CSSDSC Forum

[BRAM]

This is from my friend Howard..He writes a Sniper column as well..
And I'm truly aghast,,what are we thinking? training the Terrorists, the PLO, the IJ, the Hamas and others to killl Israelis?
And as if we are not reaping the back end of training Bin Laden and g his guys..
Are we going to learn?
I saw a disgustring version of Israeli Palestinian conflict on West Wing
The poor Palestinians complain about the Israeli controlling the dome of the rock and demand no reserach into the grounds around the Holy site or archeological digging: nothing that would prove it is built over the Jewish Temple. That the Dome of the Rock is placed there SOLELY to control Jerusalem & the Jews when the Islamics conquered Jerusalem just before the crusades,,
and heres REAL stuff again!

CIA-trained Palestinian snipers?

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Posted: October 11, 2005
1:00 a.m. Eastern



By Howard Linett



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© 2005 WorldNetDaily.com
We will never know the exact number of men, women and children, civilians and soldiers, Israelis, tourists and foreign workers murdered by Palestinian terrorist snipers. An informed, conservative figure is "around 50," but the actual number may be double that, or even greater.

It is important to try to establish an accurate number. A number is a measurement tool we need to evaluate the snipers' effectiveness.

American sniper doctrine and training implant in snipers that they are "silent and deadly" killers. They are taught to carry out their attacks employing stealth and misdirection. The most proficient and the longest-lived among them, by their very nature, employ tactics and techniques conceived with a single goal – convince those investigating an attack that it was not carried out by a sniper.


Another cause contributing to our inability to accurately establish the number of sniper "kills," is the need for secrecy – real or imaginary – of the Israeli military and of the often renamed Israel Security Agency (formerly known as the "Shin Bet," the General Security Service, the "GSS" and, more recently, the "Sabak") operating out of the prime minister's office. Ergo, both branches of Israel's defense establishment themselves may employ "misinformation" in the matter of terrorist snipers.

At a press conference on July 1, 2001, then-Israeli Defense Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer acknowledged that the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency had trained 40 Palestinian policemen in advanced sniper, marksmanship and advanced weapons training.

"We thought they would behave themselves," was reported as the defense minister's answer to Foreign Press Association member Ayreh Gallin's question: Why had Israel permitted the training? I learned of this disclosure when a friend sent me an e-mail containing part of a transcript of the press conference.

I am an attorney by profession, with an emphasis on negotiation and alternative dispute resolution. I am a writer by avocation, writing about what I know – military and security related subjects. I have earned Israeli Police Civil Guard credentials as a sniper and sniper instructor. I am active as both. At the time I received the partial transcript from the press conference, 10 months into the intifada, I was well aware of the casualties terrorist snipers were inflicting. Based on information I gathered from multiple sources, my own analysis of the snipers' attacks repeatedly identified American sniper tactics and doctrine being successfully employed. The defense minister's acknowledgement did not surprise me. Just the opposite – it confirmed my deepest concern.

The Palestinian police had been given highly effective American sniper training – training that, I surmised, included classroom study and practical application of tactics and techniques unknown to our own soldiers and police. Training that developed "Palestinian police" proficiency in subjects in which Israelis simply were not schooled. I also knew that none of what the CIA had taught was being passed along to those of us involved in training our police and military, with continuing fatal consequences. I set out to do what I could to rectify that situation. I thought my combination of knowledge, contacts and experience as attorney, writer and sniper instructor, equipped and positioned me to be able to do so.

I made use of my attorney contacts in Washington, D.C. Results were immediate and positive. The U.S. Department of Defense evinced a willingness to provide "whatever touched the DOD," as to the training of the Palestinian police. But there was a proviso – as ironclad as the most impenetrable medieval chastity belt: Nothing – absolutely nothing, not even acknowledgement training had occurred – would be forthcoming prior to the Israeli government making a formal, proper and through-correct-channels request for the materials. To help move along that request, I was provided the where and when such a request could next be presented. It was mid-August. I had until mid-September to act as the catalyst for "the request."

I failed. I failed miserably. I failed miserably month after month for the next 23 months. Well over 150 telephone calls, many dozens of faxes, and as many e-mails resulted in not a single government minister agreeing to meet with me for even the five minutes I needed to explain the who, what, why and how of this life-and-death matter. I could not get through the phalanx of receptionists, telephone answerers, secretaries, press secretaries, media and communications consultants and personal aides insulating every minister from the public. Nor could I get any of the government personnel in the ministries to listen to me. Some promised to do so. None ever did. No one cared. Hell, it wasn't like I was a party functionary.

The Labor Party was voted out of power. The Likud Party was voted in and formed the present government under Prime Minister Ariel Sharon. Nothing changed. No one would agree to meet with me. I kept banging my head against the wall, and the snipers' body count kept increasing.

