Beslan, USA

I have not blogged on the heinous attacks in Beslan, North Ossetia, because a part of me is at a loss for words. Another part of me cries out for justice and to eradicate the world of all fundamental terrorists, whether they be Christians who bomb abortion clinics in Georgia, Muslims who crash crowded passenger aircraft into sky scrapers, "freedom fighters" who kidnap and hold over one-thousand innocent civilians hostages in the Caucuses, or Catholics who fire off mortars in the middle of Northern Ireland into Protestant neighborhoods.

But then I began to think about in a cold, professional way and wondered how the United States would have responded. All the Monday morning quarterbacks and arnchair generals will second guess and pound the Russian forces for their actions, but that is not the heart of the matter. The heart of the matter is who is truly prepared to respond to attacks against our women and children within our own borders against an ideologically driven enemy who sees nothing wrong with the murder of innocent women and children.

I have spent many years in uniform, and have served as a corpsman in the military, and also a with a municipal police department's Emergency Task Force as a Tactical Paramedic. Both experiences have taught me a wealth of knowledge, albeit from two different points of view, one being the military mindset of direct action and the law enforcement mindset of protect and preserve. I have graduated through the Marine Corps' High-Risk Personnel Course, II Marine Expeditionary Force Special Operations Training Group's CQB training course. On the civilian side I have graduated Combat Casualty Research Center's CONOTOMS, New York State Police Basic and Advanced SWAT Courses.

Would we be more likely to respond successfully and efficiently to this type of terrorist incident within the Borders of the United States? I say "no". I say this with sadness and the knowledge that I may piss people off by saying this. But these are the cold hard facts. "Why?" you may ask. Quite simply, it all comes down to mindset. The difference in mindset between a uniformed military specialist who is responding to an act of terror at the behest of lawful orders from higher command and a sworn law enforcement officer who is responding to a domestic terrorist incident as part of a local response is well…you might as well count the stars between solar systems.

Now prior to deployment my unit trained in both urban and green-side tactical exercises. These normally started out as receiving orders, briefing, inserting, conducting the operation and then extracting from the AO. Now, when we did this there was no question as to whether we would use "violence of action" (don't worry genteel readers, we will get to this soon) in the exercise but a matter of when. Now, if we had our way engagement would come at our choosing when the odds and the situation were in our favor and we would control the engagement. If we were compromised sooner than we anticipated our reflex would kick in and we would do some Immediate Action Drills and say a big "oh, shit".

The Police, on the other hand, respond with a paradigm of contain, make contact, negotiate, wear them down, tit for tat with demands, and then only, I mean ONLY, as a last resort, resort to armed intervention. Law enforcement has many situations where one would break contact. Primarily trained to deal with high risk warrant service, barricade situations, and armed individuals who cannot be controlled by normal law enforcement procedures, municipal SWAT is not prepared to meet domestic/international terror threats within our borders post-9/11.

The new paradigm does not fit anymore with these non-state players and groups that are not bound by international borders, rules of land warfare, or even basic humanity. Even the international terror paradigm of pre-9/11 does not fit anymore. There is no "wearing the enemy down", giving tit for tat with the terrorists, or buying time. The new paradigm is: begin killing innocents until our demands are met. That is the start truth. These terrorist groups are not making their play only for the government or their target audience, but they are also making their play for the international media. Multi-media, satellite news and talk radio all play unknowing accomplices to these terrorists who will use whatever means to strike terror into the hearts of their target population. That the media establishment aid and abet them in this endeavor makes their effort all the more simple.

In Beslan, the terrorists shot fleeing women and children in the back. One child was stabbed upwards to seventeen times to kill her. Young females were dragged into adjoining classrooms and raped. It was a site of mass murder. When the terrorists accidentally set up a bomb, the Russians were forced to respond. But…like our domestic agencies, they were not prepared to respond with proper "violence of action". They did an outstanding job with the resources available in a really bad situation. That goes without saying. The majority of casualties suffered by the Russian forces were from the soldiers blocking the innocents, acting as human shields.

Now genteel readers, you may be wondering what "violence of action means". Violence of Action is a term used that encompasses both psychological and physical which allow us to maintain superiority, battlefield dominance and the assertive aggressiveness in an engagement. The psychological side of VOA comes from the attitude, yes it's all attitude. "I'm the biggest baddest motherf'er on the block", "any house I walk into, I own. It's mine", "second place is first loser. Settle for nothing than first place". These all are psychological VOA. There is a mindset that no matter what happens, we will win. However badly bruised, shot up or dinged we are, we will win, we will accomplish the mission. Also having the intent use properly controlled violence to accomplish the mission (rescue hostages, detain terrorists, medevac wounded) is important to VOA. All the ability in the world does not matter if we do not have intent to use that ability.

