SecurityDriver News

Derek Humble – an old friend (old describes most of my friends) sent me a film clip from a movie called “Year of the Gun” It is the movie version of the Moro ambush – if you are doing training it is a great learning tool.

 Derek’s info

www.nemesisinfo.com

In the process of a putting together an iPhone Application about vehicle attacks I came across this You Tube video. It is a re-enactment of the 1978 Moro kidnapping.  At the time, the kidnapping of the highly respected elder statesman of Italian politics, Aldo Moro, shocked the world. This incident would be similar to the kidnapping of one of our former Presidents. Although the Moro attack occurred more than 30 years ago it is still a lesson learned scenario.  

This event (plus the Schleyer ambush) had a profound effect on the security community. To gain an understanding of the historical significance of this attack we need to examine the security industry the 70’s.

Some History – During the 1970’s these types of attacks had been occurring often in South America, the prevailing attitude was that it would never spread beyond those borders.  Although the terrorism experts at the time (there were maybe three of them), had all been predicting this type of attack was going to spread, and become prolific. No one paid much attention to them, and the general feeling was that the terrorist were not that good – and that if you put a guy with gun sitting next to the chauffer, and maybe some guys with more guns in a vehicle following the boss the problem is solved. At the time the general thinking of the non security community was that the enemy was not that smart.  The following is an actual comment from an executive “After all we are dealing with unsophisticated rabble”.

 Lessons –  Moro was one of the attacks that brought to light that terrorist actually plan what they do. You can see from this re-enactment that these guys, and girl, had their act together.

This was one of the attacks that made the “powers to be” come to the conclusion that –

 Having guys with guns with the boss doesn’t solve the problem – it creates a different problem

 We ought to train those guys that are protecting the principal – drivers and shooters should be trained to drive and shoot

Armored cars are a good thing – we are talking about 1970’s armored cars that were a lot less sophisticated than they are now.

The protection team was expendable

 This is a question – not a comment – have things changed that much in thirty years?  What do you think?