuild Afghanistan
Faye eville (N.C.) Observer | Dec 16, 2014 | by Drew Brooks CAMP VANCE, Afghanistan ‐‐ Michael Sullivan was training to join the Special Forces when he and his fellow soldiers had a real‐world lesson to talk about in a food court on Fort Bragg. On Sept. 9, 2001, suicide a ackers posing as journalists assassinated Ahmed Shah Massoud, a leader of the Northern Alliance in Afghanistan. The Green Beret trainees were familiar with the ongoing conflict in Afghanistan, Sullivan said. They knew Massoud was seen as a threat to the Taliban regime. Two days later, on Sept. 11, Sullivan ‐‐ then a captain ‐‐ was signing for textbooks for his language courses when the planes crashed into the towers in New York and the Pentagon in Washington. Almost immediately, the Special Forces trainees were specula ng ‐‐ correctly ‐‐ that the a acks originated in Afghanistan. For Sullivan and thousands of other Special Forces soldiers, the a acks were life‐defining. Just days a er the terrorists struck, Green Berets from the Fort Campbell‐based 5th Group were in Afghanistan. In more than 13 years since, the Special Forces presence in the country has been a constant. Thousands of soldiers have given years out of their lives to the Afghanistan mission. Many have been wounded. Many have died. In the process, they say, they have built the founda on for a future in a country that has known decades of war. Mark Schwartz was a Green Beret major when he became one of the first American soldiers to enter Afghanistan a er 9/11. "You can imagine, you've never been to combat before and you're going to get off an aircra with yourself and about 10 of your closest friends and you're walking into an uncertain environment," he said. Now a brigadier general helping to lead special opera ons forces in Afghanistan, Schwartz said he and his team flew into northern Afghanistan from Central Asia to organize and assist the an ‐Taliban forces. The element's reports were sent to the secretary of defense nightly and provided the "ground truth" for leaders eagerly watching Afghanistan. One key in the days a er 9/11, Schwartz said, was ge ng A‐teams into Afghanistan before a poten ally brutal winter set in. "It was pre y dang chao c, even where I was at," Schwartz. "There was a lot of uncertainty and nervousness, I'd say," he said. "The leadership is what made the difference. "We really didn't know anything. We knew we were going to fly into a certain loca on and link up with an interagency team and they were going to introduce us to our Afghan counterparts, and then we just basically figured out the rest as we went," he added. "And it went very well." Schwartz recalls flying into Takhar province, on the border with Tajikistan, then making his way to the Panjshir Valley near the Hindu Kush to link up with a Northern Alliance liaison team already working in the country. "I remember like it was yesterday, stepping off the aircra ," Schwartz said. The team carried limited supplies, expec ng to rely on air drops for more. "Back then, there was no (Afghan) army," Schwartz said. "Really, all their equipment was predominately Soviet, and it was le over from the Soviet‐Afghan war and, of course, the civil war." But under the leadership of the Special Forces teams, the an ‐Taliban mili as swept across the country, libera ng Kabul and moving east to Tora Bora. Those early months of the war had some welcome surprises, he said. As the first A‐teams coordinated air support and began killing Taliban fighters, mili a leaders realized how the U.S. teams could help them. "The call for more Special Forces teams came pre y quick," Schwartz said. But there was only so much air support to coordinate. A‐teams and Air Force special tac cs airmen had to help the Afghans priori ze their offensives. "We didn't have enough resources to provide it everywhere," Schwartz said. "That made some commanders unhappy." But s ll, Green Berets were seen as an important commodity. "No mili a commander wanted to be the first guy to get a Green Beret killed," Schwartz said. "They were very protec ve." He said he and his fellow Green Berets did not wear uniforms in the early days of the campaign. "We tried to blend in as best we could. And they welcomed us into our their homes. . The Afghans took great care of us." Those early opera ons established the founda on for more than a dozen years of work to build security in Afghanistan. Since those first months, succeeding elements of Green Berets have led the way in pushing back the Taliban insurgents and establishing Afghan forces sufficient to carry the fight into the future. As Opera on Enduring Freedom ends and U.S. forces draw down, the Green Berets will con nue to bolster the Afghan forces. "From the present looking back, we've got a lot to be proud of," Schwartz said. "Green Berets have led the effort from the very beginning." But nothing happened overnight. Schwartz said Green Berets slowly built up the regular army before turning that training and equipping mission over to conven onal coali on forces.