Now, the physical VOA is having the proper training to apply the skills. It all comes down to training, folks. I can train a man in about two hours to properly zero, fire and use an M4A1 carbine, but that doesn't mean I want his on my back on an urban direct-action mission. It all comes down to training. Training to respond quickest, respond properly and dominate the battlespace, that means all four dimensions, including time. Physical VOA also includes having the proper weapons, overwhelming firepower and the training and ability to use them in a judicious and proper manner. There is nothing surgical about a sixteen man assault element hitting a house to capture some insurgents, but that doesn't mean we want to hose down the house with an M-249 before we hit it. Physical VOA goes hand in hand. You scare the bejeebers in them, then kick 'em in the balls, then kick 'em again to make sure they're down. I'm being facetious here, folks, so don't think that I condone the mistreatment of prisoners or the abuse of prisoners in custody, because I do not.

Now the police on the other hand are trained for a whole different mission. On the whole, police officers are superbly trained for their stated intent. They are employed to enforce laws, capture suspects, investigate crimes, end civilian crisis, respond to emergencies as well as deal with civil disturbances. Most police academies run between sixteen and twenty-six weeks with an intense one to two year probation period where they are under the guidance of an experienced and street-savvy field training exercise. Most police officers are armed with automatic sidearms, and some have the option to carry a back-up piece. Most departments also equip patrol cars with shotguns, and even a few are equipped with patrol rifles for longer-range precision engagement.

For those situations outside of the realm of normal patrol officers, there are teams, which are traditionally called SWAT. Law-enforcement has moved away from the term SWAT and has gone to more genial names as "special response team" "emergency tactical force" "special enforcement bureau" and "crisis intervention team". I don't think there is one jurisdiction that does not have an SRT on staff, or agreement with a neighboring community or close by jurisdiction. Every federal agency even has one, from the FBI's Hostage Rescue Team, to the Park Police Special Forces Branch, to the Marshals Service Special Operations Group, to the Secret Service's Counter Assault Team.

Each one of these teams has a different mission. Few train for hostage rescue and in-extremis responses. Most are geared toward high-risk warrant service, fugitive retrieval, drug-related raids and general crisis intervention. Now, most teams do have a built-in intervention capability for dynamic entry and long-range target engagement. But this is not the same thing as a SEAL Platoon or Delta Force Troop kicking in the door. Different missions, you see.

The ETF that I belonged to was built along traditional lines. Two assault sections of eight officers, a command and control group of six (included three hostage negotiators), three tactical medics, a group of six snipers, and a larger contingent of "tactical officer" which would be used to secure the perimeter, respond to civil unrest, and provide backup during larger operations. Were they a good team? Hell, yes. The snipers could take out targets at four-hundred yards. The assault elements were excellent at either covert entry or dynamic entry, depending on what the situation was.

But it comes down to mindset. Law-enforcement is not geared toward Violence of Action. This can be illustrated by the following story. I was working 3rd Shift one night on patrol, fulfilling part of my sixteen hour requirement as a reserve deputy to maintain my credentials. The other officers and I in our sector (it was a quiet suburban sector) met at a local restaurant for our meal. Over time, the discussion turned to a gunfight and a "shoot/no-shoot situation" and if we would have the ability to pull the trigger if it came down to it. Now, there were a few military veterans in the group but none had ever seen combat besides me. When it was my turn, I spoke up and spoke from the heart. I replied "to survive a gunfight takes the killer instinct. That means never giving up and fighting the bad guy with everything you got until he's subdued and you're still alive. That means ignoring the pain, the sweat, the blood, the scrapes, the bruises and scratches. That means never hesitating but using initiative, dominant movement and the psychological edge to ensure that you win."

They all looked at me askance. They completely ignored what I said and latched onto the term "killer instinct". They looked like they were going to sh't kittens because I said that. Finally I just shook my head and dropped it, with an embarrassed look on my face, praying that my brother officers would never have to face a gunfight, for which they were ill-prepared. The killer instinct is part of VOA. And it is highly unlikely that most civilian law-enforcement officers will not have what it takes to deal aggressively, pre-emptively and effectively against domestic or international terrorists who take hostages on our soil, under the new paradigm.

