Re: Something of a scenario idea

["Robert J. Hansen" <rjhansen@xxxxxxxx>]

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> Yes. I know of this case. Perot's group had a lot of luck riding
> there too (unlike Delta that got hampered by highly political

Fortune favors the bold.  People who scream that the winners won due
to luck are exceptionally poor losers.

> tasks that can be done in private sector, however, I do not see 
> BE capable of doing armed hostage rescue on consistent basis. 

Why wouldn't they be able to?

Keep the lessons of South America in mind, where a hostage negotiator
can charge (and receive!) upwards of $5,000 /a day/--that's $150,000
a month--and many negotiations last well over six months.  If a
thriving hostage-negotiation business goes on, and people are willing
to pay the negotiatior $900,000 *on top of* paying the terrorists
whatever ransom they demand, then I think people would be more than
willing to pay BE $1,000,000 to pull someone out by force and avoid
paying ransom at all.

Now assume that the average cell does two hostile extractions per
year, and the average BE office has 5 cells with hostage-rescue
capability.  That's $10,000,000 of income per office per year just
from hostile extraction.

You can do a *boatload* of training with the profit left over from
$10,000,000 of income.

>   Training necessary for armed hostage rescue (that is considered
> most difficult task) is extremely expensive. Keeping up the skills 

Not as expensive as you might think.  There are fewer than 200,000
people living in my county, and yet the local sheriff's department
has a very well-trained SRT team.  Given that the budget for the SRT
team basically comes out of whatever's leftover from the rest of the
police budget--they get scraps, mostly--I'm continually impressed
with the county's SRT team and leadership.

A MP friend is a member of a military SWAT team.  They, too, operate
under extremely tight budgets.  Yet they manage to keep very
well-trained.

The Marine Corps has, for decades now, lived at the sufferance of the
Navy.  Gunny told me that on one occasion he jumped out of a plane
using a parachute that dated from the Korean War.  Marine Corps
MEU(SOC)s never have the budget they need, and yet a MEU(SOC) rates
very high on the international list of Units To Absolutely Never Piss
Off Unless You Lack the Requisite Morbid Fear of Death.

> hurt them and eventually narrow down their skills. And chances
> and ability to carry out training are also weaker in private 

Soon to be Sergeant (who's now a lieutenant, but the nickname stuck)
has never had to storm a building and retake a nuclear weapon from
terrorists--that's only been done in training.  The chances to carry
out training aren't exactly commonplace in the military, either.

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