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They then focused on working with regional or local mili as, forming police agencies to combat the Taliban in rural areas. In late 2006, then‐Col. Edward Reeder made the decision to create Afghan army commandos, an elite group similar to Special Forces that has become the pride of the country, according to new Afghan President Ashraf Ghani. The first 100 commandos ‐‐ those who would later serve as the leaders for the commando school ‐‐ were trained in Jordan. "We did this really smart," Schwartz said. "We started by building the schoolhouse." Schwartz and other leaders, including Reeder ‐‐ now a major general commanding NATO Special Opera ons Component Command‐Afghanistan ‐‐ said the mission in Afghanistan was and is perfect for Special Forces soldiers. The Green Berets are trained specifically to work with local forces, to teach them to carry the fight. Col. Robert Wilson, the leader of 3rd Special Forces Group and the last commander of the Combined Joint Special Opera ons Task Force‐Afghanistan, cites the example of the Afghan Local Police. The units, built to fight insurgents in rural Afghanistan, changed the course of the war, he said. "No ma er how many opera ons, we didn't seem to get any trac on," he said of efforts before the crea on of the Afghan Local Police. "The Afghans and we didn't have the ability to saturate the en re country with personnel. The Afghan Local Police really changed the security dynamic." Re red Col. Stu Bradin, president and CEO of the Global SOF Founda on, which advocates on behalf of special opera ons forces, said the war in Afghanistan could have gone very differently if not for Special Forces. "We took the country down in 65 days," he said. Afghanistan showed the poten al for special opera ons, he said, leading to expansion of the forces over the past decade. During the Cold War and earlier, special opera ons were a side show, Bradin said. But Afghanistan put them and the work they are trained to do at center stage. "It's a different world. You have to use the indigenous partners," he said. "If you're doing the figh ng for them, it won't work." Bradin also heaped praise on the efforts to train and develop the Afghan commandos, whom he called the heart and soul of the Afghan military. "Tac cally, a lot of them are as good as any American," he said. Without the commandos, the war in Afghanistan would likely be in a much different place, Bradin said. "It'd be Saigon," he said. "We'd be hanging off helicopter skids leaving." As a member of the 3rd Special Forces Group, Sullivan ‐‐ the trainee captain at the me of the 9/11 a acks ‐‐ has seen his career wrapped around the Afghanistan mission. Sullivan, now a lieutenant colonel and commander of the 3rd Ba alion, 3rdSpecial Forces Group and Special Opera ons Task Force‐Afghanistan, didn't have to wait long for his turn in Afghanistan. By April 2002, just weeks a er Sullivan joined his Special Forces A‐team, he was in the country helping establish the Afghan Na onal Army. "There was no exis ng Afghan army at that me," he said. "We moved into Kabul Military Training Center and started bringing in the new recruits." Sullivan said his team ran something similar to basic training, teaching infantry skills. "It was challenging in the sense that we were in the middle of the start of the war," Sullivan recalled. "A lot of stuff was happening around us, around Kabul and around the country. And we had to focus on trying to stand up a nascent army." As a trainee before 9/11, Sullivan had expected to spend most deployments in Africa, the 3rd Group's focus. He studied French. "I would have never thought this was where the majority of my career would take me to this point," he said. As for his French, Sullivan said he has used the language only once, when a French patrol asked to stay the night at his Special Forces compound. Sullivan said he spoke the language he had been trained in for two minutes before his French counterpart called a halt. "Let's stop," he said. "My English is much be er than your French." In the early days, Kandahar city had no lights at night and Kandahar Airfield, now a sprawling coali on base, was li le more than a single airstrip "with a lot of gravel, a lot of soldiers living in tents." At Bagram Airfield, another large coali on base, soldiers were not allowed to leave the runway because so many mines were buried nearby. The transforma on since then has been "pre y phenomenal," Sullivan said. "Kabul just sort of blows my mind now," he said. When Sullivan arrived in the capital city in 2002, his team loaded onto local jingo trucks and drove to the military training center. The city was reduced to rubble, he said. And there was li le to no development between the training center and the city proper. "To see it now, whether you fly over it or drive through, it is amazing what Kabul has become in 12 years," he said. "You truly can see a change. You see it everywhere around the country."
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U.S. seeks to build lean Iraqi force to fight the Islamic State
U.S. troops train Iraqi soldiers in 2010. A er the collapse of the Iraqi army this year in the face of Islamic State forces, U.S. officials are training a smaller number of higher‐quality Iraqi units to fight the jihadists. (Khalil Al‐A'nei/EPA) By Missy Ryan and Erin Cunningham November 27
A er learning hard lessons rebuilding foreign militaries over the past dozen years, the U.S. military is shi ing its strategy against the Islamic State, choosing to train a smaller number of Iraqi soldiers rather than trying to stand up an en re army anew. At their peak, Iraqi combat forces, painstakingly built and paid for by the United States during the last Iraq war, numbered about 400,000 troops. By the me the Islamist militant group launched its advance across northern Iraq in June, the Iraqi forces had shrunk by as much as half, depleted by years of corrup on, absenteeism and decay. When the Islamic State completed its seizure of the city of Mosul, four Iraqi army divisions and another from the federal police had disappeared, shrinking the original combat force to as few as 85,000 ac ve troops, according to expert es mates. As the Obama administra on scrambles to counter the Islamic State, commanders have decided against trying to rebuild en re vanished divisions or introduce new personnel in underperforming, undermanned units across the country, according to U.S. officials. Rather, the officials said, the hope is to build nine new Iraqi army brigades — up to 45,000 light‐infantry soldiers — into a vanguard force that, together with Kurdish and Shiite fighters, can sha er the Islamic State’s grip on a third of the country. “The idea is, at least in the first instance, to try and build a kind of leaner, meaner Iraqi army,” said a senior U.S. official, who, like others, spoke on the condi on of anonymity to discuss planning. The development of a spearhead force is unlikely to address the larger decay across Iraq’s security forces and ins tu ons, a more complex, deeply rooted phenomenon that undermines the country’s stability. The force is also insufficient on its own to retake strategic ci es such as Mosul. But U.S. officials and others said the training of a smaller number of high‐quality units could enable Iraqi security forces to make significant headway against the Islamic State — supplemented eventually, U.S. officials hope, by a new “na onal guard” that could bring an array of armed groups opera ng across Iraq under provincial government control. “Before the Mosul crisis, we were living in a fantasy,” said Hakim al‐Zamili, head of the Iraqi parliament’s security and defense commi ee. “We thought the army could defend the country. We trusted them. But what happened revealed the truth to us.” The Obama administra on’s plan for repairing some of Iraq’s most serious military failings appears unlikely to change with Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel’s impending departure. Inside the Pentagon, Hagel was known as being closer to reform programs and budgetary ini a ves than to the military campaign against the Islamic State. U.S. officials blame former Iraqi prime minister Nouri al‐Maliki for the decline in the quality of Iraqi forces a er the U.S. military withdrawal in 2011. They say the Shiite leader assigned commanders on the basis of sectarian loyalty, diminishing military capabili es and undermining morale. Under corrupt leadership, payrolls were padded with “ghost soldiers” and payments issued for troops long dead — a system that not only resulted in undermanned military units but contributed to the difficulty of assessing the size and strength of the security forces. According to Michael Knights, a fellow with the Washington Ins tute for Near East Policy who has been assembling a detailed analysis of remaining Iraqi military units, army brigades that were supposed to comprise as many as 4,000 men have regularly included fewer than half that number. “There was a huge disconnect” between the military Iraq had on paper and what it looked like in reality, a senior U.S. defense official said, speaking on the condi on of anonymity.
