Return of the Special Forces (In other words, no more sitting ducks)

Pittsburgh Tribune Review ^ | 12/21/03 | Ralph R. Reiland

[thesummerwind]

The real story in Saddam's capture is that the Bush administration has turned loose the Special Forces to fight a covert, no-holds-barred war in Iraq.

"A revitalized Special Forces mission is a policy victory for Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld, who has struggled for two years to get the military leadership to accept the strategy of what he calls 'Manhunts' -- a phrase that he has used both publicly and in internal Pentagon communications," writes Seymour Hersh in The New Yorker's Dec. 15 issue. "According to American and Israeli military and intelligence officials, Israeli commandos and intelligence units have been working closely with their American counterparts at the Special Forces training base at Fort Bragg, N.C., and in Israel to help them prepare for operations in Iraq."

[thesummerwind]

we're talking about what some in the Pentagon call "pre-emptive manhunting" -- more intelligence, more captures, and more assassinations of Baathist insurgents. The paint can wait.

Lefties will tell us to go buy some paint, pans, and brushes.

[Maigrey]

I'm not so sure. If there are sniper units in Iraq, (and there are, since they've been published in Army Times and picked up by USA Today) then they are not going to be hanging out on rooftops and out in desert hovels twittling their thumbs. They are out there working.

There are many aspects of war and armed conflict we as civilians find distasteful and appalling. But if someone is gunning for you, and you've got the chance to take him out, and save lives in the process, so be it.

I don't like it either, but I understand the circumstances.

[FreedomPoster]

The lamestream media wants us to think this is like civilian policing, and that we should be making arrests, holding trials will full Lefty "mollycoddle the perp" jurisprudence.

This is still war, and niceties like arrests and trials go out the window when you're faced daily with RPGs launched from the alley as you pass on patrol.

Go, snipers, go. Go, Phoenix, go.

[FreedomPoster]

Ping.

[stradivarius]

"Seymour Hersh is a Liar": Quote or Hoax?

The Washington Post published a scoop on a story about a conversation between President George W. Bush and President Pervez Musharraf.

One of the parties to the documented conversation recited the alleged quote to Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward.

The Pakistan Daily Times spread the Ummah Newswire report:

http://www.ummahnews.com/viewarticle.php?sid=244

Bush says no plan to seize Pakistani nukes
2002-11-16 19:23:43

Khalid Hasan for Daily Times (Pakistan)
16 November, 2002

President Bush has dismissed speculation that there is a secret Pentagon contingency plan to seize Pakistan’s nuclear weapons in league with Israel if the country becomes unstable.

During his meeting in New York earlier this year with President Pervez Musharraf, he bluntly denounced an article by investigative American journalist Seymour N, Hersh about the existence of such a Pentagon plan.

According to a report in the Washington Post on Saturday, Bush told Musharraf, "Seymour Hersh is a liar."

A regular New York Times columnist, meanwhile, recommended in an article published on Friday that Pakistan’s nuclear assets might be taken out as Israel had destroyed Iraq’s Osirak nuclear reactor in June 1981.

Wrote Nicholas D. Kristof, "After all, if it’s appropriate to carry out pre-emptive strikes on countries that sponsor terrorism and secretly develop nuclear weapons, then we could launch an invasion today — of Pakistan."

[FreedomPoster]

/will full/with full/

Time for more coffee.

[FreedomPoster]

I wouldn't doubt for a minute that President Bush said that to Musharraf.

And if our military doesn't have some contingency plans for taking out Pakistani nukes, we are total idiots.

I do not think we are total idiots.

[Miss Marple]

Yes, I know we have snipers and special forces there. However, if you read this story (which is basically quoting Hersh) you find that it is a carefully constructed effort to make the SF guys sound like barbarians.

[csvset]

With any luck, we'll be operating within Iran, if we aren't already.

[Maigrey]

But those of us who do understand know that we are not the barbarians. The snipers are the surgeons, excising the cancer that is affecting the whole. I know who the animals are, and I think that most of the people of America know it, even if they don't adknowledge it.

Hirsch is probably writing for the other little media people who read his drivel.

I don't have the eyes for it, and I doubt I've got the stomach for it, but kudos to those who do, and do their job well.

