TO WIN OR NOT WIN IN COLOMBIA?

Even Third World irregulars know enough that armored vehicles are needed to overcome small arms fire!...and obtain SHOCK ACTION. Analysis of how to win this war at the bottom. First, the bad news.

BAD NEWS: THE GUERRILLAS ARE WINNING

INFOBEAT March 31, 1998
by Reuters | The Americas

Colombian rebels attack police with home-made tank

Marxist rebels built a home-made tank from a farm tractor and metal sheeting and used it to attack a police station in eastern Colombia early Tuesday, authorities said. Four Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) rebels and a policeman died in the attack in the town of Vista Hermosa in Meta province. "The guerrillas stole a tractor and fixed thick metal sheets around the driver's cab and set up a M-60 machine-gun on top," a police spokesman said. The tractor became stuck in a deep rut on the approach to the police barracks. But the rebels managed to destroy a bank before fleeing into nearby hills when an air force plane arrived to provide back-up for the 18 policemen, he said.

Colombia's leftist rebels wheeled out a surprise weapon this week in their long-running war with the government - home-made "tanks" built from farm tractors. Two of the makeshift war-horses, farm tractors with the driver's cabs protected by thick sheets of steel and M-60 machine-guns mounted on top, spearheaded a guerrilla attack on the town of Vista Hermosa in eastern Meta province Tuesday. The rebels have sporadically used crude armored vehicles in the past. But police sources said Wednesday the growing sophistication of the designs indicated they were trying to form their own "armored cavalry division."

{Editor's note: the "center of gravity" in 4th Generation Warfare is the people themselves, and people live in CITIES. To fight in cities we need specially trained urban combat units like the Swedish Army has, in a combined arms team with specialty equipments for city fighting. The guerrillas seem to know this, thats why they are winning on the technical level of war.]

07:05 PM ET 03/31/98

U.S. denies hostages in Colombia were spies

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States denied Tuesday that four Americans seized by leftist rebels in Colombia worked for any U.S. intelligence agency.

``I have no reason to believe that these people are anything but bird watchers,''

State Department spokesman James Rubin said.

``As far as I best can tell, there is no connection between these people with anything other than (the prominent U.S. environmental group) the National Audubon Society,''

The Americans were snatched more than a week ago, together with an Italian and at least seven Colombians, at a rebel roadblock on a main highway about 35 miles east of the capital Bogota. The rebels from the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) have threatened to kill the U.S. citizens if they prove to be undercover intelligence agents.

Another State Department official said:

``The four people are not U.S. government employees. Period.''

``should be released, and they should not be suffering at the hands of terrorists, and they shouldn't have threats to their lives. People who want to visit a country to enjoy the environment and the beauty of it should not be kidnapped and terrorized and threatened.''

6:03 PM ET 03/31/98

Colombian rebels say Army endangering U.S. hostages

BOGOTA (Reuters) - A Colombian rebel commander said Tuesday the lives of four Americans and an Italian he was holding hostage were in danger because the army was flying bombing raids in the area where they were being held.

The army said earlier it had scaled back military operations in mountains about 35 miles east of Bogota to prevent any risk to the foreigners and a group of up to seven Colombians, who were kidnapped eight days ago.

The local chieftain of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), known by his alias ``Romana'', has threatened to kill the Americans if they prove to be undercover U.S. intelligence agents.

``The five foreigners are in perfect health,''

Romana said in an interview broadcast by the Radionet radio network. ``But if things continue as they are then we will wash our hands of responsibility for them,'' he added, saying the Army was bombing the area where they were being held near the isolated farming villages of San Juanito and El Calvario.

Gen. Freddy Padilla, head of the army's 7th Brigade, said in response to the rebel statement only that ``carefully measured military operations'' were being carried out.

The Americans, named by immigration officials Tuesday as Thomas Fiori, 42, Todd Mark, 32, Louise Agustine and Peter Shen, were abducted along with Italian Vito Candela and a large group of Colombians at a rebel roadblock last Monday on a major highway connecting the capital to the eastern plains region. The four U.S. citizens all entered Colombia March 19 on a flight from New York and were granted 30-day tourist visas, according to immigration authorities. The U.S. State Department said they were on a bird-watching trip.

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and Colombia's Human Rights Ombudsman tried in vain Tuesday to make fresh contact with the FARC unit to mediate the possible release of the hostages.

``The ICRC team is still in (the town of) Villavicencio. There are some logistical difficulties,'' an ICRC spokesman said. Colombia's Human Rights Ombudsman Fernando Castro condemned the FARC threat to kill the Americans.

