Wikileaks Gets Hold of Counterinsurgency Manual 999
HeavensBlade23 writes in to let us know that Wikileaks has published a US Special Forces counterinsurgency manual, titled Foreign Internal Defense Tactics Techniques and Procedures for Special Forces (1994, 2004). "The document, which has been verified, is official US Special Forces doctrine. It directly advocates training paramilitaries, pervasive surveillance, censorship, press control and restrictions on labor unions & political parties. It directly advocates warrantless searches, detainment without charge and the suspension of habeas corpus. It directly advocates bribery, employing terrorists, false flag operations and concealing human rights abuses from journalists. And it directly advocates the extensive use of 'psychological operations' (propaganda) to make these and other 'population & resource control' measures more palatable."
Re:War is fun! (Score:3, Interesting)
Comment removed (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Did any of this need to be confirmed? (Score:5, Interesting)
Here in Australia our labor government (and before that, to a lesser extend, the liberal government) can sure be incompetent, but as much as I dislike Rudd he's probably not evil.
He supported the Iraq war in 2003 and now blames Howard for it of course, but he (just like the majority of people) thought it was necessary at the time.
No point mistaking bad intelligence and unquestioning politicians for malice.
Re:Did any of this need to be confirmed? (Score:2, Interesting)
If this is made by the US gov then they're beyond stupid. Not because of the contents. Just the layout.
WWII pilot briefing documents look better than this "official" document.
I say it's a fake.
Re:War is fun! (Score:5, Interesting)
( http://www.reuters.com/article/politicsNews/idUSN1333111120080313 [reuters.com] )
"I must say, I'm a little envious," Bush said. "If I were slightly younger and not employed here, I think it would be a fantastic experience to be on the front lines of helping this young democracy succeed."
"It must be exciting for you
What a shame he's otherwise "employed".
Re:Did any of this need to be confirmed? (Score:5, Interesting)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Gladio [wikipedia.org]
Re:You can't be this naive ... (Score:2, Interesting)
Insurgency against corrupt, inefficient, brutal regimes backed by the US - or directly put into place through a coup d'etat overturning the results of some election - because such regimes were considered a shield against bolshevism, or because the control over the government of that country will potentially entail huge benefits to corporations controlled by relatives & friends, or some major contributor for presidential election.
That's hardly war. That's State Terrorism. And it doesn't even have a "higher cause" to justify it, besides paranoia and/or greed.
And if I am naive, I wonder what you are.
What you actually aren't is a Historian nor particularly well-informed about Somalia or Bosnia. Especially in the latter, I really wonder how could those tactics could apply in Bosnia at all, where there was a multi-ethnic war going on, with at least three sides involved.
Re:You can't be this naive ... (Score:2, Interesting)
Counter-Insurgency is needed (Score:4, Interesting)
Let's pull out 100,000 regular troops in Iraq now and replace them with every last special ops and civil affairs troop we have, and we'll have success within months. But no, the politicians insist we play by antiquated rules because we are a "civil" society. Every time a politician says to pull troops out of Iraq and put them in Afghanistan, they instantly lose credibility with anyone who knows anything about how regular troops deploy, and how they are ineffective in the Afghan theater. Keep that in mind this election season. As much as I detest the saying, sometimes the ends really do justify the means. 10 years, trillions of dollars, a few thousand US lives, a few hundred thousand Iraqi lives and years of political instability, or a few months of counter-insurgency operations and a somewhat stable (relative term) governance in place...you decide.
Re:HeavensBlade23 (Score:3, Interesting)
News flash, sparky: this has nothing to do with religion. Bush no more believes in God than you do. But he knows how to use propaganda, he knows how to get Christians to follow his evil, Satanistic ways. What you ascribe to religion is merely evil, selfish men who use religion to further their own greed.
Bush is the wolf is sheep's clothing that we were warned about. Pat Robertson, too. These men are NOT Christians. Don't listen to their words, look at their actions. They worship money.
Bush is an athiest who pretends to be a Christian.
Re:Did any of this need to be confirmed? (Score:5, Interesting)
As a result of this reasoning, his take on the subject was that, for people to be able to accomplish anything better than having to live in an eternal struggle for today's food (where anyone can come and take from you what you made, no one bothers to produce anything, much less any surplus), the very first thing they need is a state strong enough to both make other states afraid of messing with them and to make the people under its umbrella afraid of messing with each other. Once you have this established, no matter how (and at this point a totalitarian tyranny is okay for him), you have peace enough for surplus production to develop. And once you have a functional society, then you can start pursuing other goals, such as, say, freedom of belief, freedom of speech, democracy, individual rights etc. (which, contrary to common belief, he pretty much preferred).
So, yes, arming one group of people and giving them a monopoly on violence is indeed the solution to interpersonal conflict. Even if it leads, in the worst case scenario, to the monopolist becoming an absolute totalitarian hereditary monarch and everyone else becoming his personal slaves, as in this case interpersonal conflicts are also few. But, and this is important, it's a solution only to interpersonal conflicts. Everything else requires, of course, much more than this.
A monopoly in violence, thus, is just the very first step required in solving human problems, as it solves our very first problem. But it's never the solution to all of our problems.
Re:You can't be this naive ... (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:War is fun! (Score:4, Interesting)
Amazon (Score:5, Interesting)
or you can get it on line from the us army at Us.army.mil.
see FMI 3-07.22
The FAS has the 2004-2006 version posted here [fas.org]
No story. move along.
Re:War is fun! (Score:3, Interesting)
Robert E. Lee
Re:War is fun! (Score:4, Interesting)
While i agree tying this document directly to Bush's foreign policy is a non-starter, I have to counter your claim re: WMD. Between Hans Blix's investigations in Iraq (inconclusive at best) and the CIA's complete refute of the Nigerian uranium story, W Bush's Iraq policy was based on false evidence used to mislead supporters.
Re:War is fun! (Score:3, Interesting)
"The Prince" is considered by many to be a handbook for being a successful, evil dictator. I don't recall anything of the sort in "the art of war" which is part philosophy and part tactics.
The prince is amoral not immoral. The idea is to separate the how and the why, then learn from the how. If it makes you reflect on the why then that's only good.