Wed, Apr 07, 2010 page9

• A gathering of Asian special operations forces speaks candidly

  • By Richard Halloran
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  Speaking to a gathering of leaders of special operations forces from Asia in Honolulu last week, a senior US officer urged them to speak up candidly, saying: “We need to hear every voice here.”

  In response, some of them were critical of US tactics in combating terrorists and insurgents, some suggested better ways to carry the fight to the common enemy while some others asked for US help in countering threats to their homelands.

  “The US is often successful in using force against terrorists but is losing the political fight against them,” a South Asian said.

  A Southeast Asian agreed: “There is an overreliance on the use of force. Instead, everyone must become propaganda-minded.”

  The conference organized by the Special Operations Command Pacific, a component of the Pacific Command in Honolulu, drew 250 military and civilian officers from 19 nations in this region. To encourage candor, the organizers asked that speakers and the audience not be identified.

  Special operations are not well understood outside of the military world either in the US or in Asia for at least two reasons. The lingo of special operations, beginning with that term itself, is deliberately vague and often euphemistic. “Direct action,” a mission of special operations, for instance, can mean “kidnap” or “assassinate.”

  Moreover, soldiers, sailors, airmen, and marines are often asked to operate out of the public eye even when training or assisting forces of other nations. Thus, they prefer to keep their faces off television and their names out of the newspaper.

  The threat to the US and Asian nations was identified as “aggressive terrorist networks, local insurgents, totalitarian governments, transnational ­criminal organizations, and regional competitors.”

  There was wide agreement that overcoming those threats required a “whole-of-government” strategy in which many ministries, not just military forces, would be engaged.

  There was equally wide agreement that achieving that would be difficult in both the US and in Asia. And there was wide agreement that better ways must be found to share information, within each government and between governments, to combat terror.

  South Asians pointed to Sri Lanka where the government consistently lagged behind insurgents in getting propaganda out in the 20-year battle with Tamil insurgents. A South Asian lamented: “Why does the government take so long to answer terrorists?”

  Among the nations without officers in the conference was China, which cut military exchanges with the US after Washington announced a large arms sale to Taiwan. Also missing was Indonesia, who may have been miffed after US President Barack Obama twice postponed a trip to Jakarta recently. It was not clear why India, which the US has been pursuing for several years, did not take part.

  Among the requests Asians made to the US was an appeal from Cambodia for equipment and training for a maritime patrol unit to combat pirates and smugglers. Mongolian officers, having seen US non-commissioned officers (NCO) in action as leaders, asked for help in training professional NCOs. Japanese officers asked to observe the training of US special operations troops before they deployed to Iraq.

  A Southeast Asian reported on a program to “de-radicalize” Muslim captives who had been terrorists: “Understanding how a Muslim came to be a terrorist is crucial to getting them to change.”

  He noted that Muslims who had been converted from another religion, such as Christianity, were harder to deal with than those who had been born into Islamic families.

  Another Southeast Asian contended that simple programs were often more effective than elaborate policies or high-tech investments. Getting people to use bamboo pipes to carry water into fields for irrigation was better than something that relied on satellites.

  “If young men 18-25 are outside kicking a soccer ball that you gave them,” he said, “they probably won’t be inside making bombs.”

  Richard Halloran is a freelance writer in Hawaii.
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