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The problems laid bare this summer were a surprise even to those involved in the 2003‐2011 ini a ve to rebuild Iraq’s military, an undertaking that cost more than $25 billion. While an even lengthier effort in Afghanistan has paid dividends in the fight against the Taliban, Afghan forces s ll lack advanced military capabili es and are suffering high ba le casual es. The Obama administra on has been encouraged by the ini al reforms that Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al‐Abadi, who took over from Maliki in August, has made. This month, Abadi replaced more than 20 senior military commanders. He has also eliminated the commander‐in‐chief office that Maliki had established to ghten his grip on the military. How far Abadi — seeking to keep a fragile na onal unity government intact — can push those reforms is unknown. Even when the nine army brigades complete their two‐month training, those more competent troops will represent a modest share of the larger Iraqi army, which Knights es mated comprised just 36 ac ve brigades a er the defeat in Mosul. The United States also plans to train three brigades of Kurdish peshmerga forces. “Whether [the training plan] is adequate or not, it might be what’s possible right now,” Knights said. Re red Army Lt. Gen. Jim Dubik, who headed the U.S. training of Iraqi forces from 2007 to 2008, said Iraqi troops would need to progressively clear militant‐held territory, as U.S. forces did during President George W. Bush’s troop surge, but without a large U.S. ground force for support. “It’s possible, but it will take longer,” Dubik said. The vanguard force, for instance, would be smaller than what is required to retake Mosul, where hos lity toward Baghdad’s Shiite‐led government has long fueled support for insurgents. Officials hope an offensive to reclaim the city can occur in the first quarter of 2015. Army Gen. Mar n Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, has said that three divisions, or roughly 80,000 troops, would be needed to a empt an assault on Mosul. U.S. officials are backing a longer‐term Iraqi plan to restructure the army, transforming a force that was supposed to comprise 14 to 15 divisions into one of seven to eight slightly larger‐than‐normal divisions: one armored, two mechanized and five light infantry, the senior defense official said. That is in addi on to Iraqi special‐forces troops who have borne the brunt of the figh ng this year. The success of plans to create a smaller army that is focused on Iraq’s external defense will hinge on a second ini a ve, to build a “na onal guard” to provide security in Iraqi ci es and towns. Zamili said his commi ee was preparing to examine a dra of the law needed to establish the guard. An early copy of the dra law that was leaked to the Iraqi media showed the program would seek to recruit former officers from the Saddam Hussein‐era military, some of whom are believed to support the Islamic State. The ini a ve echoes a program launched in 2006‐2007, when U.S. forces helped organize Sunni tribesmen in western Iraq, and then across the country, to fight al‐Qaeda. But plans to secure a las ng Sunni buy‐in failed when promised jobs did not materialize for many of the tribal fighters, fueling resentment against Baghdad. Tribesmen coopera ng with Baghdad also have been widely targeted by militants. This me, U.S. officials say, Abadi is working to demonstrate support for Sunnis. “The na onal guard concept is designed not to repeat that mistake,” the first U.S. official said. Another senior U.S. official, also speaking on the condi on of anonymity, said that the Iraqi government has integrated a “couple hundred” tribesmen into Iraqi forces as part of a “bridging solu on” before the na onal guard can be established. Sheik Naim al‐Gaoud, a tribal elder from Anbar, expressed tenta ve support for the program: “We must have guarantees we will not be abandoned.” U.S. officials hope the program will eventually absorb Kurdish peshmerga forces and at least some Shiite mili amen. The goal is ambi ous given the likely reluctance of Kurdish or Shiite mili a leaders to cede power to the central government, and the obstacle of first ge ng the proposal through Iraq’s frac ous parliament. Fuad Hussein, a senior official in the Kurdistan Regional Government, said Iraqi Kurdish leaders are open to including Kurdish troops in a na onal guard but doubt that the plan can take root in the midst of the current crisis. “The idea is not bad, but how are you going to implement that?” he said. As the United States deepens its involvement, the growing role played by Iranian‐backed Shiite mili as remains a source of discomfort for U.S. officials. Groups such as Asaib Ahl al‐Haq and the Badr Brigade helped fuel Iraq’s sectarian bloodshed in the years a er the U.S. invasion in 2003. Although mili a ac vity subsided in recent years, the fighters have returned in force to ba le the Islamic State. The mili as have played a pivotal part in some of the few Iraqi successes. The mili amen, who analysts es mate as numbering in the tens of thousands, appear to be coordina ng with Iraqi security forces but are not under the government’s command. “We are watching it closely, and we are also sending very strong signals to Abadi that it doesn’t obviously serve Iraq’s interest to have mili as going on rampages against Sunni civilians,” the first official said. “He gets it.” Rights groups have been increasingly alarmed by reports of kidnappings and sectarian a acks by mili amen, including an August massacre in a Sunni mosque that Human Rights Watch blamed on Iraqi forces and Shiite mili amen. “Unless these mili as are reined in, it is likely that the U.S. will be perceived as suppor ng the growing sectarian divide in Iraq,” said Sarah Margon, the group’s Washington director. For now, Abadi and the United States both need the mili as to make up for shortcomings in the Iraqi military, said Ahmed Ali, an analyst with the Ins tute for the Study of War in Washington. But Iraqi officials say the new prime minister is worried about what happens “the day a er” — if and when the fight against the Islamic State is won.
