[118145] in Cypherpunks
Re: IP: THEY THINK WE'RE THE ENEMY
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Declan McCullagh)
Mon Sep 20 20:47:15 1999
Date: Mon, 20 Sep 1999 20:22:06 -0400
To: Doug Fiedor <fiedor19@eos.net>
From: Declan McCullagh <declan@well.com>
Cc: ignition-point@precision-d.com, cypherpunks@cyberpass.net
In-Reply-To: <4.1.19990920192012.0094bef0@mail.eos.net>
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Message-Id: <19990921002224.MBPN1503@alaptop.hotwired.com>
Reply-To: Declan McCullagh <declan@well.com>
Doug,
Don't get me wrong. I enjoyed reading your column, and the world would be a
poorer place if you hadn't written it.
But the journalist in me still likes to get facts right, and there's zero
evidence that the manual is real, and at least a couple red flags that
suggest the version up on that web site is a hoax. There might have been a
real, honest-to-goodness military manual with that title at some point, but
that one surely ain't it.
I mean, "party members" distributed throughout "fighting units?" Hello,
Soviet Union, anyone?
-Declan
http://earthops.org/sovereign/urban_warfare/90-10.2.html
At 19:25 9/20/1999 -0400, Doug Fiedor wrote:
>To All:
>
> Now wait just a flash-bang grenade minute here. . . . I’ve been
>following that stupid “Military Operations on Urbanized Terrain (MOUT) FM
>90-10” manual around for a few years, just knowing that someday I would
want to
>use something out of it.
> Look at the date on the thing. That is EXACTLY how special
operations
>teams were trained back in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Yes, there was
>always a “political officer” (or two). Yes, propaganda techniques were
taught
>as part of population control.
> They still are! In fact, these guys are masters at propaganda --
>rivaling the CIA in local area operations, actually.
> The deal is, a while back the Army made a lot of material on their
web
>sites unavailable. Training manuals are now gone, unless you can access
>through a military computer.
> Wander on over to
http://www.fas.org/irp/doddir/army/fm34-1/ref.htm and
>check for yourself. Field Manual FM 90-10 is still listed on that page.
>However, clicking on it gets you nowhere. It was even removed from The
>Federation of American Scientists web site. Almost all military manuals
were.
> Yet FM 90-10 is still a valid training manual. It’s a little old,
>maybe; and it’s only used as reference, maybe; but it is still used by the
>military, nonetheless.
> Anyway, I wanted to point to it for that article. There was only one
>place I could find it because the Army shut down half of their information.
>So, I referenced it where I could find it.
> It truth, I looked over parts of it and found no changes. And, the
>part
>I was most interested in was just as it has always been -- even way, way back
>when I was in the Army. Which means that it nicely fit the point I wanted to
>make. Therefore, I referenced it.
> Young men may differ in what is right or wrong with the Army -- we
did
>even back when I was a ground-ponder.
> But then, we always quickly received a reminder of the real theory of
>military operations: There is a right way of doing things, a wrong way of
>doing things, and the Army way of doing things. <g>
> Field Manual FM 90-10 is the Army way. And, those techniques work
>quite
>well in time of war. My only point was that this stuff has no place in
>civilian police work. Not in the United States, anyway.
>
>Doug
>
>
>
>
>
>
>At 03:45 PM 9/20/99 -0400, you wrote:
>>In Doug Fiedor's recent column on police militarization, he quotes from a
>>purported "US Army urban warfare manual" and gives a link to it. Fair
>>enough. Well, I took a look at it and here's what I found in chapter two:
>>
>>http://earthops.org/sovereign/urban_warfare/90-10.2.html
>>>All fighting men are told that no one has the right to leave the defended
>>location without a specific order to do so. Party members are distributed
>>throughout the fighting units. There must be an "active member" in every
>>separate group of fighting men. He conducts party-political indoctrination
>>and provides the example in combat. Based on the commander's iuidance and
>>decision, the Deputy Commander for Political Affairs plans the
>>party-political support for the combat missions.
>>
>>I don't know about you, but this seems to me to be a spoof of some Soviet
>>literature, not something that has anything to do with the FBI or Waco. Or
>>maybe it's something that a bored high school JROTC kid wrote in his spare
>>time. Whatever.
>>
>>Moral: Just because something's on the Internet, don't believe it's real.
>>
>>-Declan
>>
>>
>>>Date: Sat, 18 Sep 1999 17:22:09 -0600
>>>To: Ignition-Point < >
>>>From: Doug Fiedor <fiedor19@eos.net>
>>>Subject: IP: THEY THINK WE'RE THE ENEMY
>>>Sender: owner-ignition-point@precision-d.com
>>>Reply-To: Doug Fiedor <fiedor19@eos.net>
>>>
>>[...]
>>> Oh, and they also have use of a Special
>>>Operations classified Army aviation unit used almost
>>>exclusively for covert missions; which is conveniently
>>>based next to the Quantico FBI Academy. And that area just
>>>happens to be, also coincidentally, where the military
>>>trains certain types of covert special operations people.
>>> So, we went looking for training manuals. One
>>>reasonably adequate one is at:
>>>http://earthops.org/sovereign/urban_warfare This is
>>>FM 90-10, titled "Military Operations on Urbanized Terrain
>>>(MOUT)." In Army-speak, it is about "those military actions
>>>planned and conducted on a terrain complex where manmade
>>>construction impacts on the tactical options available to
>>>commanders."
>>> We found Appendix G: "How To Attack And Clear
>>>Buildings," quite interesting because it seems to describe
>>>the actions of those many military practice attacks carried
>>>out on urban areas around the country over the past couple
>>>years. Interestingly enough, it also diagrams the methods
>>>the BATF tried to use at Waco.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>
