[Nachum]

Thanks for sharing.

I guess we are all a bunch of mushrooms. Kept in the dark and fed a lot of manure.

[Raven6]

I probably didn't put things in the best of contexts in my post number 71... Those "best black ops" to which I was referring were ones that usually involved problems that hadn't yet been recognized as an issue by the general public, the media, etc. It was almost always a operation that was based upon human gathered intelligence, not electronic intelligence.

Most of our HUMINT capability was gutted during the Clinton administration. They had the idea that we could do everything with ELINT. Had that not occurred during their administration, 9-11 might not have happened. No guarantees - but it might not have.

Our forces have for years conducted ops that needed to be executed. Not all of the Army's "jungle survival training" is "jungle survival training". Sometimes when that SEAL team boat gets set off the back of that destroyer just after sunset and comes back just before dawn they are not just going out for a training exercise under the darkness of a new moon. Stuff has to get done... Somebody has to do it. As has been said: “People sleep peaceably in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf.”