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Killing Is Not Enough: Special Operators By SYDNEY J. FREEDBERG JR. on December 16, 2014 at 10:56 AM
ARLINGTON: “We have, in my view, exquisite capabili es to kill people,” said Lt. Gen. Charles Cleveland. “We need exquisite capabili es to manipulate them.” Psychological subtlety and the US military don’t always go hand‐in‐hand. Worldwide, we’ve become be er known for drone strikes and Special Opera ons raids to kill High Value Targets. But that wasn’t enough for the last 13 years of war, according to a RAND study led by well‐known special warfare expert Linda Robinson and sponsored by US Army Special Opera ons Command (USASOC), which Gen. Cleveland heads. In the future, just being great at killing will be even more inadequate against the Islamic State or Pu n’s Russia, Cleveland warned. When it comes to the subtler arts of war — from advisor work to propaganda — we’ve ed our hands with our own bureaucracy, processes, and laws. “We’ve built a great apparatus for terrorism and to some degree we’ve got to be careful that doesn’t create blind spots,” Cleveland said Friday morning during a panel discussion at RAND. “There’s a co age industry that’s built up around it [counter‐terrorism]. You run the risk of basically taking on an entrenched infrastructure” whenever you try to broaden the focus killing and capturing the bad guys, he said, but we have to try. “I don’t think we understand completely the fight we’re in,” Cleveland said. “This is unlike anything that we’ve confronted in our past.” Russia, once best known for its lumbering Red Army, has moved down the spectrum of conflict to conduct opera ons using separa st proxies and deniable “Li le Green Men.” Islamic extremists, once best known for suicide bombs, have moved up the conflict spectrum to create a quasi‐country, the self‐proclaimed Islamic State, that not only governs territory but also boasts forces capable of conduc ng major military opera ons to grab more. (Such combina ons of conven onal and guerrilla tac cs are o en called “hybrid warfare“). Both the Kremlin and the jihadis have become remarkably savvy with social media and online means of propaganda — waging what the military calls “informa on war.” In the US, though, “we’re horrible at ‘influence opera ons,'” said Cleveland. The US approach is “fractured” among mul ple special es and organiza ons, he said. Some key elements are in Cleveland’s USASOC — civil affairs, for example, and Military Informa on Support Opera ons (MISO), formerly known as psychological opera ons — while others lie en rely outside — such as cyber and electronic warfare. To the extent US forces address psychology, propaganda, and poli cs at all, we tend to do it as an a erthought. “We rou nely write a plan for kine c ac on, and buried in there is the informa on opera ons annex,” said William Wechsler, deputy assistant secretary of Defense for special opera ons and comba ng terrorism. “Many mes, it should be the opposite…. When you’re dealing with these types of adversaries [e.g. ISIL], that is o en the decisive line of opera ons.” That’s just one example of how the US es its own hands with organiza ons, processes, even laws — indeed, an en re na onal security culture — designed for a very different kind of warfare. All warfare is a clash of wills, Clausewitz famously said, but Americans tend to fixate on technology and targets, not winning — or in mida ng — hearts and minds. “We cannot confuse physical success — units defeated, objec ves taken, targets destroyed — with winning,” said Maj. Gen. Bill Hix of the Army’s Training And Doctrine Command (TRADOC). We o en overlook “the poli cal nature of war,” he said. “No physical ac on should be pursued if it is not ed to a human objec ve, an outcome where people make a decision.” Even when uncondi onal surrender is the goal, victory always means convincing the enemy to stop figh ng. The US gained a painful new apprecia on of these factors in Afghanistan and Iraq. In both, we had the dominant military role, and in Iraq, we had the legal rights of an occupying power. Today, “the problem is where the military instrument is having to be used in places where we know we’re not going to invade,” such as Yemen, Cleveland said. “That environment that is not war and it is certainly not peace.” Likewise, local partners are rarely reliable allies, but they aren’t the enemy either. Commanders need to understand the good, bad, and ugly of partners who may be corrupt, inept, or grinding their own poli cal axes on the heads of rival ethnic groups. US intelligence, however, is s ll geared to figuring out “the enemy,” defined as a clear‐cut foe. “We’re trying to get out of this,” said Cleveland, to where “you’re not spying on partners but you’ve got to know what’s going on.” Finally, in places like Yemen, the US military has to deal with not being in charge — something at odds with its take‐charge culture. “We’re riding in the cab, we’re not driving the cab. We’re hoping he takes the route we want,” said Cleveland. “We’re certainly paying the fare.” But how we pay the fare, to whom, and for what part of the journey is subject to complex legal, policy, and bureaucra c restric ons. Some funding authori es pay for training foreign forces but not, say, building them the rifle range they need to train on. Others pay for training US special operators alongside foreign partners, but only as long as the Americans get at least 51 percent of the benefit. Training authori es generally don’t allow US troops to help the locals plan for real‐world missions, let alone go out on them. Where combat advisors are allowed, their roles must be nego ated between the host government and the US country by country, case by case, and there are usually strict restric ons — o en imposed by American poli cal leaders fearful of pu ng US troops in harm’s way.
Lt. Gen. Charles Cleveland William Wechsler Maj. Gen. Bil Hix
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“Pu ng people on the ground to do this kind of work is inherently more risky than flying an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle and dropping a Hellfire, but we have to learn how to accept that risk, because this at the end of the day is much more o en the decisive line of opera on,” said Wechsler. “Authori es… are really the key,” said Wechsler, both those set in statute by Congress and those specified by Pentagon policy. The US government handles opera ons inside a declared war zone (e.g. Iraq) very differently from those outside of one (e.g. Yemen) — even though adversaries like the Islamic State and Russia deliberately blur the tradi onal lines between peace and war. “We are shoo ng behind the target in almost every case,” said Hix, because we have to grind through our methodical, outdated planning process while adversaries innovate. A new Joint Concept does away with the tradi onal “Phase 0″ through “Phase 5″ system, which conceives the world in terms of before, during, and a er major conflicts, Hix told me a er the panel. In the new world disorder, “we need those resources and authori es in what we consider to be ‘peace,”” he said. If you don’t have them, he warned, “your enemy’s playing chess while you’re playing checkers.”
