The Class A Cows
27-05-2004, 06:15
Im no logistics expert and i probably have no clue what im talking about, but i feel these things are pretty obvious nonetheless.
OUTSIDE OUR BORDERS
A) Counter-Terrorism is a police action, not a military action.
The people we deal with are about as far from the cutting edge as they come and very few of them can effectively engage in much along the lines of intelligent planning by the looks of it, weve seen bomb plots foiled by terrorists who couldnt agree on DST and blowing themselves up en route to bomb deposits, an attempt to make an "HIV Bomb" (HIV does not survive outside the body,) and suicide attacks. The way this should be done with is capture, subjugation, and control. They are to be treated as criminals rather than fighters, which makes more sense than this entire "urban warfare" ordeal were going through. They dont have the equipment and training to justify wasting resources on military tactics, and our waste might benefit them. What seems to be happening now is that a burnt out tank is left for scrap as our other forces go off fighting, seiging, and bombarding, needlessly damaging a lot more than they actually wish to hit. More ideal would be a scenario like this: 3 APCs enter the city, some highly trained USA soldiers enter a structure and flush out the resistance, killing or disabling whoever they cannot capture peacefully, and always offering the option of surrender rather than just blowing up city blocks with attack helicopters. And if such a force is neutralized by chance, our equipment should not be left available, reinforcements should be sent immediately and come down like a hammer to insure that our enemies are not allowed to celebrate their small victory. The USA needs to do everything in its power to demoralize this enemy, and its current "war on terror" is only feuling them, even if it is killing off their training bases and crippling their infrastructure, the cost to the USA is too high to justify. The way to deal with these people is to gain total control of the situation, and, if we cant get that, we at least should aim for the illusion.
B) Torture isnt all bad
Torture in its full effect is not ideal, but im sure that we can lighten what we consider acceptable just a bit so that we can get the information we need to save lifes and keep areas stable. We dont need to horribley mutilate people but we know that techniques like sleep deprivation and invasion of privacy works on neurally normal people, and does cause them to break after a while of this type of torture. And, considering who we are dealing with, painful toxins or something along those lines might be acceptable. Openly acknowledged torture accepted by our military as ideal will lead to intimidation and demoralization since capture will now be an extremely feared outcome. And some people WILL speak to us and reveal information. This can be used to help us precisely stop tradgedies before they happen, and we should not underestimate its value.
C) Bribery is even better
We have already done a pretty good job at this, information can be acquired by offering rewards to former resistors or informants, such as diplomatic immunity, money, or citizenship in the USA or a consenting allied power. This would have several beneficial effects, one being that we secure a relatively permanent informant depending on the situation, another being that our enemies will now have more reason to suspect one another since there are very tangilible rewards for betrayal of their cause. Also, we wont have to torture those who take these rewards, another big plus. Not all of these people will accept such rewards, given, but those who do need to know that it will be worth their effort and that we will be as trustworthy as they are to us, regardless of the fact that this inherently involves a betrayal and change of sides.
D) Re-eduaction, propaganda or not, works nicely too
Its perfectly concievable to re-educate the captives who consent on the cultures from various parts of the USA and other countries of the west who many of these claim to be fighting and create programs devoted to sympathy and understanding of diffrent cultures... brainwashing like this probably wont work well but it might cast a better light on our actions than our current appearance to most of the world. Granting valid educational materials and/or propaganda to the communities occupied with US forces is something which might quite possibley be well recieved and might garner some support. The prior in particular will prove to be a pretty useful supply for people undergoing a lot of stress and trouble due to the chaotic nature of counter-terrorist activity in urban environments.
E) Support local infrastructure and attempt to commune peacefully with civilians
American forces should cooperate completely to try and keep the civilians in their area happy and safe, which is an almost impossible task, but will definitely create less resentment in the area. USA forces should be given advice on how to behave in order not be be culturally offensive to the people they are dealing with. They should be guarding civilian structures in person, with what should be training as POLICE FORCES focused on KEEPING THINGS CALM plainly visible, rather than their current jumpy, combative, and apparently very cruel state. They should also spend their time on the job not spent fighting on building infrastructure and aiding in community projects, and should recieve the training for this. This would also be good for when they retire, since they will have a large pool of experience and acquired abilities from working on various diffrent tasks. This integration should be close and very strictly enforced in terms of discipline on our own troops.
