Another gem. These guys have a couple of awesome posts about the legalities of conducting anti-piracy operations out on the high seas. They specifically talk about Blackwater and what they can or cannot do out there. –Head Jundi
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About ExportLawBlog
ExportLawBlog is written and maintained by Clif Burns, Carolyn Lindsey, Illya Antonenko and Martin Gold.
I have never heard of the Hazaras, and you learn something new every day. Perhaps they could be part of the solution of protecting the local populations in Afghanistan, instead of using Pashtuns exclusively? It sounds like the Hazaras care, and they certainly have the incentive. From the sounds of it, they have been crapped on for a long time in Afghanistan. They kind of remind me of the Kurds in Iraq. Great article, and worth the read. –Head Jundi
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Afghan National Police commander Muhammad Khan. Photograph by Louie Palu.
Letter from Pashmul
Policing Afghanistan
An ethnic-minority force enters a Taliban stronghold.
by Graeme Wood
December 8, 2008
In late 2007, in Pashmul, a tiny cluster of villages in southern Afghanistan, Muhammad Khan began his tenure as the police commander by torching all the hemp in a farmer’s field. Farmers in the area had grown plants up to seven feet tall, and, being teetotallers, like many Afghans, they smoked hashish constantly. Afghan soldiers and policemen in the area also smoked, to the exasperation of the NATO troops who were training them. But Khan wasn’t from Pashmul and he didn’t smoke. He ordered his men to set the harvest ablaze, moved upwind, then turned his back and left, with an expression of indifference.
Khan and his police officers are members of Afghanistan’s Hazara minority, identifiable among Afghans because of their Asiatic features; the population they patrol is Pashtun. Hazaras are mostly Shia, with a history of ties to Iran, whereas most Pashtuns are Sunni and have turned to Pakistan for support. Over the past century, the two peoples have fought periodically, and the Hazaras, who are thought to make up between nine and nineteen per cent of Afghanistan’s population—the Pashtuns make up nearly half—have usually lost. On the border between the Hazara heartland, in the country’s mountainous and impoverished center, and the Pashtun plains in the south and east, conflicts over grazing land are common. But, working alongside NATO soldiers, Hazara police units are now operating far to the south of these traditional battlegrounds and deep into Pashtun territory.
And of course the New York Times has to say something about PSC’s and the SOFA. This editorial comes packed with ill informed opinion, it is insulting, it disrespects the sacrifice made by PSC’s in defense of the client, and makes no mention as to the repercussions of not protecting PSC’s in Iraq. Typical of the NYT. As for a a counter point, I recommend Michael Cohen’s reply to this editorial on his blog called Democracy Arsenal.
I like the accountability part, but the attacks are not necessary and show a complete ignorance of the dynamics. ‘Spray and pray’ or ‘trigger happy’? How about ‘survival’ and ‘protecting the client with lethal force when necessare, when in a war zone’? Obviously the author of this editorial feels that non-lethal weapons or no weapons at all are the best tools for protecting someone in a war zone?
For the record, weapons and lethal force are a fact of life in a war zone. And those that are tasked with using those weapons, and implementing lethal force when necessary, have a huge responsibility that is not taken lightly. That is how I felt, and ‘spray and pray’ or ‘trigger happy’ were not words used within my lexicon. Nor would any of my peers or companies have any respect for me if they were.
Of course you will get those that might not make the grade, but you find those types both in the military and the PSC industry. And for those individuals, I say deal with them properly and apply the laws of the state they are working for. Like the soldier, the PSC is a tool of the state, and a representative of the state. We should have the protections of the state, just like the soldier has. UCMJ can and should be enforced with PSC’s, and why it isn’t shows that the client really doesn’t want to put the effort into that kind of protection. Although we can argue that we are covered by UCMJ, but still, the client should be making this distinction with a well thought out SOFA agreement and the proper regulation of this industry.
We are a tool of the client, and if there is any blame at all, it should be on how the client uses that tool. And to me, the client should be dedicating the necessary resources to properly regulate our industry. The companies cannot be expected to police themselves, and the client must be involved with quality control. I do not believe in over regulation though, and we should not hinder the free market forces that can enhance a company. But throwing PSC’s at the mercy of Iraqi Law with an ill thought out SOFA, without any consideration for how that will impact the PSC industry and the overall war effort, is akin to breaking rocks and cement with your sword and thinking that is a good use for that weapon/tool. -Mudeer
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The New York Times
December 3, 2008
Editorial
At Least Some Accountability
American forces in Iraq have relied far too heavily on private security contractors who have operated with no real legal accountability. The trigger-happy tactics of these armies for hire have alienated Iraqis. The fact that they have been out of reach of Iraqi law has been an especially bitter pill to swallow.
For some of those contractors, that get-out-of-jail-free card is now being withdrawn. A new agreement with the Iraqi government that allows American troops to remain in Iraq stipulates that contractors working for the Pentagon who commit crimes will be subject to prosecution in Iraqi courts.
Today I was investigating 5th Generation Warfare, and the various thoughts about the concept. I first started out with some stuff written by Colonel T.X. Hammes(thanks to scott for that article), and eventually ended up on these blogs through my searches. I’m a blogger, so I guess I would naturally gravitate towards the blogging community to learn. And low and behold, I stumbled upon these little gems.
They are called Dreaming 5 GW and Purple Slog(although not a specific 5GW blog), and there are some heavy duty concepts being laid down by the various authors of each. Especially the use of OODA and the references to Boyd, and how 5 GW enters into the mix. I will let the reader explore for themselves. Although I have to give you guys a taste of the kind of snowmobiles they are building.
The author of Purple Slog developed some interesting 5 GW attack models, and the ones I got a kick out of was the Frog Boiling* and the Black Swan** method of 5GW. And what makes all of this interesting, is that blogs are what allow these individuals to network and exchange ideas about 5 GW. A network about networks. In essence, these thoughts about 5GW is slowly ‘boiling the frog’ of what conventional thoughts there are about 5GW. And blogs are representations of individuals that are constantly learning and commenting about their subject, always evolving and always hammering away at the concepts like a blacksmith to steel. Here you go, and enjoy.-Head Jundi
*The boiling frog story states that a frog can be boiled alive if the water is heated slowly enough — it is said that if a frog is placed in boiling water, it will jump out, but if it is placed in cold water that is slowly heated, it will never jump out.
**An event or occurrence that deviates beyond what is normally expected of a situation and that would be extremely difficult to predict. This term was popularized by Nassim Nicholas Taleb, a finance professor and former wallstreet trader.
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A 5GWer will either take the path of Frog Boiling [4] or the path of Black Swan Hatching [5].
A Frog Boiling 5GW aims to make many small effects which lead to success. The planning will be iterative [6] and future actions will depend on lessons learned from the results achieved from the prior actions. By going slow, using many small actions, and relying upon N-order effects, the Frog Boiling 5GW hopes to get a successful end result without exposure to adversarial forces or without other perhaps even knowing a 5GW has taken place.
A Black Swan Hatching 5GW is designed using the waterfall method [7] to effect a Black Swan event [8] (or at least a major Systems Perturbation). This 5GW achieves its goals from either the Black Swan event itself or from reactions to the Black Swan event [9]. Secrecy is achieved by the tight knit, closed, top-down model of planning and control. The hope is that even if the 5GW effort is discovered, it will be after it is too late[10].
Evolution and Timeline of 5GW
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