US Commander Says ISIS Fight Will Last 3 Years
Dec 18, 2014 | by Richard Sisk More U.S. troops will begin deploying to Iraq in the next few weeks but it will take them at least three years to prepare the Iraqi forces to drive out ISIS, the new commander of U.S. and coali on forces said Thursday. "We're talking a minimum of three years," before the Iraqi na onal security forces would be trained and equipped, and have the poli cal backing to push the fighters of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria from their entrenched posi ons in major ci es, said Army Lt. Gen. James Terry, commander of Combined Joint Task Force—Opera on Inherent Resolve (CJTF‐OIR). He said the U.S. has launched more than 1,360 airstrikes since Aug. 8, when President Obama gave the authoriza on. Those airstrikes have put ISIS on the defensive and diminished their ability to threaten areas not already in their control. While s ll capable of moun ng a acks, ISIS's main advances have been halted and they are now "transi oning to the defense," Terry said. "I think they're having a hard me in terms of communica ng, in terms of re‐supply," he said. "I see the condi ons right now being set for a pre y stable environment, but I s ll think we're — in terms of building some of the capabili es that are required there — probably about three years down the road, minimum," Terry said. Terry said that careful prepara ons for the airstrikes were avoiding "collateral damage" and he had thus far received no credible reports of civilian casual es despite the lack of JTACs, or Joint Terminal A ack Controllers, to guide the a ack aircra . President Obama has barred U.S. troops from ground combat and limited them to train, advise and assist roles. "We have some great capability in terms of precision" even without the JTACs, Terry said. He described an air campaign that put great emphasis on first establishing the posi ons of friendly forces. "If you're not careful," Terry said, "you can strike (Sunni) tribes, you could strike Iraqi security forces, and you could create a very bad situa on." Overhead Intelligence Surveillance and Reconnaissance (ISR) piloted and unmanned aircra then relay informa on to command centers in Baghdad and the Kurdish capital of Irbil, where the ISR is then analyzed for targets and fed back to the a ack aircra , Terry said. The effec veness of the opera on was evident in the fact that "I am tracking no civilian casual es" since the start of the air campaign, said Terry, who took command of the effort to degrade and defeat ISIS in October. In an interview with the Wall St. Journal, Gen. Mar n Dempsey, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said that the airstrikes in recent weeks had killed at least three top ISIS commanders. "It is disrup ve to their planning and command and control," Dempsey told the Wall Street Journal. "These are high‐value targets, senior leadership." Rear Adm. John Kirby, the Pentagon press secretary, later put out a statement confirming that "since mid‐November, targeted coali on airstrikes successfully killed mul ple senior and mid‐level leaders of ISIS.”
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In Real Life, ‘Rambo’ Ends Up as a Soldier of Misfortune, Behind Bars By ALAN FEUERDEC. 20, 2014
Joseph Hunter, nicknamed Rambo, was led by Thai police officers a er his arrest last year. He is facing life in prison. Credit Sakchai Lalit/Associated Press
Late last year, a strike force of elite Thai police officers descended on the Baan Suan estates, a palm‐treed housing complex next to a golf course on the tourist island of Phuket. The officers’ mission was to capture the American expatriate in Villa 34: Joseph Hunter, a re red soldier wanted by his government for having taken up what law enforcement officials called a new career — as a hired killer. Within three days, Mr. Hunter, a former Army sniper with Special Forces training, was in shackles on an airplane bound for New York, where he was formally accused of managing a team of contract hit men overseas. Law enforcement officials said the group had conspired to murder a federal drug agent and a drug‐world informant in exchange for an $800,000 bounty from men they believed were members of a Colombian cartel. The case against Mr. Hunter, nicknamed Rambo, seemed to have been li ed from the latest ac on thriller. The hit was set for Liberia and, the Drug Enforcement Administra on said, the plans were elaborate; the hired killers asked their employers for sophis cated latex masks to make them look as if they were of a different race and plo ed to escape aboard a privately chartered jet. In a more shocking twist, at least for the gunmen, the supposed cartel members employing them were, in reality, D.E.A. agents se ng up a s ng. The narra ve of the assassina on plot may be hard to dispute; Mr. Hunter and his team were caught on audio and video tapes plo ng the murders. But there may be more to the story than the court filings convey. According to Mr. Hunter’s family and his lawyer — and to two federal agents, one current and one re red — the person who set the authori es on Mr. Hunter’s trail was his former boss, Paul Le Roux, a shadowy South African operator who, un l recently, was one of the world’s least known but most successful outlaws. According to the federal agents, Mr. Le Roux was an enterprising criminal who had overseen an empire in illegal guns and drugs that spanned four con nents before he turned on Mr. Hunter in an a empt to get a lighter sentence a er his own arrest. One of the agents compared Mr. Le Roux, who he said was s ll in custody, to Viktor Bout, the infamous Russian arms dealer said to be the real‐life inspira on for the movie “Lord of War.” “Le Roux is a bad guy, a very bad guy,” the agent said, speaking on the condi on of anonymity because, he said, Mr. Le Roux’s coopera on has been a secret. “He’s Viktor Bout on steroids.” Mr. Le Roux’s alleged involvement may well complicate what the D.E.A. hoped would be an open‐and‐shut case against Mr. Hunter, 49, because of the video and audio evidence. Mr. Hunter’s lawyer, Marlon Kirton, contends that his client was entrapped and would never have recruited his team of former military men if the government had not launched a s ng against him, a er the p from Mr. Le Roux. Prosecutors contend, however, that Mr. Hunter was caught on tape boas ng of having killed two people in the Philippines before the latest plot was hatched, which could complicate an entrapment defense. A empts to find a lawyer represen ng Mr. Le Roux were unsuccessful. There are no public federal documents related to his arrest or alleged coopera on, nor are there references to him in Mr. Hunter’s public court file, which notes that many files are sealed. Even before Mr. Le Roux reportedly became a government informant, Mr. Hunter’s story was an elaborate tale of interna onal intrigue — of soldiers and soldiers of fortune — that began somewhat improbably in Owensboro, Ky., a tobacco manufacturing hub two hours outside Louisville. Mr. Hunter grew up there and returned in mid‐2004 a er re ring from the Army. Not unlike many veterans, Mr. Hunter made a difficult discovery when he got home: It was hard to find civilian work he liked and that made use of the skills he had developed over two decades in uniform. “He was miserable, frustrated beyond belief,” said his sister, Karen Adams, who lives in Owensboro. Her brother, she recounted, tried to find work as a police officer and as a United States marshal, but she said he was rejected because he was considered too old at 38 even though he was in great shape from weight li ing and mar al‐arts training. In 2005, she said, Mr. Hunter reluctantly accepted a posi on as an inmate counselor at the Green River Correc onal Complex, a county prison more than an hour’s drive from Owensboro. He hated it, she said — the drudgery, the physical confinement — and lasted only 15 months. Looking for a paycheck, and the adrenaline rush of a war zone, he went back, she said, to the type of work he knew best, signing up with
