Keeping Guys Alive By Building Bridges And Keeping Low Profile For Actionable Intel

In 2008 I lived with and was part of a training team that had a former SAS member.This is England's premier elite unit, our Delta force was modeled specifically after these warriors.He had some interesting stories of how he was able to survive the selection process. In fact the Ministry of Defense was ordered to tone down its severity recently because 3 warriors fell ill and died in the Brecon Beacons during one of the hottest days of the year on one of the highest mountains in South Wales. If there were any questions to be asked it was usually coming from me being directed toward my SAS friend however he did have 1 major question and that was "why were those blackwater guys driving down the road like hells bells pissing everybody off, it attracted unwanted attention which made them even much easier targets to get hit"? I had no answer at that moment but this is a point which becomes the major premise of alot of my blogs. Specialized units know exactly what to do in that kind of environment, in a counter insurgence guerrilla war they are the few that know you must blend in and keep a low profile while gaining incredible intel about your various enemies because in a civil war there are many, its unequivocally not a black and white situation. In fact this is so ingrained in their mindset they will be the first ones to tell you how many more enemies you create when the indigenous people have their friends and family killed and their homes destroyed.As a former Seal Eric Prince knew this very well, that is why he never wanted to conduct business that way. In fact he had no choice but to listen to the State Dept and go along with what they all dictated. Perimeter defense does not matter when the enemy lies within the gate. Going back to what Col McKnight had to deal with in Somalia w/ no air support as well as reporters waiting on shore set his Delta and Ranger warriors up to be slaughtered, all because of the Clinton Brass. I am putting on record that if the bureaucrats stayed away and listened to Prince they never would have developed a rogue reputation, he explains all of this in his new book Civilian Warriors. Why does this keep happening? My SAS friend had one of his operator friends conducting the exact same work as bw in Iraq but he drove a beat up old car with tinted windows that safely transported said principle from point a to b. The most important thing is to keep a low profile and your guys alive in a war zone. When Prince had his guys doing it the right way there were few and far between firefights, none of his guys were killed as well as the indigenous people around them. So what is States argument? I am assuming they don't want a high ranking diplomat exposed to a nasty hornets nest in a beat up old car when they could have armored Suburbans and convoys and rear gunners etc.. If the bureaucrats don't want to listen to the guys who have been doing it the right way all along and for many years before then please don't send your diplomats down there and let the military teams conduct all of the peace talks.There is such a major disconnect in the mindset of a real military leader and a pencil pushing bureaucrat, that is the only way to effectively describe this ugly situation. The reason I keep reiterating this is because I lost too many friends already..Why aren't these bureaucrats being held accountable for Blowing up Bridges and Making Enemies and having great men lose their life due to their obstinate ignorance and arrogance? My friends knew before they even went in who the real enemy was because there is always a train up process. If the brass listened to Gen Shinseki early on about Iraq there would be no need for so many private contractors because the entire country would have been surrounded and given support and the real Counter Insurgent teams would have went to work, the USMC and the premier SOF units. I am going to take this one step further and say if the bureaucrats never got in the way 9-11 could have been prevented. It goes back to Ambassador Bodine and how she stonewalled the greatest spy ever known John Oneill during the most critical investigation period in our nations history.He was sent to his demise in the greatest towers ever known in a devastating pile of ash and rubble by his own FBI Pickard sabotage team.Bodine didn't want Oneill to ruffle any more feathers with her Yemenis friends so she sent him home. The USS Cole was hit and 17 sailors were killed and 39 of them were injured and they were headed straight for the Twin Towers Pentagon and White House but by having intimidating Marines flexing their muscles surrounding our Mother ship, that was not politically correct .Oneills sources loved him in Yemen, he had incredible intel by building bridges and making friends and there is no better friend and no worse enemy then a United States Marine and that is exactly what being a devil dog is all about. Those are the very guys you want surrounding our mother ship especially when Oneill could have very easily prevented 9-11 along w/ Souffan and their team. Gen Mattis had his devil dogs all set up for a counter insurgence program in Fallujua but Scott Helvenston, the well known former Navy Seal and three of his bw teammates were mutilated on the bridge during a kitchen supply mission (eerily reminiscent of what happened in Somalia w/Col Mcknights team Blackhawk Down) Helvenstons team was sent out in a capacity which resembled low profile w/ out an armored Suburban or gunners etc, they went alone on a non escort mission.This is where the fog of war comes into play because his team was in fact doing it the low profile way which is what Prince wanted all along but it still must be noted that it was a bad call, they were sent out ill-equipped w/ no map The indigenous folk of Fallujah had bad memories and never forgot the First Gulf War of 91 where a smart bomb or 2 went astray. Somehow and someway the insurgents were tipped off that cia were coming through and that's how and why their team was set up on the Fallujah bridge. This shook up Washington to its very core and war is about as emotional as it ever gets. Rumsfeld had Mattis change his multi month train up to an all out assault that basically said "go in and destroy that city." Gen Mattis was so upset about this, he is a warrior monk he said "absolutely not, we are going to create a million enemies, let us go in and find the ones responsible for the bw ambush and then take them all out pure and simple". The rest was history because as we know the brass never listens to the real leaders and shortly thereafter the Marines were ordered out of Fallujua after they had them on the ropes because by that time we were all over the globe and Al Jazeerra and everywhere else back home looking like evil brutal bullies.That didn't create a million enemies that created millions of enemies throughout the globe because this is what shook up the entire world. Mattis was indignant because he never wanted to assault the entire city, he had a no better friend no worse enemy intel gathering doctrine in place which is what everybody needed in the very beginning..However once the order became a demand he at least wanted to finish the job.He actually started to make quotes going back to Napolean, this high ranking General was absolutely livid. That only set things up for Fallujua 2, that is when all the insurgents came from all over the world to stand up to the brutal Americans. .Blackwater never lost a principle during the entire campaign, that is phenomenal under the circumstances, they were hired to keep the diplomats and dignitaries alive in a very dangerous arena, they never lost one but they lost 44 men, we never read about that, it was only bad press. Helvenston is one of the greatest guys ever known and that was known long before he went back in to serve his country in his late 30's. The point is all of this would have been avoided if the Pentagon Brass based bureaucrats moved out of the way. I don't know where the State Dept came up with that bw armored SUV program? They had a great program to work with the Republican Guard until  Bremer came in and put a few hundred thousand more enemies on the street. Prince put on record that Ambassador Stevens and many others would be alive today if his guys were protecting them and I feel the same about Ambassador Bhutto of Pakistan.Before 9-11 Prince had a great training facility that had a 15,000 square ft siminution shoot house called (Hogans Alley R U Ready high school) which was a high speed training compound built like a high school in a real looking town.This was created as a direct result of the Columbine massacre.A man in the know stated that Hogans Alley was more advanced and efficient then the FBIs simulated town training center in Va as well as the Secret Service in Maryland, he was at all 3.It came   complete w/ buildings,streets, signs and an actual high school.This is a perfect asset that should be mandatory for each town in this country that has a high school whether or not they have a SWAT team or not.in light of the tragedy of Sandy Hook 30 minutes from Greenwich..