F) Infantry is important.
Air Power is a USA strength that cannot be underestimated. In normal warfare we should employ it with great vigor. However, as precise as modern munitions are, in urban environments we wont be able to rely on this as much unless we view this as a military action and wish to destroy a force of comparable power (like what we are currently wastefully doing to a force of far inferior power.) The USA should instead focus on creating fast armored vechiles to allow safe transport of deployments of infantry to secure and occupy hotspots in which there was fighting, or where intelligence indicates that there is something deserving of investigation. Men on the ground are not as likely to accidently hit the wrong targets and they can VID anything pretty quickly, as well as move about inside structures and manipulate things with their own two hands. We have already been doing this, just in a fashion that is really stupid and wrong. As a last note, an infantry man can fire a beanbag shotgun at one target, getting a new captive to interrogate and posing no threat to surrounding civilians.
G) Learn to tell allies from enemies
Can we really trust Pakistan? Can we really trust Saudi Arabia? The obvious answer is no, so we should act now to make sure that they will have little to throw at us once hostile groups possibley seize control of their military technology for their own purposes. Im sure nobody wants to see Pakistani government trying to cover up the disappearance of a nuclear missle. Although the sympathetic executive governments are probably good to have, we really should have our puppets or our intelligence be a thorn in their sides and make sure that a non-sympathic most-of-the-rest-of-the-country is kept a close eye on. Ive heard that the USA has already been training Isreali intelligence to destroy some Pakistani munitions. If this is true, then i commend our government for doing something very intelligent for a change.
AT HOME: WHAT CHANGES WE SHOULD DO TO HOW WE LIVE
A) Increase the ability of intelligence to mobilize local police, without allowing the reverse.
If a terrorist threat is indentified within our borders by our organizations devoted to (counter-)intelligence and national security, they should be able to notify any police division anywhere in the country and mobilize them within hours to immediately act to attempt to remove the infestation. Its quite possible some of the attacks that followed 9/11 (Dirty Bomb attempt, Anthrax Mailings, bomb plots on the west coast and elsewhere,) could have been (better and sooner) prevented by allowing for this streamlined ability to act on new information about domestic threats. However, allowing police to tell intelligence what to do is ABSOLUTELY UNACCEPTABLE. It will waste man-hours and allow for some extremely intimidating micromanagement and police opression, which i DO NOT wish to see happen to this country.
B) Mandatory training is good
Why not make public schools into military acadamies? USA youths tend to have a saddening lack of discipline and tend to be quite unfit, i myself am a walking example of this unfortunatley, and i now wish i had the regiment to have been made into someone otherwise. We should always be prepared to fight and use armaments, its not too much to ask, you never know when it might be needed. This way people who wish to jion the military voluntarily will also have most of the tools they need by the time they finish their public education. I know this will cost a lot but this will be beneficial for all Americans. Discipline and Regiment are very positive and its best to make sure discipline is gained early rather than when ex-students are failing at life/college and suddenly have to reform themselves.
C) CUT MANPOWER, TRAIN IT BETTER
We no longer need traditional infantry, in the situations we are using them they need training for special operations anyway and in the situations where they would be useful we can rely on more effective means of attack. We should focus on intense training of a much smaller number of men who can be deployed quickly to occupy and secure areas infested with terrorist threats. Im confident that if all our forces were trained to the same extent our special forces are, perhaps more, we would have had significantly less trouble in our occupation phase. Also, costs of paying those men, as little as they are payed, is high. It could be better spent trying to develop newer technologies to increase our efficiency in the environment rather than pay people to goof off, get shot at, and shoot back killing more than the people they were supposed to. Im sure a lot of the forces deployed there are perfectly confident but when 9/11 struck we were pretty fat and happy from relative peace and we still are, unfortunatley. Its time that we get more of a grip and fight more tenaciously and vicously than ever before.
