Rwanda 1994: No MIST in the Mists

The description I cited of the capabilities of a Military Information Support Team come from an Army Field Manual written in October 1994 -- just months after the start of the Rwanda genocide.

This got me to thinking about how, at the time of the genocide, there had been discussion of whether the United States should deploy broadcast jamming capabilities to block the hate broadcasts in Rwanda that were blamed for fomenting much of the bloodshed.

The National Security Archives at George Washington University has published various declassified official U.S. documents related to the genocide --- one of which is worth recalling: the one in which Frank Wisner, the number three official at the Pentagon at the time, acknowledged internal discussions about the feasibility of countering the hate radio. He replies to Sandy Berger, then deputy to National Security Adviser Tony Lake, that undertaking the initiative to “jam” the radio would be “ineffective and expensive” and says a “wiser” activity would be to assist the “relief effort”.

In it, Wisner also says "international legal conventions complicate airborne or ground based jamming....Commando Solo, an Air National Guard asset, is the only suitable DOD jamming platform. It costs approximately $8500 per flight hour..."