Feral Jundi

Thursday, October 29, 2009

Afghanistan: U.N. Considering all Possibilities, Including Hiring Private Security Contractors to Protect Staff

Filed under: Afghanistan,Industry Talk — Tags: , , , — Matt @ 6:40 PM

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

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 (Researcher and commentator at the International Peace Institute, New York)

   Wow. This is significant. The UN is finally coming to a realistic conclusion, and that is security forces should not be limited to donor nations. This is pretty much a slap in the face to every human rights organization or anti-contractor group out there that has chastised the private military or private security industry.  Even UNWG is probably getting a hundred emails right now about what the Secretary General has just stated.

   Either way, I salute the UN for at least coming to their senses and considering using this industry.  One word of advice though.  The success or failure of using contractors, will depend on how much you are willing to spend, how well the contract is written up, and how well the UN monitors the action.  Please do not be a ‘marshmallow eater‘ and take the easy way out on this stuff. The lives of your staff are in your hands. –Matt

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Secretary-General to Hold High-Level Staff Meeting on Threats to UN Security

By Margaret Besheer

United Nations

29 October 2009

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon will convene a meeting of the organization’s top officials on Friday to discuss the serious security challenges facing the organization in Afghanistan and other parts of the world. Mr. Ban appealed to the members of the Security Council for their support during an emergency session Thursday – a day after an attack on a U.N. guesthouse in Kabul killed five staffers.The U.N. Secretary-General said Friday’s meeting will focus on the growing threat to the United Nations in places across the world where it operates.”Increasingly, the U.N. is being targeted,” said Ban Ki-moon. “In this case, precisely because of our support for the Afghan elections. Not counting peacekeepers, 27 U.N. civilian personnel have lost their lives to violence so far this year – more than half of them in Afghanistan and Pakistan.”

(more…)

Games: East India Company

Filed under: Games,Strategy,Technology — Tags: , , , — Matt @ 3:56 PM

Film: Chalk Up Another Crappy Iraq War Movie–‘Green Zone’

Filed under: Film — Tags: , , , , — Matt @ 10:23 AM

Wednesday, October 28, 2009

Weapons Stuff: Rhodesian Cover Shooting or ‘Drake Shooting’

   This is a great read, and I highly recommend checking it out.  Ian has basically broken down the operations of his unit, and the use of this efficient and lethal shooting technique. –Matt

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Rhodesian Army

RHODESIAN COVER SHOOTING

By “Ian Rhodes”, 2 Commando, Rhodesian Light Infantry

Prelude

Also known as Drake Shooting, Rhodesian Cover Shooting may be defined as the shooting technique employed to quickly kill concealed insurgents through the various phases of close quarter combat in the African savanna and jesse bush. The method did not replace “fire and movement” procedures, but was rather the primary activity of them. Cover shooting has also been described as a “flushing” action, but this is not strictly accurate. While flushing terrorists from their concealment has obvious advantages, particularly when working with close helicopter support, the first objective of cover shooting was to kill the enemy without the need to see him or locate his exact position first. Likewise the method should not be confused with other foreign practises such as walking suppression fire directed “at the jungle.” Cover shooting was not a random spraying of bullets, but a deliberate and methodical routine designed to elicit maximum effect for the least expenditure of ammunition. After the declaration of U.D.I. in 1965, the Rhodesian war continued for another 15 years and tactics changed greatly as lessons were learned during that time. For this reason experiences may well disagree on opinion and detail. This discussion is also somewhat biased towards the practises of the Rhodesian Light Infantry (RLI) and the combat patrols of the Police Anti-Terrorist Unit (PATU). As such, it cannot be held up as either definitive, or complete. In 1964 the Rhodesian Light Infantry changed roles to that of a Commando Battalion. Deployed in rapid reaction “Fire Force” operations designed to vertically envelop insurgent groups, the cover shooting technique played a significant part in the Battalions overall success. In it`s 19 years of existence, most of those fighting at the very forefront of a bush war, the Rhodesian Light Infantry never lost a battle.

PDF for Rhodesian Cover Shooting or Drake Shooting here.

Afghanistan: Three Contractors Killed in Plane Crash

  This kind of missed the news, and adds to the brutal list of air accidents that have happened recently. RIP. –Matt

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3 bodies found in US plane wreckage in Afghanistan

October 27, 2009

KABUL — NATO-led forces have recovered the remains of three American military contractors from the wreckage of a U.S. Army reconnaissance plane that crashed two weeks ago in the rugged mountains of northeastern Afghanistan, the military said Tuesday.

The Army C-12 Huron twin-engine turboprop had been missing since it crashed Oct. 13 while on a routine mission in Nuristan province, a Taliban insurgent stronghold. The plane went down less than two weeks after insurgents overran a coalition outpost the same province, killing eight American troops in one of the war’s deadliest battles for the U.S.

NATO said in a statement that the crash is “under investigation, though hostile action is not believed to be the cause of the crash.”

Thomas Casey, a spokesman for Lockheed Martin Corp., confirmed that the three dead men — a pilot, co-pilot and technician — were American citizens working for Lockheed Martin subcontractors.

They were employed under a Lockheed Martin contract for “counter-narcoterrorism” operations, Casey said.

U.S. forces spokesman Col. Wayne Shanks said the crew were the only ones aboard when the craft went down without giving off any distress signals.

“We just lost contact,” Shanks told The Associated Press.

Nuristan has been the site of the two deadliest battles of the war for U.S. forces, including the Oct. 2 attack in the province’s Kamdesh outpost and a July 2008 raid that killed nine American soldiers at an outpost in Wanat area.

The NATO-led mission is planning to withdraw troops such isolated strongholds to focus on more heavily populated areas as part of a new strategy to protect Afghan civilians.

Shanks said the plane was on a mission for NATO-led forces at the time, but he gave no other details. Casey said only that it was a surveillance mission.

The pilot and co-pilot worked for a company called Avenge Inc., while the technician was employed by a contractor called Sierra Nevada Corp., Casey said.

The military said a UH-60 helicopter traveling to the crash site four days later “experienced a strong downdraft and performed a hard landing” nearby. The helicopter’s crew members were rescued, and the chopper was stripped of sensitive and useable parts and destroyed to keep insurgents from salvaging anything in the wreckage.

Story here.

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