OUTSIDE OUR BORDERS
A) Counter-Terrorism is a police action, not a military action.
The people we deal with are about as far from the cutting edge as they come and very few of them can effectively engage in much along the lines of intelligent planning by the looks of it, weve seen bomb plots foiled by terrorists who couldnt agree on DST and blowing themselves up en route to bomb deposits, an attempt to make an "HIV Bomb" (HIV does not survive outside the body,) and suicide attacks. The way this should be done with is capture, subjugation, and control. They are to be treated as criminals rather than fighters, which makes more sense than this entire "urban warfare" ordeal were going through. They dont have the equipment and training to justify wasting resources on military tactics, and our waste might benefit them. What seems to be happening now is that a burnt out tank is left for scrap as our other forces go off fighting, seiging, and bombarding, needlessly damaging a lot more than they actually wish to hit. More ideal would be a scenario like this: 3 APCs enter the city, some highly trained USA soldiers enter a structure and flush out the resistance, killing or disabling whoever they cannot capture peacefully, and always offering the option of surrender rather than just blowing up city blocks with attack helicopters. And if such a force is neutralized by chance, our equipment should not be left available, reinforcements should be sent immediately and come down like a hammer to insure that our enemies are not allowed to celebrate their small victory. The USA needs to do everything in its power to demoralize this enemy, and its current "war on terror" is only feuling them, even if it is killing off their training bases and crippling their infrastructure, the cost to the USA is too high to justify. The way to deal with these people is to gain total control of the situation, and, if we cant get that, we at least should aim for the illusion.
B) Torture isnt all bad
Torture in its full effect is not ideal, but im sure that we can lighten what we consider acceptable just a bit so that we can get the information we need to save lifes and keep areas stable. We dont need to horribley mutilate people but we know that techniques like sleep deprivation and invasion of privacy works on neurally normal people, and does cause them to break after a while of this type of torture. And, considering who we are dealing with, painful toxins or something along those lines might be acceptable. Openly acknowledged torture accepted by our military as ideal will lead to intimidation and demoralization since capture will now be an extremely feared outcome. And some people WILL speak to us and reveal information. This can be used to help us precisely stop tradgedies before they happen, and we should not underestimate its value.
C) Bribery is even better
We have already done a pretty good job at this, information can be acquired by offering rewards to former resistors or informants, such as diplomatic immunity, money, or citizenship in the USA or a consenting allied power. This would have several beneficial effects, one being that we secure a relatively permanent informant depending on the situation, another being that our enemies will now have more reason to suspect one another since there are very tangilible rewards for betrayal of their cause. Also, we wont have to torture those who take these rewards, another big plus. Not all of these people will accept such rewards, given, but those who do need to know that it will be worth their effort and that we will be as trustworthy as they are to us, regardless of the fact that this inherently involves a betrayal and change of sides.
D) Re-eduaction, propaganda or not, works nicely too
Its perfectly concievable to re-educate the captives who consent on the cultures from various parts of the USA and other countries of the west who many of these claim to be fighting and create programs devoted to sympathy and understanding of diffrent cultures... brainwashing like this probably wont work well but it might cast a better light on our actions than our current appearance to most of the world. Granting valid educational materials and/or propaganda to the communities occupied with US forces is something which might quite possibley be well recieved and might garner some support. The prior in particular will prove to be a pretty useful supply for people undergoing a lot of stress and trouble due to the chaotic nature of counter-terrorist activity in urban environments.
E) Support local infrastructure and attempt to commune peacefully with civilians
American forces should cooperate completely to try and keep the civilians in their area happy and safe, which is an almost impossible task, but will definitely create less resentment in the area. USA forces should be given advice on how to behave in order not be be culturally offensive to the people they are dealing with. They should be guarding civilian structures in person, with what should be training as POLICE FORCES focused on KEEPING THINGS CALM plainly visible, rather than their current jumpy, combative, and apparently very cruel state. They should also spend their time on the job not spent fighting on building infrastructure and aiding in community projects, and should recieve the training for this. This would also be good for when they retire, since they will have a large pool of experience and acquired abilities from working on various diffrent tasks. This integration should be close and very strictly enforced in terms of discipline on our own troops.
