Counterinsurgency Tactics In Salinas
11/23/2009
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Fox News reports
Counterinsurgency Plan To Fight Gangs November 23, 2009 - 2:22 PM | by: Claudia Cowan

The birthplace of author John Steinbeck, and home to sprawling fields of vegetables, now faces one of the worst per capita gang problems in America.

Police say the 24 homicides in Salinas, Calif. this year —all gang-related— make the city twice as deadly as Los Angeles.

Frustrated city officials are now turning to the military for help, collaborating with combat vets and faculty at the Naval Postgraduate School in nearby Monterey to adapt counter-insurgency techniques that have worked overseas to address gang violence at home. Military software developed to track terrorists is also being used to map crimes and link suspects.

Veterans helping police put this program together say there are many parallels between fighting terrorists overseas and murderous gangbangers at home. In Iraq and Afghanistan, the goal is getting the locals to work with the military against the bad guys. In Salinas, residents need to trust the cops, so they'll report crimes and make the gangs unwelcome.

It's a long term strategy that relies on winning hearts and minds, and with an estimated one-million gang members nationwide, other cities plagued by youth violence are watching closely to see if this experiment pays off — reducing crime, strengthening communities and, hopefully, saving lives.

The words "In Salinas, residents need to trust the cops" is code for "Police shouldn't enforce immigration laws," although typically illegals are breaking a lot of other laws that apply to Americans as well, so in order to gain the trust of illegals, you also have to not enforce the law that says you can't drive without a license.

The  reader who forwarded this writes:

"I've long argued with friends that there is an undeclared civil war going on in California between blacks, browns, and the police, with homicide rates on par with a war zone in places like Richmond, Oakland, and Vallejo. The media is either in denial or deliberately refusing to show it for what it is.

But when law enforcement starts using counter insurgency tactics against Latino gangs, that means we do in fact have an immigrant fueled civil war on our hands. It's only a matter of time before the kidnappings and beheading begin."

One major problem—not only are the police trained in counterinsurgency, but thanks to the military's diversity efforts, so are the gangs.
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