Wired News: UAV Fooled to Hide Iraq Murder
Marines acting as a death squad: sickening.
Deliberate deception operations conducted at the lowest tactical level to fool UAVs and other aerial platforms: a peek into the future of warfare - and proof that additional technology and unmanned platforms will always have difficulty replacing boots on the ground.
16 Civilians Die as U.S. Troops Open Fire in Afghanistan - New York Times
...with Strategic implications:"The shooting is a setback for American forces in Afghanistan, who have been working to contain the continuing insurgent attacks, in particular roadside bombs and suicide attacks, and win the support of the people with reconstruction and development projects. Deadly riots shook Kabul last May after American troops were involved in a fatal car crash and then opened fire on the crowd."
The Age of Individual Empowerment is going to continue to be a tough one for traditional powers.
The new MNF-I Commander's aggressive counter-insurgency strategy - focused on getting troops out into the populace in order to reduce insurgents' freedom of maneuver, increase the sense of security within neighborhoods, and stiffen the backbone(s) of Iraqi Security Forces - makes a lot of sense. If, that is, at the tactical level, soldiers understand how to carry out his mandate. Reports like these leave one wondering.
a psychological term which describes the uncomfortable tension that comes from holding two conflicting thoughts at the same time. More precisely, it is the perception of incompatibility between two cognitions, where "cognition" is defined as any element of knowledge, including attitude, emotion, belief, or behavior.
More talk of what the rash of charges against US troops means. Breakdown of discipline? I don't think so. Military attempts to dodge the Press by pushing a bunch of old cases into the light of day at once? Again, I don't believe so.
My guess? The initial investigations of Haditha (and a few others) caused various levels of command to kick into high gear and begin investigating their own actions (or, more appropriately, the actions of their subordinate units). These more thorough investigations and increased command emphasis kicked up a number of cases that had been poorly hidden - or no one had been looking since commanders all like to assume problems like this can't occur on their watch - so we're seeing them all appear 'at about the same time.' The bottom line is that you don't find what you aren't looking for.
At the same time, the US military is doing a much better job of understanding the non-kinetic side of this fight. Because of this, they are re-investigating incidents that a year or two ago might not have caught a second glance. That's a good thing. What it really indicates is the military doing a much better job of internal policing as opposed to a rash of crimes from 'burnt out soldiers.' Counter-insurgency is tough work...and it's a whole lot tougher if commanders don't understand just how different it is from a straight-up black and white fight. Once again, we're seeing the effect of the Strategic Corporal. And by that, I don't mean a junior enlisted soldier specially trained to make strategic decisions...I mean that those tactical, minute-by-minute decisions made by junior soldiers now have strategic or even grand-strategic implications...whether it's choosing to leave one Hummer to man a checkpoint, choosing to leave a weak leader in charge of a checkpoint, or shooting the wrong car approaching a checkpoint. Unfortunately, we outside of the war zone are most exposed to the actions of the Strategic Corporal when the decision is incorrect. The correct decisions allow s/he to better understand the enemy, better understand the nature of the threat, and better understand what appropriate action looks like. Those decisions lead to a more successful unit over the course of weeks, months, and years. Difficult to track in our ADD society and often hard to quantify. Mistakes are easy to quantify. There are dead soldiers, captured soldiers, or dead civilians. More IEDs because there are more angry Iraqis. All the sort of stuff that is easy for the Press to cover. How exactly can a reporter even report the individual successes of these Strategic Corporals? In most cases, they can't recognize success or even wise decisions because they don't have the background, can't wait out the consequences of the actions, or simply aren't looking because it doesn't fit their chosen meme.
That being said, I've seen a lot of good reports documenting units taking the right steps - of those 'corporals' making the more difficult 'right' strategic decision that often may appear to increase the risk to his/her patrol in the short term.
