Top officer sees military caution as backfiring

[unhappycamper]

By Jim Michaels - USA TODAY
Posted : Tuesday Jun 15, 2010 21:47:16 EDT

Commanders in Iraq and Afghanistan have been reluctant to launch more secret operations because of an excess of caution about violating military rules and international law, a top Army officer says.

The tentative approach to “deception operations” has cost the U.S. military opportunities to weaken the enemy without firing a shot, said Army Lt. Gen. Michael Oates, commander of the Pentagon’s task force to counter improvised explosive devices.

The anti-IED task force has advocated dismantling insurgent networks as an effective way to combat improvised explosive devices, or IEDs.

Earlier this year, Marines in Afghanistan’s Helmand province read announcements over a loudspeaker to trick insurgents into thinking their specially modified roadside bombs couldn’t be found by U.S. minesweepers.

~snip~

The military is barred from launching operations that could be picked up by U.S. media. That is a particularly difficult line to walk in an age of the Internet and continuous news — a lie aimed at the enemy could inadvertently wind up portrayed as truth on American television or in newspapers.



unhappycamper: Correcto mundo. How do you explain this high school kids who are being constantly trolled by recruiters?