The Vietcong frequently and effectively used swimming saboteurs during the Vietnam War. Between 1969 and 1970, swimming saboteurs sank, destroyed or damaged 77 properties belonging to the United States and its allies. The Vietcong swimmers were poorly equipped, but well trained and resourceful. Swimmers offered a low-cost, low-risk option with a high profit; The possible losses to the country due to failure versus the possible gains from a successful mission led to the obvious conclusion that swimmers were a good idea. [30] Sabotage training for the Allies consisted of teaching potential saboteurs the key components of working machines in order to destroy them. “The saboteurs learned hundreds of little tricks to cause big trouble for the Germans. Cables in a telephone terminal box. could be wasted to establish the wrong connections when numbers were dialed. A few ounces of plastic, properly placed, could cause a bridge to fall, collapse in a mine shaft or knock down the roof of a railway tunnel. [25] Sabotage is a deliberate action aimed at weakening a community, effort or organization through subversion, obstruction, disruption or destruction. Someone who engages in sabotage is a saboteurs. Saboteurs usually try to hide their identity because of the consequences of their actions and avoid invoking legal and organizational requirements to combat sabotage.
A saboteur is a person who intentionally ruins a situation. You could call your little brother a saboteur to let the air out of your bike tires, but you could be a saboteur in return by filling his shoes with cold spaghetti. One of the first appearances of sabotaging and saboteur in French literature is found in d`Hautel`s Dictionnaire du Bas-Langage ou manière de parler usitées chez le peuple published in 1808. In it, the literal definition is “making noise with hooves” as well as “botching, shoving, agitating, hasty”. The word sabotage appears later. [2] In Mandatory Palestine, Jewish groups resisted British control from 1945 to 1948. Although this control was to end in 1948 according to the United Nations partition plan for Palestine, the groups used sabotage as an opposition tactic. The Haganah focused its efforts on camps where the British held refugees and radars capable of detecting illegal immigrant ships. The Stern gang and the Irgun used terrorism and sabotage against the British government and lines of communication. In November 1946, Irgun and Stern gangs attacked a railway line twenty-one times in three weeks, which eventually prompted shocked Arab railway workers to strike.
The 6th Airborne Division was called in to provide security to stop the attack. [21] In wartime, the word is used to describe the activity of a person or group not affiliated with the military of the warring parties, such as a foreign agent or an indigenous supporter, especially when actions result in the destruction or damage of a productive or vital facility such as equipment, factories, dams. utilities, storage facilities or logistics routes. The main examples of such sabotage are the events of Black Tom and the explosion of Kingsland. Like spies, saboteurs who conduct a military operation in civilian clothes or in enemy uniform behind enemy lines are prosecuted and punished instead of being imprisoned as prisoners of war. [13] [14] It is common for a government in power during the war or supporters of war policy to use the term vaguely against opponents of war. Similarly, German nationalists spoke of a stab in the back that cost them the loss of World War I. [15] While we have certainly seen acts of terrorism on American soil, sabotage has been more clandestine in our country`s history. A notable example occurred in 1942 during World War II, when Nazi saboteurs in submarines came to the United States to sabotage the war effort. The Nazis were ordered to attack transportation hubs, hydroelectric plants and industrial facilities. In particular, they were ordered to sabotage New York`s Pennsylvania Station, the city`s water supply plants, bridges and Jewish-owned department stores.
However, the effort was halted when one of the men finally surrendered to the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Sabotage in war, according to the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) manual, ranges from highly technical acts of helping hand that require detailed planning and specially trained agents, to countless simple actions that ordinary citizen saboteurs can perform. Simple sabotage is carried out in a manner that minimizes the risk of injury, detection and retaliation. There are two main methods of sabotage; Physical destruction and the “human element”. Although physical destruction as a method is explicit, its purposes are nuanced and reflect objects to which the saboteur has normal and discreet access in everyday life. The “human element” is based on universal ways of making bad decisions, adopting an uncooperative attitude, and getting others to do the same. [17] Here you will find information on the criminal definition of sabotage, possible penalties and where to go if you or someone you know has been charged with a federal crime. Keep in mind that sabotage is a serious crime and can land you in federal prison for up to 20 years if convicted. Arquilla and Rondfeldt, in their book Networks and Netwars, distinguish their definition of “netwar” from a list of “fashionable synonyms,” including “cybotage,” a portmanteau of the words “sabotage” and “cyber.” They call cybotage practitioners “cyboteurs” and note that while not all cybotage is a clean war, some net wars are cybotage. [38] Counter-sabotage, as defined by Webster`s dictionary, is “counterintelligence to detect and combat sabotage.” The U.S.
Department of Defense`s definition, found in the Dictionary of Military and Associated Terms, is “measures to detect and combat sabotage. See also counterintelligence.” Search for any word in the dictionary offline, anytime, anywhere with the Oxford Advanced Learner`s Dictionary app. The word sabotage is found between 1873 and 1874 in Émile Littré`s Dictionnaire de la langue française. [3] Here it is mainly defined as “making hooves, clog makers”. It was at the end of the 19th century that it was really used with the meaning of “intentionally and maliciously destroying property” or “working more slowly”. In 1897, Émile Pouget, a famous syndicalist and anarchist, wrote “Action de saboter un travail” in Le Père Peinard[4] and in 1911 a book entitled Le Sabotage. [5] During the Second World War, the Allies sabotaged the Peugeot truck factory. After repeated failures in Allied bombing attempts to hit the factory, a team of French resistance fighters and Special Operations Executive (SOE) agents distracted the German guards with a football match, while part of their team entered the facility and destroyed the machines. [27] In psychology, self-sabotage is defined as behavior that undermines one`s existing or potential achievements.