[Cannoneer No. 4]

Thanks for pinging me to this. I'll work on an intelligent contribution between now and bed time.

"The Pentagon way to treat terrorism against Pentagon assets abroad was to cast it as a force protection issue."

That gripes the hell out me. The French fortress troops in the Maginot Line had great force protection and what did it get them?.

General Hugh Shelton, a former commander of the Special Operations Command, considered the use of SOF for counterterrorism less than anyone when he was chairman of the Joint Chiefs. "It got to the point," he said, where "the uniforms had become the suits, they were more the bureaucrats than the civilians."

What an indictment.

[El Gato]

Specifically, I wondered why had we created these superbly trained Special Operations Forces to fight terrorists, but had never used them for their primary mission

Maybe it wasn't really their primary mission after all?

[El Gato]

a senior policy official blurted out: "Are you out of your mind? You're telling me that our Middle East policy is not important and that it's more important to go clean out terrorists? Don't you understand what's going on in terms of our Middle East policy? You're talking about going after terrorists backed by Iran? You just don't understand." And that was that.

Most likely either a Clintonista or someone from Foggy Bottom, even more likely both.

[Wolfstar]

Nine reasons why we never sent our Special Ops forces against Al Queda before 9/11:

Bill Clinton
Bill Clinton
Bill Clinton
Bill Clinton
Bill Clinton
Bill Clinton
Bill Clinton
Bill Clinton
Bill Clinton

[SuziQ]

Bump for later Sunday reading.

[mikegi]

Am I the only one who interpreted this article as a cover for the CIA and Clinton Administration, especially Clarke? It's somewhat schizophrenic. It first appears to say that the Clintonoids were afraid of military action then later implies that the Clintonoids wanted action but were turned down by the Joint Chiefs.

What is particularly disturbing to me is the quote about Iran: "Don't you understand what's going on in terms of our Middle East policy? You're talking about going after terrorists backed by Iran? You just don't understand". Why is/was our government so afraid of Iran??? It wasn't just the Clintons that were afraid of them. Even today, with an ongoing rebellion in Iran we're using kid gloves.