DynCorp Interna onal, a private security firm. According to Ms. Adams, DynCorp sent him to Iraq, where he worked taking fingerprints and DNA swabs from company employees. Two years later, he joined another firm in Iraq called Triple Canopy, protec ng American embassy workers, she said. It was in 2009, as he became enmeshed in the chummy, macho world of contract security work, that another soldier for hire introduced him to a charisma c businessman named Paul Le Roux, according to Mr. Hunter’s sister. She said that Mr. Le Roux promptly offered her brother a job. Thus began a three‐year s nt of travel during which she said Mr. Hunter accompanied Mr. Le Roux on business trips to Brazil, the Republic of Congo, Mali and the Philippines. He was making good money, his sister said, and those who knew him seemed impressed, though perhaps a bit confused, by his glamorous new job. “All he told me was that he was guarding some millionaire on a yacht, cruising around in Africa,” said Bill Boyd, a fellow Army veteran from Owensboro and one of Mr. Hunter’s oldest friends. “The guy supposedly traded in commodi es, and Joe was ac ng as his bodyguard.” But according to the federal agents, Mr. Le Roux traded in far more than commodi es. The agents confirmed that Mr. Le Roux had been the architect of a prescrip on pill scheme, with roots in Minnesota and Brazil, in which physicians employed by him provided painkillers to be sold on the Internet. Mr. Le Roux was never named or charged in the case, but both agents acknowledged that he was an unindicted co‐conspirator and that he had provided informa on that led to the indictment of 11 people. Other authori es also had their eyes on Mr. Le Roux, who is believed to be in his 40s. In July 2011, the United Na ons accused him of spending $3 million, including almost $1 million in mili a salaries, in viola on of an arms embargo in Somalia, adding that one of his partners was also involved in a plot to cul vate hallucinogenic plants at a secret compound near the Ethiopian border. “Le Roux’s businesses were huge,” said Lachlan McConnell, a security contractor, now based in the Philippines, who is facing charges of helping Mr. Le Roux with the painkiller scheme. “He had opera ons in Manila, Hong Kong, Colombia, Africa, Brazil. It was guns, gold, drugs, you name it. It was big, really big.” It remains unclear how much Mr. Hunter knew about his boss’s por olio, but according to his own account furnished to a court‐approved psychologist, he believed that Paul Le Roux was no legi mate businessman. In the summer of 2009, Mr. Hunter said, Mr. Le Roux dispatched him to guard a merchant vessel, the M/V Captain Ufuk, that was supposedly hauling commercial cargo to the Philippines. But when Mr. Hunter boarded the ship, “he learned that weapons were to be picked up, and he began suspec ng that he was involved in an illegal opera on,” the psychological evalua on said. The evalua on added that he le the vessel just before it was seized by the Filipino coast guard. A cache of assault rifles was found on board, and officials in Manila filed charges against several people — among them employees of a company in Manila that the United Na ons said was run by Mr. Le Roux. Last week, the captain of the vessel, Lawrence John Burne, was sentenced in absen a — he had jumped bail and fled — for tax evasion related to the gun shipments, according to an online news release from the Philippines Department of Jus ce. Tax charges in the case are s ll pending against several of the defendants, including a South African na onal iden fied in court documents as John Paul Le Raux. “Joe was freaked out,” his friend, Mr. Boyd, recalled, but feared for his life if he were to quit, his lawyer said. The evalua on said that Mr. Hunter “began to suspect that, since he was the one ren ng houses and ge ng business licenses for Mr. Le Roux’s companies, he was being set up to poten ally ‘take the fall’ if the illegal arms ac vi es were discovered.” In September 2012, Mr. Le Roux was captured in a secret opera on in Liberia, the federal agents said, and was taken into custody by the D.E.A. Four months later, Mr. Hunter’s own troubles started when the D.E.A. sent two undercover agents to meet him in Thailand, posing as members of a Colombian drug cartel. According to the indictment Mr. Hunter faces, the supposed cartel members offered him a job as their “head of security,” a posi on that re‐quired him to put together a team of able men. By early March, the indictment said, Mr. Hunter had used the Internet to assemble a team: Dennis Gogel, 28, and Michael Filter, 30, both of whom had served with the German armed forces; Slawomir Soborski, a 41‐year‐old Polish veteran; and Timothy Vamvakias, 43, who had served in the United States Army. All of the men, including Mr. Hunter, have pleaded not guilty. A er giving their recruits surveillance and security work, the undercover agents in May 2013 offered them what they described as “a bonus job” — a paid assignment to kill a D.E.A. agent and a troublesome informant. “They will handle both jobs,” Mr. Hunter wrote in an email, the indictment says. “They just need good tools.” And so began a brainstorming session for the hit; Mr. Gogel and Mr. Vamvakias proposed using “machine guns, cyanide or a grenade,” according to the indictment. By midsummer, Mr. Hunter had also emailed the agents a wish list of military hardware: two submachine guns with silencers (he asked for “something small”), two .22‐caliber pistols (“these are a must”) and a .308‐caliber rifle with a scope. By the end of August, it was se led that Mr. Gogel and Mr. Vamvakias would carry out the hit. Two Liberian visas were obtained, and Mr. Hunter emailed his employers, saying that his men would arrive in Africa on Sept. 25. By the me they landed, he had already been arrested. This summer, Mr. Hunter, who faces life in prison, appeared for a status conference at Federal District Court in Manha an. His cheeks looked hollow, and his wrists were shackled to his ankles by a chain. His lawyer, Mr. Kirton, had recently returned from trips to the Philippines and Africa, where he had gone in search of informa on about Mr. Le Roux. He says he did not learn much and has rela vely li le me le to do so.