``This act is a grave offense to civilized minds throughout the world,'' he said in a statement. ``The FARC's comments have caused us great concern and worry.''

The FARC recently said it would target all U.S. military advisers in Colombia, accusing them of heading covert counterinsurgency operations. But the group's international spokesman, Marco Leon Calarca, told Reuters late Monday the U.S. hostages would be released quickly ``if they had nothing to do with the war.''

The FARC, thought to have about 10,000 fighters nationwide, was blamed for abducting some 900 people last year, using the ransoms to finance its war against the Colombian state.

HOW TO LOSE

03:46 PM ET 04/05/98

Colombian army chief complains of lack of weaponry

BOGOTA (Reuters) - Colombia's chronic shortage of military hardware for fighting a growing rebel threat has left it like a family of 20 ``with just one spoon,'' the head of the armed forces said in an interview published Sunday.

Top government officials, including President Ernesto Samper himself, conceded late last year that the army was not winning the long-running war against the country's burgeoning Marxist guerrilla groups.

At the end of last month, Gen. Charles Wilhelm, head of the U.S. Southern Command, said the Colombian military was incapable of defeating the guerrillas, whom he called a threat to both internal democracy and regional stability.

``When Wilhelm said the Colombian army lacked mobility, that was not a criticism, it's true,''

Armed forces chief Gen. Manuel Jose Bonett told the respected El Espectador newspaper.

``In a country that has as many enemies as we do, the army has just seven (U.S.-made) Blackhawk helicopters and 10 Russian helicopters. That's like having a family of 20 and just one spoon or just one plate,''

Last week Bonett was called before Congress to explain a military debacle in the southern province of Caqueta in March. Rebels of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) killed between 62 and 83 soldiers there in the army's worst defeat in three decades of civil conflict.

In addition to highlighting the lack of materiel -- in some cases, soldiers are fighting with 25-year-old G-3 rifles -- Bonett stressed the need for better intelligence-gathering technology.

He also said the FARC and the smaller Cuban-inspired National Liberation Army (ELN) now had a total of 20,000 fighters -- an estimate one-third higher than any previous one -- compared with the army's active combat force of 40,000 men.

Western diplomatic sources estimate that the FARC and the ELN now have de facto political and military control of almost half the country.

In a Reuters interview last month, Fabian Ramirez, the FARC commander who led the attack on a crack counterinsurgency unit in Caqueta called the Colombian army an ``incapable'' force made up of ``dope-smoking'' soldiers.

Return To Top | The Americas

Rebels dynamite Colombian jail, free 54 convicts

Leftist rebels blew up the walls of a prison in southwest Colombia, rescuing one of their jailed leaders and freeing another 53 inmates, authorities said Sunday. Officials at the National Prisons Institute said two convicts were killed and another was injured in the blast early Saturday in the town of Santander de Quilichao in Cauca province. About 20 Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia guerrillas overpowered nine prison guards and seized their weapons in the attack. An INPEC spokesman said seven escapees were recaptured by mid-afternoon Saturday and 126 remained in the prison.

05:15 PM ET 04/03/98

Guerrillas seen as U.S-Colombian ``common foes''

CARTAGENA, Colombia, (Reuters) - Colombia's leftist rebels and narcotrafficking have become Washington and Bogota's ''common enemies'', a key U.S. lawmaker said Friday in this Caribbean coast resort.

Rep. Benjamin Gilman, a New York Republican, accused Colombia's estimated 20,000 guerrillas of close ties with the drug trade and pledged U.S. Congress would give full support to combat them.

``The alliance between the guerrillas and narcotrafficking in Colombia have made them common enemies for our two countries,'' Gilman told reporters during a two-day fact-finding mission to Colombia, together with 26 other congressmen.

Colombia's rebels, who rose up in arms against the state in the mid-1960s, charge that the United States' main aim is to carry out covert counterinsurgency operations, using the drug issue as a pretext. They deny wholesale links with the drug trade but concede they impose a ``war tax'' on the cultivation of illicit drug crops in some areas.

Some political analysts speak of a ``Vietnamization'' of U.S. policy toward Colombia, saying Washington is getting sucked ever deeper into a war it cannot win.

[Editor's note: BS. Its high time we learn how to WIN a counter -insurgency type war. The Pentagon is just too lazy to want to do it.]

