Wikileaks: U.S. Special Forces Counter-Insurgency Manual FM 31-20-3
June 16th, 2008Does the following seem familiar to American and British readers?
Most of the counterintelligence measures used will be overt in nature and aimed at protecting installations, units, and information and detecting espionage, sabotage, and subversion. Examples of counterintelligence measures to use are
* Background investigations and records checks of persons in sensitive positions and persons whose loyalty may be questionable.
* Maintenance of files on organizations, locations, and individuals of counterintelligence interest.
* Internal security inspections of installations and units.
* Control of civilian movement within government-controlled areas.
* Identification systems to minimize the chance of insurgents gaining access to installations or moving freely.
* Unannounced searches and raids on suspected meeting places.
* Censorship.
Via: Wikileaks:
Summary
This sensitive US military counter-insurgency manual could be described as “What we learned about running death squads and propping up corrupt government in Latin America and how to apply it to other places”. Its contents are both history defining for Latin America and, given the continued role of US Force in the suppression of insurgencies and guerilla movements, history making.
US Army Field Manual FM 31-20-3, Foreign Internal Defense Tactics Techniques and Procedures for Special Forces; Headquarters, Department of the Army, Washinton, DC. 2004 edition. Made US Army doctrine (policy) on 20 September 1994; 219 printed pages. Verified by Wikileaks editorial board. Since the manual is US Army doctrine there are also public references to the title and tables of content elsewhere.
Example extracts follow. Note that the manual is 219 pages and contains substantial material throughout, including technical and procedural descriptions which have not been presented here.
DISTRIBUTION RESTRICTION: Distribution authorized to U.S. Government agencies and their contractors only to protect technical or operational information from automatic dissemination under the International Exchange Program or by other means. This determination was made on 5 December 2003. Other requests for this document must be referred to Commander, United States Army John F. Kennedy Special Warfare Center and School, ATTN: AOJK-DTD-SFD, Fort Bragg, North Carolina 28310-5000.
Destruction Notice: Destroy by any method that must prevent disclosure of contents or reconstruction of the document.
Don’t have time to pore over the whole document right now with the strawberries in full swing and the gardens and orchards progressing apace, but what I did scan last night after downloading the complete PDF version of the document reads like a combination of “What John Poindexter learned on his Central American vacation” and “Get Smart”.
I still thank my lucky stars daily that we departed the states when we did. Not gloating or anything, just happy about it.
It’s strange, attempting to explain to most “normal” (read: media-fed) Germans why it is I left America when it is such a “great place”. My slant is always along the lines of it being a mostly beautiful place full of mostly beautiful people, being slowly pressed flat under the increasing weight of a government run amok. Ala post-Weimar Germany. A comparison which resonates here particularly well here, especially among the older generation.
The less-perceptive typically gloss over within seconds of uttering the word “government”, whereas the more-perceptive usually start battering me with “well-informed” questions once I come out of the political closet, so to speak.
Over here, the FAZ (Frankfurter Allgemeinezeitung) is to Germany what the NY Times is to the English-speaking world, used to deliver the big broad-spectrum hoo-ha aimed at the broadest segments of the population. Der Spiegel is Time to the Newsweek of Stern, or similar. They are the most often mentioned sources of “news” and “information”. It is the rare individual who knows of Andreas von Bulow’s stories of the CIA, who has a clue about Gladio, who has bothered to understand much beyond the football scores, their garden or hobbies. Much like the states, actually, but with what feels like a somewhat better level of general education and worldly experience.
As it stands, we’re accomplishing what we can at the purely local level, building out a network of food sources as we become producers ourselves. We can only hope that the PTB have decided that it’s America’s turn to feel the burn — and Europe will be spared the worst of it this go ’round: the shooting war, the brownshirts, etc.
But then my girl was an Eifelaner, not a Kiwi, so the location choices available to us were a little different… =)
And a Happy Full Strawberry Moon to you to Miraculix, et al.
I don’t know what to say anymore when I read the “short side” of these posts on surveillance.
My gut seizes up, and I want to hurl since I’m not going to be getting out of Dodge anytime here soon.
Best course for me is to say “Comments Off.”