Smoke rises over Syrian town of Kobani after an airstrike, as seen from the Mursitpinar border crossing on the Turkish-Syrian border in the southeastern town of Suruc in Sanliurfa province, October 18, 2014. Credit: Reuters/Kai Pfaffenbach
Scott Beauchamp, The Atlantic: The Moral Cost of the Kill Box
The repurposed military tactic is both unethical and ineffective in today’s conflicts.
In laymen’s terms, “kill boxes” sound like torture devices. In military jargon, they are almost incomprehensible; as defined in the Department of Defense Dictionary, they are “a three-dimensional area reference that enables timely, effective coordination and control and facilitates rapid attacks.” But despite their ominous name and complicated technical definition, kill boxes are actually relatively simple in concept: They are three-dimensional cubes of space on a battlefield in which members and allies of the United States military are completely free to open fire.
According to the DoD, “there is no formal kill-box doctrine or tactics, techniques or procedures.” They require a sophisticated web of logistical, bureaucratic, and technological expertise to implement. Like most military tactics, kill boxes aren’t new—they’ve been around for nearly 30 years now. But they are constantly being reinvented for new conflicts. In recent years, kill-box strategy has shifted: They are now used in conflicts that are not between two states, but rather within states against terrorists and fighters who aren’t members of any particular country’s military.
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WNU Editor: This sounds more like a "kill-zone". And as to this tactic being an American one .... I am not sure. I read on how the Germans used it against the Soviet Army during the Second World War.
Oh good grief, this has been around in form or another since people started beating on each other in organized or semi-organized ways.
ReplyDeleteIt's a Free Fire Zone, basically the same as during Vietnam, they are just using "word salads" to attempt to obscure the fact, as it's contrary to US Propaganda policy to admit the deliberate targetting of women and children.
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