Last month, a top regional commander of the revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), Latin America's oldest and largest rebel force, said he would begin targeting U.S. advisers in Colombia. U.S. authorities say there are some 200 advisers in Colombia at present but say all are involved in counternarcotics operations

. At an afternoon news conference, Gilman charged that the ''narco-guerrillas'' made as much as $100 million per month from the drug trade while the U.S. anti-drug aid to Colombia amounted to about $90 million per year.

``With this visit, the U.S. Congress reiterates its backing for Colombia in the drug war,'' he said ``We have no choice but to keep up the fight.''

Earlier this week, U.S. Gen. Charles Wilhelm, commander of the Miami-based Southern Command, told the U.S. Congress that instability in Colombia was affecting the security of neighboring countries -- thereby putting an international spin on what has so far been seen as an internal problem. Incoming U.S. ambassador Curtis Kamman last month pledged to lobby for a boost in military aid for Bogota.

HOW TO WIN
The "center of gravity" is our own decadence funding the drug crops, hence the insurgency. The solution is what Teddy Roosevelt intended the vast areas of CONUS to be kept free for: build character and self control with 2 years of national service for all Americans when they reach 18. A Civilian, nursing, police and military corps that gets kids off the streets, their 50 mile radius from home world view, build self-control and otherwise we will continue our national slide into self-indulgence. America needs a MISSION. That mission should be:

* Conquer/colonize space
* Be the world's policeman (or else someones else becomes the jailor)
* Prepare for massive earth changes and natural disasters of unheard of scale

As you can see this has nothing to do with earning your "first million" or being a sports star. Real heroes find polio cures, not shoot baskets. America needs to get back to adult reality and real world challenges instead of entertainer idolatry. To do this we need to return to the Judaeo-Christian TRUTH that all of us are made in God's image with VALUE NOW, not just when we "make something of ourselves". Our society driven by greed and existentialism is corrupt. Once we get off our personal ego trips we will be ready to work together to solve the REALLY DIFFICULT challenges ahread that only together we can solve. This means not looking over your shoulder to adjust your behavior in order to protect your job/middle class lifestyle. It means doing what is right all the time because its right.

The fuel feeding this fire is MONEY. From drug taxes and hostage taking. First, the Army needs a counter-terrorist unit to rescue hostages to be trained by U.S. SF. Next the government must have a policy of no ransoms paid to the terrorists, PERIOD. The money from American bohemians using drugs must be matched and surpassed by the resources the sane and sober people of the U.S. can generate. As a nation the entire self-indulgent lifestyle that condones drug use must be rejected and replaced with a NATIONAL MISSION: colonize space, be the world's policeman, prepare the earth for coming natural disasters. Every High School graduate or person turning 18 should do 2 years of National Service, military, police, nursing, conservation corps to learn self-control, to get out of the 50 mile radius of home and give something back for being a citizen in a free country. What follows next is how at the OPERATIONAL LEVEL we should isolate Colombia to stop this flow of cash coming into terrorist hands. And, then isolate the terrorists from legitimacy in the eyes of the people, then capture/destroy them.

I think we are headed to an intervention in that country. If we go infantry pure, we will lose lots of men because we don't have the Soldier's load problem fixed. We can solve this (re: http://www.geocities.com/Pentagon/Quarters/2116/ and LTC Hackworth's "guerrilla battalion" tactics), but its not likely in a hurry. This is likely in the form of SOF units with a severe case of "light-itis". SOF is probably there now "advising" but it may upgrade to a Ranger Battalion doing DA missions. SF should be on the scene NOW for a possible hostage rescue. In either the intervention or hostage rescue they will probably wrongly assume that armored vehicles are unnecessary since its rural "Roger's Rangers" type terrain and not a Somalia city fight, so I don't expect them to take any AFVs, instead Air Assaulting here and there. No real changes essentially from Vietnam. We will get pinned down, men will be wounded and die and we will call in fire support to free us. They are wrong on this, as even the guerrillas are trying to fashion AFVs to keep their men from being cut up by modern automatic weapons fire. We must be more mobile than the guerrillas on the ground: 4-7 mph.

