Big Red Car here. Only 44F and only going to make it into the 50F’s. Brrrr!
So, the Big Red Car is thinking about the implications of Paris and what should be done.
The West Austin Coyote
A few years ago, a coyote was menacing West Austin — menacing meaning eating cats, primarily cats, and small dogs. The alarm was sounded and nobody really knew what to do. Local animal control had nothing particularly insightful to offer.
Lots of Pemberton Heights and Tarrytown residents noted they saw the coyote on the way to the airport and it seemed that the coyote was living down along Shoal Creek based on the sightings. A Shoal Creek base of operations for the coyote.
One fellow got out a lovely antique Winchester 1873 lever action rifle and went down along Shoal Creek looking for the coyote. As luck would have it, they met and the fellow put three .45 caliber slugs into the coyote thereby fixing the problem. The coyote’s geographical hide was the key to solving the problem.
The fellow found him, fixed him and killed him.
Terrorist training
The Paris terrorists apparently received three days of marksmanship training in Yemen in 2011.
Both brothers behind Paris attack had weapons training in Yemen – sources
Marksmanship training on an AK-47 is not very difficult to organize, deliver and evaluate. Any reasonably intelligent and handy man can become quite good at firing an AK-47 in three days.
The training will entail assembling and breaking down the weapon for maintenance, loading the weapon, firing the weapon and clearing malfunctions. Any reasonably skillful trainer could teach an orangutan to fire an AK-47 in three days.
Let’s be clear about something — this is not “military training” in the sense that journalists are suggesting. This is simple weapons familiarization. You would get the same training if you received a CHL (concealed handgun license).
Other than being able to fire an AK-47 there is nothing particularly insightful or frightening about this incident. [Other than the deaths, of course.] These are not trained soldiers, these were a couple of shmos who learned how to operate an AK-47.
What is important is that this training was done in person, at an identifiable location in Yemen by other terrorists.
Eliminate the training sites
The Yemen training site are specific locations and these shitheads went there to receive the training. [There is no reason why the training could not have been conducted in Paris other than they may have had to “dry fire” the weapons rather than blasting away at the Yemeni rifle range.]
The solution to much of the long term problem is to identify and eliminate every terrorist training facility in the world. Find ’em, fix ’em, kill then — you may recognize that as the mission of the United States Army’s infantry branch.
A company of Rangers with Warthog support could do this in less than an hour. In. Out. Destroy the facility. Grab some intel. Take a prisoner or two. Kill everyone. No more coyotes.
Intel
It is not very hard to find the training sites using aerial surveillance and human intelligence. Look for sites that are out of the way, accessible by vehicle, receiving lots of food, water and ammunition. Look for rifle and pistol ranges and obstacle courses. Easy pickings.
This can be further buttressed by sending agents to pose as terrorists and obtaining the GPS coordinates of these sites.
While the Big Red Car is particularly keen to use ground troops — better to obtain hard intel as part of the raid and take a few prisoners — the same long term impact could be achieved by deploying bombs and cruise missiles. Remove the sites from the face of the earth.
Note that we have destroyed what had been an exquisite intel operation in the Middle East with the pull out of American units and influence. No more CIA offices. No more military intel. No more close proximity to and cooperation with local intel operations. Fewer agents and less contact with agents. No more elimination of HVTs (high value targets).
All of this results in America essentially flying blind. Still, we can find these locations and eliminate the training camps as well as killing the instructors and students.
Balancing act
The French are now likely motivated to deal with this situation. An alliance needs to be formed with a single objective — eliminate all training sites from the face of the earth and do it on a regular basis. It is like any pest control program, it will require periodic treatments.
Will it take a few more projections of force from the Middle East to western cities to make the point? Not really.
FEBA (forward edge of the battle area)
Soldiers like to think of very orderly battlefields. Even in asymmetrical warfare, tidiness is desirable.
One of those tidy concepts is the FEBA — the forward edge of the battle area — which is the line at which we meet our enemies.
The terrorists want the FEBA to be in Paris, London, New York. We should want the FEBA to be in Yemen, Syria and other places far removed from our interests.
The Paris murders are an indication that the terrorists succeeded in making Paris the FEBA. We now have to assert our force and power to return the FEBA to the Middle East.
It will not happen absent action on our part. On the other hand, it really is that simple — get the FEBA back into the Middle East by attacking the terrorists where they live and train.
The question is — do we have the national and collective will or are we just going to become adept at mourning?
It is just like killing coyotes.
But, hey, what the Hell do I really know anyway? I’m just a Big Red Car.
