So despite what I promised, I failed to write an entry about the Israeli ship-assault, and to make up for that, I'll mention it in conjunction with this post concerning the freshly "resolved" hostage crisis in the Philippines.
For those who don't know, I present a short summary: earlier today (GMT+2) in Manila, a former police officer in the Philippines police department went nuts and took a bus load of Chinese tourists hostage. Out of the 25 hostages, 10 were released unharmed. During the last hours of the siege, video footage showed a police SWAT team approaching and surrounding the bus and attempting to smash one of the side windows of the bus, to no avail. After a whole hour of trying and failing on live television, they finally managed to get the nutjob, with a deathtoll of 8.
Photos of the events: http://www.chinasmack.com/2010/stories/philippines-hostage-crisis-ends-many-dead-chinese-netizen-reactions.html
Live comments of the events:http://www.militaryphotos.net/forums/showthread.php?184862-Breaking-News-Hostage-incident-in-the-Philippines
To get a feeling of the frustration many are feeling, I have taken a few examples from the forum mentioned above:
"Jesus, First time that I can say that airsofters can do better.
God save the hostages."
"The first sign that the hostages was screwed was when their lives was dependent on the Philippine National Police rescue. That is about the most incompetent law enforcement in the planet."
So that's enough of that, you get the picture- let's do a quick analysis on WTF went wrong, shall we?
1. The police had no plan of action: It was like watching the Munich Olympic massacre all over again. The police just surrounded the vehicle.... And fumbled. For an hour.
2. The SWAT-team clearly lacked proper training or experience, almost making the whole rescue operation seem like a hidden-camera joke. Among the many fumbles spotted by Netizens (militaryphotos) include:
-Dropping a riot shield
-Attempting to use sledgehammers on the windows and doors and failing (this may be excusable by itself, but afterwards the police simply retreated and continued to camp outside the bus, during the course of which one more hostage was killed)
-Entering the bus for a moment before jumping right out again.
-Neglecting the use of flashbangs, which have been used in every successful hostage-rescue operation with no hostage casualties.
-And can someone please explain why many of the officers didn't even have bulletproof vests? It was common knowledge at the time that the hostage-taker had an M16 rifle.
How do we explain all of this? Well, by claiming that the Philippines have no experience in dealing with insurgencies is BS, as they've had large numbers of insurgencies, and are currently receiving the largest amount of US-funded training in Asia. Therefore, the only possible culprit is the police force itself.
(http://www.adl.org/terror/tu/tu_0404_philippines.asp).
Every well-trained assault team trains to expect the worst. When the GSG-9 get weapon jams, they switch to their sidearm and drop to a knee, allowing a buddy to open fire. When the SAS find that their sledgehammers don't work, they quickly switch to breaching charges (actually most of the time they'll just use the breaching charge by default). Police SWAT teams in both the US and China drill constantly to do things fast, aggressively, and with momentum, because they know that wasting a single moment (let alone a whole hour) means more dead hostages. Unfourtunately in this incident, the "assault" team did everything in reverse, and in the process became the laughing stock of the whole world. F*cking A'. Next time Manila, get the military to do it.
As for the Israeli operation, everyone who's familiar with helicopter assaults knows that the most important part of an operation is during the fast-roping process, when the team members are most vulnerable. The idea is that one should land the entire team in quick succession into a relatively clear and safe area before going into contact with the enemy. Anyone who's seen the released videos will notice that the Israeli troops are roping straight into angry mobs... Nuff' said.
