| Submit your comments on this article |
| Iraq |
| Cellular battlespace in Iraq |
| 2007-05-23 |
| by JD Johannes, "Outside the Wire" "Alo?" "Enta shonek habebe?" the Army company commander says into his cell phone. "Zhien, zhien." Twenty to thirty times a day Army Captain Brian Ducote's cell phone rings in his shoulder pocket. Ducote, the commander of the 1-28 Infantry's Bravo or 'Battle' company answers nearly every call, going through a set of greetings himself so that the Iraqi callers know it is him they are talking to before he hands the phone to an interpreter. The calls range from tips to complaints to pleas. This morning it is a call from one of the leaders of a Neighborhood Advisory Council who heard third hand that the body of a woman--assassinated for being Sunni--was in a vacant lot. The location the council member gave was out of Battle Company's operating area, but Ducote sent a unit to a point to where it could over watch the area and scan for the body. "It could be a trap. They booby trap the bodies, position a sniper over the body," Ducote said. "I don't think he's lying, but the people who called his relative are the ones not to trust." That night the platoon would go back and recover the body. Ducote called the council member. "I explained to him how I went out of my area, violated rules, risked the lives of U.S. soldiers to recover the body. I went out on a limb for him, now I have a stake in this," Ducote said, thumbing the phone. "This isn't just an Army officers telling them not to go out and seek revenge, I have a place at the table and can use that." There are few physical front lines in Baghdad. A canal or major road may be the dividing line between Shia and Sunni neighborhoods, but that will not be the place forces clash in massed combat--or anything resembling combat for that matter. Because the enemy does not wear uniforms and violates the Geneva Conventions by not being under arms while engaging in combatant activities, the coalition forces are rarely the first to strike--allowing the enemy to pick and choose the location he will fight. There are no front lines, no rear areas, no behind the lines--except for U.S. bases and outposts which are magnets for mortars and rockets. . . . If the assymetric battlespace works against U.S. equipment, tactics and adherence to the Geneva Conventions--the cellular battlespace plays to the U.S. strengths. The enemy does not have secure communications and you don't need to know much about the NSA to know that the enemy that talks on cell phones is an enemy that is easy to find. . . . Go read it all. |
| Posted by:Mike |
| #1 thanks Mike. |
| Posted by: RD 2007-05-23 17:55 |