We need to totally revamp the Colombian Army with a Sun Tzu type force, book online: http://www.mit.edu/people/dcctdw/AOW/toc.htm" an "ordinary" holding force using M113A3 APCs with 106mm RRs, 81mm mortars, to act as light tanks and APCs. I believe we could teach them how to use/maintain the M113A3s as the rest of the free world seems to be able, but is complained as being "too hard" for an American Soldier with "light-itis". The "extraordinary" maneuver force, parachute and helicopter mobile would have extremely high levels of foot mobility, Human Powered Vehicles a few M113A3s or Wiesels for shock effect at the front, and wear hard body armor. The third element would be a "healing force" that would be composed of Civil Affairs and 18 series Soldiers that would mend the civilians in the areas we attack, and get them growing another cash crop other than drugs. The "healing" element would be language/culture fluent and create a Colombian Defense Force in the village capable of defeating the Narco-Terrorists until the Army can arrive. The last element would be the "sealing" force composed of the Navy and USAF assets that would seal off all drugs coming out of Colombia, blockading all traffic except legitimate airliners/ships etc. An Army LID would in concert with combat Engineers seal off the land borders working from within their neighbor's terrain. The only Americans on the scene being "ugly" would be the advisors who would be teaching more than light-itis to the Colombians. The rebels would have no "cash flow" to continue their war. We help Colombia with our best National Intelligence gathering means.

U.S. conventional units would seal the borders, land, sea and air of Colombia. This stops the rebel's cash flow. I see the tropical-oriented 25th LID on the ground in nearby countries to stop the cancer from spreading. The 82d Airborne Division would be on call to knock out the rebels in the final phase, when they are cornered.

What is needed to transform the Colombians is a jolt of energy and aggression, send in an entire Ranger battalion to side-by-side work with the designated "extraordinary" maneuver force, to train them in patrolling, get them Airborne qualified etc. like the ARVN Rangers.

At the same time, we get our BEST, shit-hot MECH guys and some Rangers who are open minded to create the "ordinary" holding force with a massive dose of M113A3s with the applique' armor. The M113A3s must have fire support weapons attached; some M163 20mm gatlings, others 106mm RRs.

While the two "chaser" forces are being trained, the countryside must be kept from rebel attacks and the rebels kept off balance. USAF aircraft and USN planes should begin careful bombing attacks guided by SF SR and LRS teams on the ground to avoid civilian casualties that would make new enemies of the government. This is a holding action until the chaser forces can get ready. An Aircraft carrier group with 2 carriers should sail at once for Colombia. A plane doesn't occupy the soil. One aircraft carrier should be devoted to 160th SOAR aircraft and SOF units, proven in Haiti.

The Healing and Holding Forces in nearby villages under government control begin turning the crops over to non-drug plants and train up a defense force to keep the rebels out. These are U.S. Army Civil Affairs and Psyops units.

160th SOAR flying from Navy carriers comes in and flies the Colombian Army reaction forces around until they can get their expanded UH-60 Blackhawk and CASA 212 fleet going. The CASA 212s drop paras, the helos for LRS or Air Assaults after the paras have seized the assault zone. We fly off carriers to avoid a huge American presence to guard these bases...a mistake from Vietnam to be avoided.

The usmc is not it. We do DaNang 1965 all over again, we are going to have marines lighting up huts as their buddies get killed/wounded. We don't need tactical slackers over there. We must excecute an exanding ink blot and not look back. We must avoid dumb American casualties that could "pull the plug" on the whole thing due to public pressure of it being another "Vietnam", hence no marines.

We must have our best mine/booby trap people over there, sniffer dogs, FLIR etc that we learned from Bosnia to keep U.S. casualties down. The same goes for a government Soldier. If we can live anther day, we use discretion. Time is on our side if we keep the pressure up. Patience. Rejuvenate the government Soldiers.

The extraordinary force would be like the 75th Rangers with M113A3 Gavins for fire support, and HPVs. The holding force like the NTC OPFOR---2d ID but using M113A3s. The UH-60/CASA 212 faviation like 160th SOAR. The main Army like the 25th LID and the 82d Airborne Division who would rotate jumps and training missions with to forge trust and confidence in each other. The healing forces like our CA/Psops. Their Delta like our Delta.

When the Chaser forces are ready, they relentlessly pursue the rebels and give them no rest. They do not fly back out and in for a patrol. Rebel base camps are located and destroyed, their FARC/ELN main forces brought to battle. If they disperse and try to hide, the Healing Force by registering all Colombian citizens and photo-iding them will build files on those who are suspected of rebel affiliations. They should have no place to hide. The healing force would offer amnesty and a cash reward for turning their weapons in.

The goal should be not to annihilate the FARC/ELN, but to get them to surrender. Get them involved in the government---if they pledge to stop armed rebellion and drug trafficking.

In essence, to win the CIVIL WAR in Colombia, you have to fight it like a CIVIL WAR. Our Civil War ended when Sherman marched through the south and ended the Confederate Army's logistics. We need the same in Columbia, by replacing their drug logistics with a better infrastructure, not destruction.