Cops Show Marines How to Take on the Taliban Camp Pendleton Marines went to one of LA's toughest neighborhoods
A tough-talking, muscular Los Angeles police sergeant steadily rattled off tips to a young Marine riding shotgun as they raced in a patrol car to a drug bust: Be aware of your surroundings. Watch people's body language. Build rapport.
Marine Lt. Andrew Abbott, 23, took it all in as he peered out at the graffiti-covered buildings, knowing that the lessons he learned recently in one of the city's toughest neighborhoods could help him soon in the war against the Taliban in Afghanistan.
"People are the center of gravity and if you do everything you can to protect them, then they'll protect you," he said. "That's something true here and pretty much everywhere."
Abbott was among 70 Camp Pendleton Marines in a training exercise that aims to adapt the investigative techniques the LAPD has used for decades against violent street gangs to take on the Taliban more as a powerful drug-trafficking mob than an insurgency.
The Marines hope that learning to work like a cop on a beat will help them better track the Taliban, build relationships with Afghans leery of foreign troops and make them better teachers as they try to professionalize an Afghan police force beset by corruption.
The troops believe they can learn valuable lessons from the LAPD, which has made inroads into communities......"Their role is to win the hearts and minds of the community and that's what they did," said Marine Staff Sgt. Brendan Flynn, who also works as a Los Angeles police officer and will be deployed to help train Afghan police.
The weeklong exercise -- unbeknownst to the public -- involved Marines dressed in jeans and T-shirts observing drugs busts, witnessing prostitution arrests and even following a murder case. It was the largest group of Marines to embed with the city's officers.
...But in many ways, police in Los Angeles' crime-ridden neighborhoods use the same skills that Marines say could help them.
Marines are in charge of training Afghanistan's army and police but often have no police experience themselves. Their success in building effective police forces is considered key to stabilizing the country and allowing foreign troops to withdraw.
Marines also are changing their approach, realizing that marching into towns to show force alienates communities. Instead, they are being taught to fan out with interpreters to strike up conversations with truck drivers, money exchangers, cell phone sellers and others.
The rapport building can net valuable information that could even alert troops about potential attacks.
Marines can gather intelligence by picking up the notebooks, receipts and other papers left behind in raids that could provide insight into the opium business the Taliban uses to buy their weapons, Afghan expert Gretchen Peters said.
She told Marines before the Los Angeles patrols that they should follow the lead of some Afghans who have gone from using the term "mujahadeen" or "holy warrior" to identify the Taliban to calling them gangsters...."Think of the Taliban as the Sopranos in turbans," she said. "I think essentially they're criminals."
Come on, don't insult Tony Soprano :)
...In the end, the police training mission is what will win the war, said Marine 2nd Lt. Jared Siebenaler, 24, of Hastings, Minn., who spent the past six months training police in Afghanistan. But he acknowledged their police mission faces enormous challenges.
Siebenaler said many recruits tested positive for drugs, arriving to work high on hashish if they came at all. Supervisors were believed to be skimming money off their officers' measly salaries. One force had men from two tribes who could barely stand each other.
And then there's the language barrier between Marines and the Afghan police.
But like most police work, getting past issues of trust and cultural difference begins with a brief encounter on a street.
As Clair and Abbott cruised past a row of dilapidated homes, the police sergeant told him to notice how a person's walk and dress changes from street to street, and whether children are playing or hurrying by.
I recalled my first class on what was called in 1988 Low Intensity Conflict or LIC. The captain giving the class said this was the war of the future. He was steel on target there. Glad to see we're using a real life Military Operations in Urban Terrain facility to train our men.
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