Monday, January 22, 2007
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.