F) Infantry is important.
Air Power is a USA strength that cannot be underestimated. In normal warfare we should employ it with great vigor. However, as precise as modern munitions are, in urban environments we wont be able to rely on this as much unless we view this as a military action and wish to destroy a force of comparable power (like what we are currently wastefully doing to a force of far inferior power.) The USA should instead focus on creating fast armored vechiles to allow safe transport of deployments of infantry to secure and occupy hotspots in which there was fighting, or where intelligence indicates that there is something deserving of investigation. Men on the ground are not as likely to accidently hit the wrong targets and they can VID anything pretty quickly, as well as move about inside structures and manipulate things with their own two hands. We have already been doing this, just in a fashion that is really stupid and wrong. As a last note, an infantry man can fire a beanbag shotgun at one target, getting a new captive to interrogate and posing no threat to surrounding civilians.
G) Learn to tell allies from enemies
Can we really trust Pakistan? Can we really trust Saudi Arabia? The obvious answer is no, so we should act now to make sure that they will have little to throw at us once hostile groups possibley seize control of their military technology for their own purposes. Im sure nobody wants to see Pakistani government trying to cover up the disappearance of a nuclear missle. Although the sympathetic executive governments are probably good to have, we really should have our puppets or our intelligence be a thorn in their sides and make sure that a non-sympathic most-of-the-rest-of-the-country is kept a close eye on. Ive heard that the USA has already been training Isreali intelligence to destroy some Pakistani munitions. If this is true, then i commend our government for doing something very intelligent for a change.
AT HOME: WHAT CHANGES WE SHOULD DO TO HOW WE LIVE
A) Increase the ability of intelligence to mobilize local police, without allowing the reverse.
If a terrorist threat is indentified within our borders by our organizations devoted to (counter-)intelligence and national security, they should be able to notify any police division anywhere in the country and mobilize them within hours to immediately act to attempt to remove the infestation. Its quite possible some of the attacks that followed 9/11 (Dirty Bomb attempt, Anthrax Mailings, bomb plots on the west coast and elsewhere,) could have been (better and sooner) prevented by allowing for this streamlined ability to act on new information about domestic threats. However, allowing police to tell intelligence what to do is ABSOLUTELY UNACCEPTABLE. It will waste man-hours and allow for some extremely intimidating micromanagement and police opression, which i DO NOT wish to see happen to this country.
B) Mandatory training is good
Why not make public schools into military acadamies? USA youths tend to have a saddening lack of discipline and tend to be quite unfit, i myself am a walking example of this unfortunatley, and i now wish i had the regiment to have been made into someone otherwise. We should always be prepared to fight and use armaments, its not too much to ask, you never know when it might be needed. This way people who wish to jion the military voluntarily will also have most of the tools they need by the time they finish their public education. I know this will cost a lot but this will be beneficial for all Americans. Discipline and Regiment are very positive and its best to make sure discipline is gained early rather than when ex-students are failing at life/college and suddenly have to reform themselves.
C) CUT MANPOWER, TRAIN IT BETTER
We no longer need traditional infantry, in the situations we are using them they need training for special operations anyway and in the situations where they would be useful we can rely on more effective means of attack. We should focus on intense training of a much smaller number of men who can be deployed quickly to occupy and secure areas infested with terrorist threats. Im confident that if all our forces were trained to the same extent our special forces are, perhaps more, we would have had significantly less trouble in our occupation phase. Also, costs of paying those men, as little as they are payed, is high. It could be better spent trying to develop newer technologies to increase our efficiency in the environment rather than pay people to goof off, get shot at, and shoot back killing more than the people they were supposed to. Im sure a lot of the forces deployed there are perfectly confident but when 9/11 struck we were pretty fat and happy from relative peace and we still are, unfortunatley. Its time that we get more of a grip and fight more tenaciously and vicously than ever before.