[Conservative_Nationalist]

Do you guys think that our Special Forces guys may actually be the ones who are killing the Baathist who have been reported to have been killed by Iraqis? I know that A LOT of these Baathist have been killed in what some are calling "revenge killings", but I think it may be our special forces guys. There are a lot of people in Iraq that we want out of the way but we can't just kill them or detain them because of a lack of evidence or risking stability with certain groups of Iraqis. It makes a lot of sense to me that we would just kill these guys and get them out of the way and make it look as if it was done by other Iraqis. That keeps the Iraqis less angry with us and makes it where we don't have to deal with the media on what we are doing. These things would be called war crimes by the liberals in the European and American media. I do think this is what's happening. It's not something that seems all that hard to pull off and there are a lot of people who we want to deal with but not in a very public way. What do you guys think about this? Witness's to many of these killings say they see Iraqis leaving the scene but I know a lot of Special forces soldiers will dress to blend into the population. I doubt they are all walking around in American uniforms.

[hotpotato]

"Seymour Hersh is a liar," Bush is quoted as telling Musharraf, in a Washington Post article that previewed a forthcoming book by its Managing Editor Bob Woodward about the war on terrorism in which the comment is made.

A reference for those who want to know more:

From CIA's Cash Toppled Taliban -

During a meeting in New York with Pakistan's leader, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, Bush bluntly denounced an article by investigative reporter Seymour M. Hersh in the New Yorker magazine. The article, published in December, reported that the Pentagon had contingency plans to work with an Israeli special operations unit to seize Pakistan's nuclear weapons if the country became unstable. "Seymour Hersh is a liar," Bush is quoted as telling Musharraf.

Also see:

Seymour Hersh Has Record of False Claims, Bad Journalishm

[SubMareener]

I agree. Hersh seems to be trying to revive moral equivalence.

The biggest change in our tactics in Iraq is that the Army has learned that, when you are attacked, you counter attack! You don't just run back to your base with the wounded! This lead them to all sorts of other proactive behaviors that have made them much more effective.

[hotpotato]

Not sure I would put a whole lot of stock in this article. See the bi-line of this writer, Ralph R. Reiland (bottom of the article):

Ralph R. Reiland, the B. Kenneth Simon professor of free enterprise at Robert Morris University, is a local restaurateur (sic).

The guy is a restauranteur writing on foreign policy by quoting from a less than credible writer.

[verity]

"Our hit squads; whether 35 years ago in Vietnam..."

Most of the shooters in PHOENIX were not Americans.

[Feckless]

"A good plan, violently executed now is better than a perfect plan next week," said Gen. George Patton. "The object of war is not to die for your country but to make the other bastard die for his."

Patton believed in reincarnation. I can just see him hounding God daily for a batallion of M1A2s.

[McGavin999]

YAAAAHOOOOOO! Nobody can play this game better. We are a kind people with a strong sense of honor, but we have never been good at playing patsy. It's war, it's ugly, but if it's played right it can be over quickly with fewer deaths. That means fewer Iraqi deaths as well as fewer American deaths.

[OldSmaj]

...Phoenix Program in Vietnam where American counter-insurgency actions claimed the lives of tens of thousands of Vietnamese believed to be working with the Viet Cong.

And there is a problem with this...how?

Bleeding heart damned liberals can't grasp the concept of unconventional warfare.

Once you bring the battle to the bastards in their own language, you've won half of it.

These "insurgents" are too well educated by our own citizens: the DU types, the Batcrap followers, the Garafalos, the Scott Ritters, the Barbra Streisands, all the stinking traitorous pieces of human excrement, that stand and make the treasonous statements they make, all serve to embolden these "insurgents", because they truly believe that all Americans are cast from the same chickenshit mold..

Until we start ignoring the politically correct bullshit and start taking them out in the most unconventional ways tactically possible, we will not win their hearts and minds.

I am appalled at the weakness of some of our tactical leaders, in their refusal to fight dirty.

What the hell is a clean fight, anyway?

The aim is to kill the enemy. I don't care what you call it, call it revenge if you want, but for every US soldier that falls in that stinking country, ten of the so-called "insurgent" guerillas should fall.

And we have the capability to make it so. I know it and I know damn well that there are a lot of former NCO's on this forum that know it.

We'll never change the Arabs view of us, even those that have the true desire to ally with us.

Knowing that, realizing that, just why would we care what the results of our unconventional conduct of war would be, anyway, as long as it results in the stabilization of the region?

The US soldier is not a statesman, nor should he be.

The US soldier is a killer of men and he should be allowed to do just that, in whatever way it can be accomplished.

This namby-pamby crap sickens me. It comes up after every stinking conflict the US is involved in.

Were our widdle soldier-woldiers good widdle boys? Did they play all nicey-nice?

Hummmph!

[Urbane_Guerilla]

Re: # 30 ... well said.

[TalBlack]

we're talking about what some in the Pentagon call "pre-emptive manhunting" -- more intelligence, more captures, and more assassinations of Baathist insurgents. The paint can wait.

I wonder what Col. West thinks of all this?