August « 2009 « Feral Jundi

Friday, August 28, 2009

Books: The Tactical Trainer: A Few Thoughts On Training And Training Management From A Former Special Operations Soldier, By Msg. Paul R. Howe, U.S. Army Retired

Filed under: Books,Training — Tags: Books, military, Paul Howe, police, security contractor, tactical, Training — Matt @ 12:46 AM

Add this to your reading list. Paul Howe has produced another outstanding resource for the military/police/contractor community. For the record, I have not read this book because it just came out. If any FJ readers have anything to say about the book, let it rip in the comments section, because I would be very interested to hear any feedback on the thing. –Matt

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The Tactical Trainer: A Few Thoughts On Training And Training Management From A Former Special Operations Soldier

By Msg. Paul R. Howe, U.S. Army Retired

I will be describing how to structure high risk tactical courses in this book. I have developed these courses through my years of instruction with CSAT (Combat Shooting and Tactics). While I describe various techniques, I will limit any description of tactics as the bad guys have a tendency to study our work. Sometimes, I will be generic and it will be so on purpose.

I will also describe some “near misses” and training accidents in this work. This is not to demean or cast a shadow on those involved. It is necessary to learn from our mistakes. If we cover them up, they will be repeated at the same price-the loss of a human life. My goal is to always give safer and more efficient training techniques to fix the problem. These safety techniques will come through a logical stair-stepped methodology.

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Thursday, August 27, 2009

Cool Stuff: Blasting a Brick Wall with a Vortex Cannon

Filed under: Cool Stuff — Tags: BBC, Cool Stuff, Technology, Video, vortex cannon, Weapons Stuff — Matt @ 11:48 PM

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Industry Talk: The Book ‘Beyond Market Forces’ and a Policy Forum with UNWG and Company

Filed under: Books,Industry Talk — Tags: BAPSC, beyond market forces, Doug Brooks, Industry Talk, IPOA, PASA, security contractors, UN, UNWG — Matt @ 12:03 AM

The convention does not want to eliminate the use of private companies at all…. -Shaista Shameem

Over a decade ago, Kofi Annan concluded that the world wasn’t ready for privatized peacekeeping. It’s still not. But that shouldn’t mean that we are oblivious to the very important role that many private military and security companies are playing at what I would call the second rank level, freeing up national troops to play key frontline roles. We see these kinds of companies, for example, providing security analysis and training, local private security companies are often key in providing site security and in some cases, convoy support services, and humanitarians operating under a UN security umbrella come into contact with these kinds of companies in a wide variety of theaters and playing a wide variety of functions. -James Cockayne

Ok, here is a quick run down of this policy forum, book promotion and gathering of some really smart folks. The general idea that I am getting from this group is that PSC’s and PMC’s are a fact of life, and it is on the various countries that use them to back up some kind of way to regulate them, all with the idea that accountability should be built into the whole process to prevent human rights violations. The UNWG (UN Working Group) along with other groups (IPOA, PASA, BAPSC, etc.) have been working hard on some kind of a standard that companies and countries can adhere to, how to regulate it and also exploring what these security contractors should do and not do out there.

For the most part, the folks on this panel think it is just fine that PMC’s and PSC’s should do defensive tasks, like convoy protection, PSD or static security (note the quotes up top). It’s just anything in the realm of offensive actions is what they are against and very wary of.

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Wednesday, August 26, 2009

Video: PBS–Once Upon a Coup, The Controversial World of Private Security Contractors

Filed under: Video — Tags: once upon a coup, PBS, security contractors, Video — Matt @ 11:12 PM

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Monday, August 24, 2009

Afghanistan: U.S. Panel on Wartime Contracting to Return to Afghanistan

Filed under: Afghanistan,Industry Talk — Tags: Afghanistan, commission, Industry Talk, wartime contracting — Matt @ 11:42 PM

The commission’s visit to Afghanistan comes as US commanders weigh cutting back on desk jobs and other support staff to free up troops for combat, a move that could require more private contractors to fill the gap.

I know, why don’t we send the cooks to the frontli….. oh, my bad, the cooks are all KBR contractors. lol (I had to say it)

Outstanding news, and I hope the team is able to collect some good scoop on how things are going. One thing this group might want to consider though, is the massive dog and pony show that will go on as soon as these folks hit the deck. Now will they get an accurate assessment of how things are really going, who knows? But I guess it is the thought that counts. If you are one of the folks that this group visits, please do not be vocal in any issues you might have. How can anything be fixed, if no one says anything about it? I am sure the latest Program Support report is floating around in the team’s heads right now, as is the enormous pressure from the administration to not have any more embarrassments that could impede the war effort, so now is a perfect opportunity to get this right because folks actually care.

The other part of this article that I wanted to point out, was the latest troop shuffling game that General McChrystal and gang has been throwing around. The article mentioned briefly the idea, and I thought it was important to mention it again seeing how the MSM kind of glanced over it. All joking aside, that is scraping the barrel if the goal is to use support personnel to throw to the front lines.

The MSM is missing the big story on this as well. We have more contractors in Afghanistan than troops, we have a massive surge of security contractors in Iraq and Afghanistan, yet the MSM is fixated on the idea that we are evil and not worth the attention because of a company called Xe. Really? It seems to me that it is contractors that are saving the day when it comes to man power issues for these wars, and yet the media and the public continues to ignore that fact. Yet again, if you read the reports, the dirty little secret seems to be that contracting is a good idea to the Obama administration and the Generals of this war. Losing the war in Afghanistan or Iraq tends to weigh pretty heavily on the minds of our leaders, and obviously contractors have become an important part of that strategy of not losing. –Matt

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US panel on wartime contracting to return to Afghanistan

August 22, 2009

WASHINGTON — A US commission investigating wartime contracting said it plans to return to Afghanistan on Sunday as part its effort to stem fraud and waste by private defense contractors.

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