At times, I admit my frustration got the best of me. I stopped trying. Then there would be another attack, more dead soldiers and more murdered innocents. So I would try some more, get nowhere and succumb to the numb inactivity caused by frustration. The number of those murdered by snipers began to increase more rapidly than ever before. I would try again, but only to fail. I was contacted by acquaintances involved in training our young men to be snipers. Unable to face another widow or bereaved mother, these acquaintances asked if I knew how to acquire the materials used to train those terrorist snipers who were using their training with such devastating consequences to our soldiers. I shared the formula with them. They failed, too. The body count continued to rise.

There is more shuffling of government ministers in Israeli politics than there is of cards in a stud-poker game. Late May 2003, I took another tilt at the windmills. Uzi Landau, then minister in the office of the prime minister, agreed to meet with me. Yes, this story does have a hero – not just a protagonist and a cesspool of politicians and other scum. It took under five minutes to win over Minister Landau. He needed no convincing that knowing your enemy's tactics was worthwhile. He agreed that at the next Cabinet meeting he would raise the matter of the Israeli government requesting the U.S. Department Of Defense to please provide all material used to train the Palestinian "police" snipers.

He did, and he achieved results. He was informed that the material was already in Israeli possession. No request was necessary. I was elated.

I was sure that the materials were not only in English, but also in American military sniper jargon. I proposed I be allowed an hour or two to review the materials. It would only take me a couple of hours to determine exactly what the most fearsome and effective of the terrorist murderers had been taught. Then I could offer an opinion about whether we needed to conduct our own (counter) course. Better late than never, the material our soldiers and police needed to know might now finally be about to be made available to them.

Once more into the fray, Minister Landau posed my request. The answer he received was that the information had already been provided to those deemed in the need to know. I was dumbstruck.

As far as my "in the line of duty," sniper instructing, I knew that portion of the security establishment I instructed had not received any information. I was the only one lecturing on the subject of Palestinian police sniper training, tactics and techniques. What I taught was based upon my attack analyses and information collected for me by shooting enthusiast friends in the United States.

Elsewhere, I told those I deemed "in the need to know" that they needed to ask higher-ups for the information. They did. They were told there was no longer any relevance to the material. I am paraphrasing. I disagree. Those trained have and continue to teach what they were taught to the next generation of terrorist snipers. But that is not why I now tell this story.

I tell the story now because I see prior conduct repeating. As I write, Palestinian police are once again receiving training. I am not sure it should be taking place. I am unsure it is the wisest course of conduct. Are the individuals undergoing training to become more proficient police or terrorists? Are they genuine policemen or terrorists recruited into one of the many Palestinian security services? What safeguards, if any, are in place to avert the creation of a third generation of well-trained Palestinian terrorist snipers? Those "involved" in the training refuse to be interviewed. They are not answering these questions. Instead they "stonewall."

"EUCOPPS" is an acronym for European Union Coordinating Office for Palestinian Police Support. But under this EU "initiative," real people, lead by Chief Superintendent Jonathan McIvor, have been deployed in the West Bank and Gaza since January. Working out of the Palestinian Ministry of the Interior building in Ramallah, their training of the Palestinian police is well under way. Asked for an interview to learn what his team was teaching, Superintendent McIvor responded:

We are engaged in helping the Palestinians build an effective, modern and accountable civil policing service which will help to provide for the safety and security of Palestinian citizens, and, in doing so, contribute to a safe and secure environment in Israel. Most of our work is about systems and structures and the provision of non-lethal equipment. Much as I would like to meet, time is pressing and I do not feel that I have much to offer your particular field, and indeed at this sensitive time I do not believe that an interview/article would be helpful or appropriate.


Actually, it was a member of U.S. envoy Gen. William Ward's 20-member staff who made the referral to EUCOPPS's McIvor. She did so after explaining that the general's mission was doing no training; the staff was still simply doing a needs assessment. After being refused an interview by the superintendent, Gen. Ward's mission was formally asked for an interview. This time the referral was to the mission's "media contact." The individual's name was provided, but nothing more – no phone number, address or any other contact information. The U.S. Embassy promised to let the mission's media contact know an interview was sought. He will call you if he wants, was the Embassy's reply. No call has come.

Why so much "cloak and dagger?" I simply want to raise the issue of the training actually taking place – to air it, to subject it to daylight ... and vigorous public debate. Too many people have died and continued to be murdered by CIA-trained Palestinian "policemen" to allow this issue of "training" to quietly remain the exclusive purview of politicians and anonymous security types. We need to be sure and assured that no one is creating another Frankenstein's monster.



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Howard Linett is an attorney, an independent journalist and the author of "Living With Terrorism: Survival Lessons from the Streets of Jerusalem."