"I Can't Filter Out the Terrorist!"

Yesterday I was watching evening news and was greeted by Parliamentary chaos over the Tamil arrest scene last Sunday. The Tamil representatives were outraged stating that a large number of Tamil citizens were being held in custody, sometimes with children, while they had full papers of identification and reasons of stay. But the most interesting one statement was made by a governing parliamentarian defending the issue: "If you can explain out who is LTTE and who isn't, we'll release them in 24 hours".

Now this asks for thinking. Does this mean that the government and the forces are still operating on the assumption that 'Tamil = LTTEer'? Well that was the situation in the mass deportation which happened last June. The people were simply deported without concrete evidence, which was echoed by the successful and unchallenged Supreme Court order reversing the deportation. Of course, if the police forces had concrete evidence that they were LTTE operatives, then arrest and press charges. Then they'd have been able to challenge the court decision even Just deportation of Sri Lanka's own citizens is simply outrageous.

It has been crystal clear whatever the GOSL is saying about its military operation in the NorthEast, it has been very lapse on the southern security. Almost all major targets in Colombo were unashamedly been attacked since the start of insurgencies, and the best the government can do is simply choke the south with massive and useless road checks once something happens, and let everything be forgotten in a matter of weeks before start trumpeting about NorthEasteren military operations [and blaming everything from cost of living to the size of the Cabinet over it]. The GOSL forces are simply at a loss of finding out and thwarting LTTE undercover operations in south. By current developments what we can see is either they can put a majority of the southern Tamil population behind bars, or let the bombs go on. To echo the government's own words, the southern security situation is utterly lapse. I seriously doubt if the LTTE aircraft were to infiltrate into Colombo skies once more, there's anything much more the air force can do than the two previous times. We need a better structured defense plan down here, not just stupid policemen who cannot even properly thwart a bomb threat or evacuate the scene properly after an incident as demonstrated about a week back, not to mention identifying the terrorist from the Tamil.

The government is very vocal about the country having a terrorist problem which is solvable via a military approach. If anybody in the government had even a little bit of brains, they should've noticed that almost 100% of the terrorists are Tamil. In fact, they 'cannot even distinguish who's the terrorist and who isn't', as was admitted in Parliament yesterday. There definitely is a problem about it. If almost all the LTTE are Tamil [well any stupid idiot knows], then surely there's something deeper than "a simple terrorist problem", isn't it?

The LTTE are terrorists and shit, there's no doubt about it. They should be destroyed as much as that was their choice; they thwarted peace efforts every time. But there should be a distinction between the Tamil citizen and the terrorist, an absence of which the current GOSL actions seem to show. Unless more care is practiced, there'll be a time when there indeed IS NO such distinction. Such times may be the ones the real LTTE is eagerly looking forward to.

In short, the GOSL need a broader perspective on the problem definitely. As well as a true pointed military approach to destroy terrorism [not one which is just there to justify every shit going on in the country, the president personally did it in Parliament], an elite and intelligence-based long sighted southern defense plan, we need a solution to the fact that 'every LTTEr is a Tamil'. That's what would complete a true mission to end this chaos.

On a happier term, I also heard last evening that the Supreme Court has outlawed permanent search barriers [i hope it includes utterly useless, traffic-choking road checks] and VIP road-choking at ruch hour. Thank goodness, there are some people in the country with sense.

C3: Preventing a MiG make an Airbus (or his own wingman) go "Mayday!"

United States Department of Defense photograph of an F-8 Crusader intercepting a Tu-95 'Bear-B' over USS Oriskany, dated May 25, 1974 [Wikipedia]

Last weekend I read in a national defense column that the most important reconnaissance asset of the Sri Lanka Air Force, a Beechcraft aircraft [probably carrying a HISAR system] had come under attack by our own Navy who erroneously identified it as an LTTE aircraft while it was on a routine patrol off Trincomalee. The same scenario of the guy who dropped from the tree and got attacked by a bull as well. As usual however, for the luck of AF and Navy both, the aircraft wasn’t hit. What this event shows is the lack of command, control and communication coordination between the security forces of Sri Lanka. No point buying $20 million jets [I hear the same amount was spent to send Mahinda administration (mob) to watch finals at West Indies, dunno whether Rs or $s] if you can’t effectively guide them to their targets. Either they’d get shot down [mind you, we didn’t know LTTE had night bombing capability till they bombed us and we still don’t know what sorta A-to-A capability they have] or will shoot at someone else. This is a very real threat.

Imagine the Navy patrol mentioned above had some serious anti-aircraft capability? What would’ve happened? The SLAF would be deaf and blind by now, if they can be more so. The real threat is, having sophisticated weaponry, and shooting down an airliner on finals to Bandaranaike International by mistaking it for a Tiger aircraft. This was, and is, a very real threat and I was really relieved when they decided to close down the place at night. Already at least one commercial aircraft has come under fire already, suspected as a fleeing LTTE aircraft. Luckily it was way out of range, but again, anyway we shot at it.

This is the scenario of placing weapons, not systems. What we need is not something that shoots, but does it effectively. For that, we need to field a weapons system, and man it with guys who are at the bottom of a command chain on top of which would be the executive president. What we need is a National Military Command Center kinda thing. I guess the Joint Operations HQs can play the role, but it doesn’t seem implemented by the way things are going on.

In a real life scenario, this command center would be the nerve center of defense command in the country, with direct access to Joint Chiefs of Staff, the Secretary of Defense and finally, the President. It would have at least one back-up. This command center would have weapons officers and interception directors directly in contact with all ‘live’ defense patrols in sea and in the air. The weapons officers would be able to positively confirm a target acquisition by a Kfir pilot or a Dvora gunner [for instance], and then authorize interception and weapons release. They would be in contact with especially the commercial air traffic control at Bandaranaike International and Colombo Airport, and commercial naval movement at maritime traffic control center in order to avoid confusion with commercial movements. The command center would be the upper point of reconnaissance data input by reconnaissance radars, patrols and watchpoints in the sea and on battlefront. This way they would be able to trace a threat’s movement in minutes, and authorize an already moving patrol to intercept, or to scramble an alert mission at any time of the day. The command center would have a general officer commanding, to whom weapons directors would be able to look up in a crucial situation. He, in turn, would have direct secure access to high level defense staff at the Defense Ministry and in turn, to the president. If a MiG-29, say, has to carry out a night radar-guided attack against an LTTE aircraft, the target would have to be acquired, designated and identified to be friend or foe in surgical precision. Else our inexperienced pilots [or the heartless former Soviet mercenaries] would sure down a commercial jet. This would be a tragedy and a crime, with irrevocable consequences.

This is the vital requirement of proper Command, Control and Communications coordination as we go towards increasingly complex weapons. If someone says it would be a useless spend, or don’t have cash to do that, then it would be better not to buy complex weapons. First we need a proper coordination of command and proper communications. If we had something like this, the incident I mentioned at the top of the post would never have happened.

Better drop two of the Fulcrums to buy support systems alone. That would pay up, and would help to get the best out of those two without getting stuck in more shit.