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The Gunship American Special Forces Use To Fight Terror
10:23 PM 11/10/2014 Alex Quade
Freelance War Reporter
“Let’s face it: U.S. special opera ons forces in general are going to be engaged with violent extremist organiza ons for some me,” Lieutenant General Bradley Heithold, the new commander of Air Force Special Opera ons Command (AFSOC) told a small group of reporters recently. That statement seemed to be reinforced at the Pentagon last week, when General Mar n Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, suggested that U.S. special opera ons forces may be needed to advise and assist Iraqi Security Forces (ISF) in their ba le with ISIS in Anbar Province. U.S. teams are currently based out of Baghdad and Irbil. And while U.S. SOF ground forces are involved in advising and assis ng the Iraqi forces, Air Force Special Opera ons AC‐130 gunships are among the combat aircra striking ISIS in support of those Iraqi Security Forces. In fact, Lt. Gen. Heithold said as much at the Air Force Associa on in late September, when asked how much AFSOC was involved in the conflict with ISIS in Iraq and Syria. “Well, I can’t say specifically. I don’t want to divulge opera ons like types of aircra and numbers of aircra and people, but suffice it to say, when you have a campaign against a violent extremist organiza on — which this is — when you think of the nature of that conflict over there and you think about special opera ons forces, you’ve got to think that we have a piece of the ac on,” Heithold said. “Air Force Special Opera ons Command is involved, but for me to share specifics is probably not smart for any of us. The capabili es that I bring to the fight are applicable to this par cular effort against ISIL,” Heithold added. According to CENTCOM — the combatant command whose area of responsibility includes Iraq, Syria and Afghanistan — special opera ons forces are not currently engaged in combat opera ons on the ground, with Iraqi Security Forces calling in close air support (CAS). There are no special opera ons Joint Terminal A ack Controller (JTAC) with them direc ng air strikes. “There are small numbers of advise and assist teams, but they are not in a direct combat role on the frontlines with ISF calling in airstrikes, they are based out of Baghdad and Irbil,” Major Cur s Kellogg, a CENTCOM Public Affairs Officer said. As of Nov. 6, there have been 452 air strikes against ISIS in support of Iraqi Security Force opera ons began August 8th. Of that number, 385 were U.S. strikes, and 67 were by coali on members. AC‐130 gunships are among the assets par cipa ng in the air campaign in Iraq; and they are a favorite of special operators. “We have a family of penetra ng aircra . If you think back to the history of special opera ons, our job is to infiltrate and exfiltrate — we get behind the enemy. One of our primary roles is to infiltrate and exfiltrate special opera ons teams,” Heithold said. There is a reason why Special Forces, Delta, and other government agencies — like the CIA — use AC‐130 gunships more than anyone else: their missions are mainly direct ac on with short goals, during the night. The Vietnam‐era aircra is the premier pla orm for surgical close air support of special opera ons forces on the ground. Or, as one special opera ons combat controller who asked that his name not be used, told me during one mission in Afghanistan: “AC‐130s are really good at tracking ground movements and increasing situa onal awareness. That means: you can kill shit faster, with less risk to friendlies.” But the aircra has been showing its age, and going through a series of upgrades recently. AFSOC just fi ed Hellfire missiles and laser‐guided small diameter bombs onto the AC‐130. In June, I asked then‐AFSOC Commander Lt. Gen. Eric Fiel about the upgrades to the pla orm beloved by special operators on the ground. Members of Green Beret A‐Teams, Army Rangers and Navy SEALs told me that they worried about the new pla orm having the same ba le impact. “It was a learning curve for the ground forces, because you’re used to having a bank, of you know muni ons, mostly bullets. And we started pu ng precision muni ons on it, and they said, ‘Well it’s not a gunship anymore.’ Well, the task is to provide fire support, so it doesn’t ma er if it’s bullets or precision muni ons. In the past it used to take a lot of rounds to kill our target,” Fiel said. Fiel explained with an example from the air campaign in Libya in 2011, saying there was no “hard‐target kill capability” on two of the aircra models, the H and U model. “In Libya we put U‐models in there — they’re using the 105 to take out hits on tanks, and all they did was bounce off,” Fiel said. AFSOC is now fielding the aircra with Hellfires and the laser‐guided small diameter bombs. “So, it’ a gunship plus. So there’’ a lot more firepower now on the gunship than there ever was in the past,” Fiel told me. AFSOC’s roadmap is to replace 37 legacy AC‐130H, U and W models with 37 AC‐130J Ghostriders in a single configura on with an advanced suite of sensors and precision weapons, which will provide a menu of scalable effects on the ba lefield. SOCOM, AFSOC’s combatant command, has determined that the addi onal capabili es of the AC‐130J fleet will meet the requirements of the future. “We have to upgrade and advance in technology where it is needed, while also taking advantage of what we have and sustaining it well into the future,” Lt. Gen. Heithold clarified. “As we transi on from the legacy gunships, we will maintain our combat capability by ensuring the new AC‐130Js possess the appropriate weap‐ons systems and the necessary self‐protec on systems. Addi onally, we will equip our new MC‐130J Commando II’s with the ability to conduct terrain following opera ons and the defensive systems necessary to penetrate, operate, and survive in challenging environments,” Heithold added. Editor’s note: War reporter Alex Quade has embedded with special opera ons forces on several combat missions in Iraq and Afghanistan
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during which AC‐130s provided close air support and cover fire. In the a ached video report, Quade brings you along for a ride onboard a Spectre Gunship live fire mission; it is the gunship and air crew which took care of the teams Quade was with during the fatal downing of a Chinook helicopter in Afghanistan in 2007, by a Taliban surface to air missile. That AC‐130 mission, that night in Helmand Province between Kajaki and Sangin, is cited as one of the most challenging and dangerous combat search and rescue missions in Opera on Enduring Freedom history. The 9‐hour mission began with the AC‐130 crew assuming tac cal control of 17‐separate combat aircra while clearing a pathway for SOF troops pinned down by small arms and RPG fire to secure the crash site. The AC‐130 crew stayed in posi on to silence both an ‐aircra ar llery and enemy forces engaging the SOF rescue team within meters of each other. For their ac ons, the crew received the Jolly Green Rescue Mission of the Year award in 2007.
