Home | Columns | Media Watch | Reports | Links | About Us | Contact

MEXIDATA . INFO
Column 012207 Brewer

Monday, January 22, 2007

Modify Training to Counter a Shadowy Enemy

By Jerry Brewer

Nations throughout the Americas, indeed the entire free

world, must guard against the silence of indecision.
Leaders of nations can become accomplices to war and
terrorism through inaction alone. Battle lines are
becoming increasingly invisible due to a hidden
shadowy enemy virtually attacking from small cellular
enclaves.

The current enemy is one that does not wear a uniform

nor carry or display a flag. However, driven by
fanatical ideology and an intense hatred for Western
culture, they are known for their expertise, intricate
preparation, ambitious attacks and ruthlessness. Too,
their preference is for symbolic targets, and they thrive
on world media attention in the form of smoldering
rubble in New York City, beheadings, sniper videos, and
improvised explosive device (IED) explosions.

Unlike what could be described as traditional war, in

which battle lines consist of infantry, artillery, air strikes
and naval warfare, this enemy generally chooses the
time and location of engagement. This from concealed
urban settings with a planned method of cowardly
escape, much like violent criminals operating within an
urban environment.

Liberating Iraq, initially, was a swift, proficient and

classic military action of decisive force. Sweeping
through scarcely populated, rural and urban populated
Iraqi territory, Saddam Hussein’s army, elite guard
commandos and special forces were no matches to a
superior coalition military force. Previous to this, Iraq
had undergone an enormous military expansion.
This was reminiscent of the “Six Day War” of 1967, in
which Israel defeated the armies of Egypt, Syria, Jordan
and an Iraqi expeditionary force.

Generally, a pattern of military expansion reflects a

nation or government’s security priorities, either
offensively or defensively.

Baghdad is a city of 6 million people. Although

strategic and decisive force quickly seized and
neutralized the Iraqi-Hussein leadership, applying force
selectively to curb and contain sectarian violence and
terrorist acts in an urban environment, and avoiding
collateral damage, has been a nightmare.

It is clear that this enemy poses new challenges and

serious threats to all free nations. Both the United
States and Israel have recently shown that they are far
behind in readiness capabilities to proactively engage,
contain and neutralize the threat posed by these non-
military combatants.

Training levels appear deficient in deploying tactics

within urban settings such as military “force
protection,” surveillance detection techniques, counter
surveillance, and route and site analysis. Threat
assessments via security matrix preparation appear to
be weak or nonexistent.

The Israeli Defense Force’s ground forces command

recently announced that it is going to overhaul its
training, and expand a guerilla warfare school in
response to reported problems their army experienced
in fighting Hezbollah combatants in Lebanon last
summer. Militants, armed with sophisticated weaponry
supplied by Iran and Syria, killed over 100 soldiers
during the 34-day war. Israel will increase their overall
training by 40 percent, create a unit to study Hezbollah
and Palestinian militia tactics, and open an urban
warfare-training center in southern Israel.

In addition to the expansion of military training, police

throughout the world must be prepared to interdict and
serve in post-military operations. This in cases like
Somalia, where government troops aided by Ethiopian
forces recently were sent in to recapture a strategic
southern town that had been seized by a powerful
Islamic movement.

In past decades it was reported that the Soviet Union

and its surrogates provided weapons and terrorism
training, as well as sanctuary, for a worldwide terror
network aimed at the destabilization of Western and
democratic societies. Cuban DGI and Russian KGB
intelligence instructors provided the expertise, and
today the world is well represented by the skills,
knowledge and abilities of those terror and paramilitary
experts.

The CIA’s founding of its Counterterrorism Center was a

strategic and proactive initiative targeting covert
terrorists on foreign soil who may be within reach of the
U.S. However, the CIA does not have the agenda or
capability to fight on a battlefield, urban or rural, so
police and the military must become adaptive to these
new demands.

Remaining passive with vagueness and vacillation, or

retreating or abandoning a strategy for victory, places
the international community at great risk. Firmness,
decisiveness and resolve are mandates. Iraqi
politicians, police and judges are heroes who represent
justice. They continue to fight the fight for democracy.
Public opinion must gain some long-term vision. We
cannot afford to wait for the final truth. It is
permanent.

——————————
Jerry Brewer, the Vice President of Criminal Justice
International Associates, a global risk mitigation firm
headquartered in Miami, Florida, is a guest columnist with
MexiData.info. He can be reached via e-mail at
Cjiaincusa@aol.com.