Black Hawk Down is the story of the US raid into Mogadishu designed to find and snatch the Strongman Aideed. It was organized along the lines of Faster, Cheaper, Lighter, Smaller so the force sent in to do the job amounted to about 12 Black Hawk helicopters. One got shot down by an RPG, then another, and pretty soon the entire city of Mogadishu was attacking the Rangers on the ground. There were 60 Rangers against 6000 angry people of Mogadishu, most of whom were armed and who had "technicals".
This extraordinarily stupid military mission violated the Powell Doctrine which says "Only go in when you have overwhealming force". This stupid beyond all description mission happened when Les Aspin was at the Pentagon and Bill Clinton was President.
Later G.W. Bush became President, and his Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld believed very much in the philosophy of cheaper, smaller, lighter, faster, and that’s how the USA went into Iraq, and failed to get control of the place for 8 years in which about 5000 Americans were killed. So, it’s like Mogadishu, except on a bigger scale. [Note: Gen Shinseki, who was fired for saying it, said that it would take 400,000 men to go into Iraq on a reasonable military mission].
Now the Israelis have gone to school and learned the wonderful military tactics and strategy of the USA, their big brother. Now they know about cheaper, faster, lighter, less is more. So now they can be just as stupid as USA in framing military missions, and have the same results as USA.
What we see in this world is regress not progress. We go from the Powell Doctrine (overwhealming force) to Mogadishu, then Iraq, then Flotilla raid, and the same story happens over and over again. It’s Duh time on planet Earth.
If Israel had followed the rules of war at sea, they would have come out better. They would have fired across the bow of the flotilla ship. Then they would have pulled up alongside. In that position, they could have boarded with overwhealming force using beanbags and flashbangs to hold the enemy in check and paralysis. These are non-lethal, but they are terrifying and painful, so the lunatics would not have been able to use metal bars and chairs to beat up the commandos, and no live fire would have been necessary to save them, so nobody would have been killed.
The Les Aspin/Donald Rumsfeld approach to warfighting is so astonishing dumb that it’s amazing that anybody continues to do it. I think we have corrupted the Israeli military and made them stupid, made them act just as dumb as us. I think we may a have advised them in this matter because the fingerprints of our military dumbness are all over this botched operation.
Powell said "Go in with overwhelming force." [Not 20 guys sliding down ropes onto a deck of 400 angry people with iron bars].
By the way, Eisenhower said the same, so did Patton, and Nimitz, and LeMay, and Mahan.
But all of our military knowledge is in the past. We have woken up to the morning of the blinking idiots.
Gee, I wonder why things are not going so well.
[Note: Delta Force and SEAL team operations are fine as long as there is no fight because you have the element of total surprize. You are in and out before anybody knows you were there. If you get into a fight, a few rangers, commandos, or SEALs are not going to win in the way you want. Ideally special forces are used for non-daylight operations, hostage rescue, assassination, and sabotage. Not firefights. Think Grenada not Mogadishu. These commandos had no element of surprize -- is was broad daylight, the helicopters were plainly visible from at least 2000 yards away.]
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