DoD renames 'unlawful combatants' as 'unprivileged enemy belligerents' By Thomas Lifson November 28, 2014
I swear, this does not come from The Onion. Via Glenn Reynolds, Ed Morrssey, Steven A ergood and Olivier Knox, we learn that the Federa on of American Scien sts no ced: When it comes to Department of Defense doctrine on military treatment of detained persons, “unlawful enemy combatants” are a thing of the past. That term has been re red and replaced by “unprivileged enemy belligerents” in a new revision of Joint Publica on 3‐13 on Detainee Opera ons, dated November 13, 2014. But Ed Morrissey looked into the origin of this change in nomenclature, and discovered the DoD is not to blame: If anyone’s to blame for the blandifica on of nomenclature … it’s Congress. The new revision to the DoD manual brings the terminology in line with 10 U.S. Code § 948a, which provides defini ons for detainee policies rewri en by Congress to refine the military‐commission process. It provides a very precise defini on of the two classes of belligerents: (6) Privileged belligerent.— The term “privileged belligerent” means an individual belonging to one of the eight categories enumerated in Ar cle 4 of the Geneva Conven on Rela ve to the Treatment of Prisoners of War. (7) Unprivileged enemy belligerent.— The term “unprivileged enemy belligerent” means an individual (other than a privileged belligerent) who— (A) has engaged in hos li es against the United States or its coali on partners; (B) has purposefully and materially supported hos li es against the United States or its coali on partners; or (C) was a part of al Qaeda at the me of the alleged offense under this chapter. This sec on goes back to the Military Commissions Act of 2006, sponsored by Mitch McConnell, but the new terms were introduced in the 111th Congress in the NDAA for 2009. It passed in October 2009 and was signed a few days later by President Obama. The only contemporaneous discussion of this change I could find in a quick search was by Joanne Mariner at Findlaw, who dismissed it as “cosme c.” Another change was somewhat more substan al: The new law begins by tweaking the defini on of individuals eligible for trial before military commissions — most obviously by scrapping the phrase “unlawful enemy combatant,” and replacing it with “unprivileged enemy belligerent.” This is a cosme c change, not a real improvement, which mirrors the administra on’s decision to drop the enemy combatant formula in habeas li ga on at Guantanamo Bay. In addi on, the new defini on sets out three separate grounds on which a person might be deemed an “unprivileged enemy belligerent,” which vary somewhat from the grounds for eligibility included in the previous defini on. The third ground, now separate from the previous two, is membership in Al Qaeda, whether or not the member has engaged in or supported hos li es against the US. (Under the previous defini on, membership in “Al Qaeda, the Taliban, or associated forces” was relevant to the determina on of whether a person had engaged in or supported hos li es, but was not itself a dis nct ground for eligibility.) Notably, the Taliban is no longer specifically named in the new defini on. This suggests, perhaps, that the administra on is acknowledging a meaningful difference between the Taliban and Al Qaeda, and wants to leave open, at least for the future, the possibility that the Taliban is not the enemy. That might seem a li le more notable in the wake of the Bowe Bergdahl swap. It’s possible that this could provide the White House a way to press for the release of more Taliban detainees from Guantanamo Bay, but it would be a tenden ous and silly argument. Publicly, the administra on has argued that the risk from their release has disappeared by now, which is their main and most effec ve argument, even if experience has clearly proven it to be untrue — which we’ve known for years. ADDED NOTE: A history lesson. There were 3 Geneva Conven ons not just one, that made up the rules of Warfare and treatment of
Lawful Combatants and Unlawful Combatants. Unlawful Combatants now called “Unprivileged Enemy Belligerents” fall into 3 categories.
1. Spies, 2. Saboteurs, and 3. Terrorists. These Unlawful Combatants (Unprivileged Enemy Belligerents) have no rights under the Geneva
Conven ons and can be shot out of hand. During the Ba le of the Bulge In 1944, German Saboteurs in American Uniforms jumped behind
American lines and caused Havoc. All that were Caught were given a short trial to confirm who they were then they were ed to wooden
stakes and Shot by Firing Squad. They have Mo on Pictures of these mass shoo ngs.
The Supreme Court gave these terrorists the status of POW’s. According to the Geneva Conven ons, POW are held un l the end of
Hos li es. There has been no end to terrorist a acks in Iraq, in Afghanistan or anywhere else so they should be held un l Hos li es end or
shot as terrorists, not released piecemeal especially since many that have been released have returned to figh ng against us.
Glen Craig Page 15
Chapter XVI Special Forces Associa on Quartermasters Store
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We also have SF T‐Shirts, hats, jackets, SFA Flashes, SF Door Knockers, Belt Buckles, Money clips and numerous other Items of Special Forces interest.
1st SFG(A) Ar facts
The current 1st SFG(A) Commander is solici ng support from former 1st SFG(A) unit members for dona on of ar facts that could be displayed in the units Regimental Mess area at Fort Lewis. He has his PAO officer working on the project and he is asking for items that could be secured in display cabinets for viewing by guests who use the facility for ceremonies, re rements and other ac vi es. Hank Cramer is planning to donate some uniform items that his dad wore in Vietnam and others from SFA Chapter and First In Asia Associa on are pu ng out feelers to our community. If interested, please contact Major Jason Waggoner at [email protected]
Looking For Historical 10th SFG(A) Items ‐ Assistance Requested ‐ for Group Foyer POCs: SSG Ryan Sabin OR Andy Tyler Public Affairs NCOIC [email protected] 10th SFG (A) 719‐524‐4528 [email protected] We are looking for any historical items and photos that will cover the following areas. I a ached the history outline that we will be following. These items will be used in the HHC foyer and we are trying to tell the 10th SFG(A) story. ‐ 1952‐ Ac va on of 10th SFG (A) ‐ 1953‐ Bad Tolz ‐ 1954‐1955 Authoriza on of the wear of the Green Beret ‐ 1962‐ CPT Roger Pezzelle Trojan Horse Unit Insignia ‐ SF Soldiers opera ng in; western and eastern Europe, clandes ne organiza ons in England, France, Norway, Germany, Greece, Spain, Italy, Turkey, Pakistan, Iran, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia. ‐ Fort Devens ‐ JOINT ENDEAVOR and PROVIDE COMFORT ‐ Opera on Desert Storm ‐ Panzer Kaserne ‐ Task Force Viking
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I am delighted to invite you to join me in celebra ng the recent publica on of my book.
Titled
Captain Ron Flying Life’s Longitudes and La tudes
The book Explores the fascina ng life and mes of
Ron Rismon.
I am looking forward to seeing you all enjoy and
share my work.
“To Order”
Books will be sold for $66.00 + $20.00 Shipping.
Call (253) 670‐2760
Or
E‐mail: [email protected]
Page 17