And it also comes down to choices. As a member of a military unit we had a wide breadth of choices, from weaponry to breaching options. I won't go into details and divulge classified or sensitive information, but we had a wide range of explosive breaching capabilities that would allow us to enter a building from anywhere we choose, a wall, a door, a ceiling, a window. Law enforcement does not have these options. Some departments will not even allow their officers to use non-lethal shotgun rounds to bust hinges off of doors. Even with the known efficacy of single-action sidearms, especially the increased accuracy and likelihood of a "first-shot/first-kill" hit during a high-stress situation, few departments allow their officers to carry single-action sidearms.

This all goes back to Violence of Action. This all adds to the lack of "killer instinct" or VOA in a high-stress combat situation. And make no mistake, if it is no the streets of Najaf, Iraq, or in a school in Beslan North Ossetia, or in a hotel in Southern California, when we face armed men intent on killing us and innocent women and children, then it is combat. There are no niceties, nothing kinder or gentler about that situation. It is kill or be killed. It is kill to protect lives. Period. End of discussion.

So this comes back to the original question of whether or not or agencies are capable of effectively responding to and intervening in a terrorist hostage situation such as Beslan, North Ossetia. The answer is no. The only way to deal with this terrorists who would target innocents is overwhelming force, violence of action and the killer instinct. This can be accomplished through dominant maneuver by small units, precision shooting at close range, long-range target acquisition (snipers) and maintaining the tactical edge over the enemy.

Most military special military units, Primarily Delta Force and SEAL Team SIX, practice this stuff nonstop. This is their bread and butter. Unfortunately it takes these units several hours to deploy and get on location. Would we have twelve-eighteen-or even twenty-four hours to spare in this type of situation. What if it were your children? What if it was your school? So when the situation goes down the tubes, as it surely will, we will be forced to depend on law enforcement agencies that have not the resources, the rules of engagement or the weaponry and tactical operations, to deal effectively with this type of crisis.

These are the cold hard facts. There is no negotiating with these types of terrorists. It is kill or be killed. That means shoot first, kill first. That means protect the hostages at all costs. In normal circumstances, especially according to the Post-9/11 paradigm, that means to kill the terrorists before they kill the hostages. Period. End of discussion. There is no shouting for the bad guys to put their hands up. There is no shooting to wound. There is no backing out. There is only shooting to kill to save innocent lives. There is no backing out once the commitment to force of arms is made. There is no hesitation.

So what is the answer? I honestly do not know. Civilian SRT does an excellent job fulfilling their doctrinal roles of crisis response and high risk warrant service. But they are ill-prepared for direct-action counterterrorism. And to be quite honest, I do not think I would want these protectors and excellent police officers to have to respond as military operators would; it would only impede their performance as police officers.

So what can we do?

1) Modify the Posse Commitatus act to allow military Special Operations Forces to operate within the United States only in cases of terrorist acts, which will be tightly controlled and defined by the Executive Branch. The NCA will maintain positive control, and only NCA will give execute authority to the tactical commander. The British SAS has operated domestically successfully for years. But then again it is a smaller country and they do not have the Posse Commitatus to deal with.
2) Train civilian SWAT teams and modify their ROE to deal with force-on-force in-extremis situations. This means giving them the options and equipment to deal with ways that are non-traditional to law enforcement. This includes execute authority, immunity from prosecution for the killing of terrorists during a counterterror operation, giving the tactical commander authority to sniper kills. These are terrorists not criminals, and can only be treated as terrorists.
3) Form and maintain on-call National SWAT teams which would solely be used for counterterror operations. To reduce response times, they would be regional and train solely for terrorist operations, hostage rescue, direct-action and terrorist cell neutralization type missions.

I will discuss these options in different posts, but for now needless to say, we will be faced with a Hobson's Choice sooner or later. If we do not act decisively in response to terrorism, then we will endanger for innocent civilian lives. If we act too impetuously, we face a moral question as to whether the situation could be avoided. In today's age of instant media and satellite news, it would be a detriment either way.

However we deal with the issue, we must never lose sight of the fact that we will face this threat on our own land sooner or later. One day we will be faced with the start realization that we will be forced to operate militarily within our own borders. We need to learn from the mistakes and actions of the Russians. This means we need to drill and train to know when the time to act is. We need forces that are properly trained and equipped to deal with terrorists according to the post-9/11 paradigm. We must be prepared to deal decisively with these threats, hopefully abroad but at home if necessary.

As the French are learning, their lack of support for the War in Iraq did not make them immune to terrorism or kidnappings. They capitulated and now they must pay the price of that compromise. We must not make that same mistake.

We must be judicious with our use of force.

But when the time comes, make no mistake, we must act decisively with Violence of Action.