3 July 03

Saudi "Security Service" education, from a friend who is involved in contrac t training.

"Saudi 'Security Service' personnel all carry a S&W M10 revolver in 38Spl. On duty, it is carried unloaded. Speed loaders are forbidden (must watch ou t for that Western moral corruption). Madness, I know, but that is a direct or der from the Saudi Ministry of Interior.

They also teach their personnel to fire warning shots (many of them), and, for the ultimate in lunacy, they shoot at the legs rather than center of vis ible mass. The forgoing is largely irrelevant anyway, because the men are all told that if they ever fire a shot from their revolver for any reason, they will go to prison. They are just 'beans,' and they know it. The Saudi g overnment considers them utterly expendable.

Our 'training' course here in Virginia is seven days long. With rel igious breaks, it comes out to two days of actual training. Each student shoots a total of twenty-five actual rounds of ammunition. Upon graduation, none of them could fight their way out of a Riyadh whorehouse!"

Comment: This is yet another example of incompetence, elevated to an art form, complements of our Saudi "allies." Anyone who thinks the Saudis would or could put of a credible fight is dreaming.

/John

3 July 03

This is from a young military officer in the Israeli Army:

"Israeli military training is now focused exclusively on small unit tactics, urban warfare, and crowd control. We all hope that IDF's current obsession with Intefada will not cause us to forget 'combined arms' skills we will need to fight Syrians, et al, in yet another conventional war. I doubt that the Syrians will keep us waiting much longer!

Our reputation for innovation and improvisation not withstanding, we are still teaching the 'chamber empty' method for carrying pistols. It an obsolete method left over from the 1940s, when many of the pistols carried by our nation's founders were broken-down discards and were not drop-safe. I don't know why we can't finally shake this outdated practice, but it continues to be taught .

We are currently teaching both military and civilians gun carriers that once he is down, keep him down." That is, we are to rapidly close and put two rounds in to the head of the wounded, would-be terrorist. We've decided tha t we only want to fight these bastards once!

The locally made Galil rifle has been relegated to rear-area defense. Front-line troops are carrying American M16s, most with optical sights. The Galil is a great rifle, but it suffers from a perceived weakness of the Kalashniko v system, namely the difficulty of attaching optics and all manner of other gadgets one sees, like a malignant fungus, growing on military rifles these days.

There is another reason: at the end of the day, it came down to 'why should we continue to build these expensive weapons, when we can get M16s from the Americans for free?'"

Comment: The Israelis are great people, but they suffer from the safe specie s of self-deception we do. Specifically, that there is a mechanical device ou t there somewhere that will adequately substitute for common sense. Military rifles festooned with everything from television sets, to can openers, to ha nd warmers will not carry the day. Competent and dedicated riflemen, armed wit h plain-vanilla rifles (that don't require batteries!), will!

/John

3 July 03

It official at the LAPD:

"Below is the column Chief Bratton writes in our Police Protective League's monthly paper, The Thin Blue Line. It arrived in my mail box a few minutes a go:

'New Glock Weapons

We are currently preparing correspondence seeking the Police Commission's approval for officers to carry Glock 9mm, 40 caliber, and 45 caliber firearm s. This will be the first time that the Department has authorized the use of Glocks. Although the City won't issue Glocks, officers will be able to purc hase these firearms on their own and carry them on duty after receiving departmen t training.'

When the chief puts it in The Thin Blue Line, it is as official as it gets."

/John