Posted on 11/03/2001 6:04:22 AM PST by Diogenesis
MAG: 12 U.S. DELTA MEMBERS WOUNDED ON RAID OF OMAR'S COMPLEX, THREE SERIOUSLY; PENTAGON RETHINKS 'SPECIAL FORCES OPERATIONS'
Seymour Hersh has filed yet another controversial report for coming editons of the NEW YORKER, publishing sources tell the DRUDGE REPORT.
In ESCAPE AND EVASION, Hersh claims: In the wake of a near-disaster during the assault on Mullah Omar's complex during the early morning of October 20th, the Pentagon has been rethinking future Special Forces operations inside Afghanistan.
Delta Force, which prides itself on stealth, had been counterattacked by the Taliban, and some of the Americans had had to fight their way to safety. Hersh has filed his report for the November 12, 2001 issue of the NEW YORKER, on sale Monday.
Twelve Delta members were wounded, three of them seriously.
The intensity and ferocity of the Taliban response "scared the crap out of everyone," a senior military officer tells Hersh.
The Delta team stormed Mullah Omar's complex, but found little of value, Hersh reports, and then, "as they came out of the house, the shit hit the fan," one senior officer says. "It was like an ambush. The Taliban were fighting with light arms and either [rocket-propelled grenades] or mortars." The team immediately began taking casualties and evacuated.
"The Delta team was forced to abandon one of its objectives: the insertion of an undercover team into the area and the stay-behind soldiers fled to a previously determined rendezvous point, using a contingency plan known as an E. & E., for escape and evasion," Hersh writes.
Nah..I just don't care to hear from Seymour or any other reporter, for that matter, at the moment regarding our special operations troops. Actually, Seymour, and a representative from the Saudi government, and the former US Ambassador to Saudi were interviewed on TNN by Wolf Blitzer the other day. They made Seymour look more of an a$$ then he is already. Just about every allegation made by Seymour was refuted by even the former US Ambassador, if not all. It was like .. where did this guy come up with this crap he was spewing with nothing to back up his allegations. And I don't like the Saudi "Government"..however, I am not willing to believe lies no matter how much I'd like them to be true.
Seymour and his little "traitorous informer from within" needs to back off. I want to hear the real deal from the Pentagon, no matter if it's positive or negative, and when they feel the information should be released,not b.s. cooked up from Seymour.
Maybe it is YOU who is scared..for whatever reason, "boo hoo", bacatcha.
From the Sources section of "Black Hawk Down" by Mark Bowdon:
"For understandable reasons, very few of the Delta Force operators who played such an important role in this battle agreed to talk with me about it. Their policy and tradition is silent professionalism. Master Sergeant Paul Howe, who has left the unit, obtained official permission, but risked the opprobrium of his former colleagues for speaking so candidly with me..."
Just food for thought.
Yup, agree totally.
To say unequivocally that his reporting is absolutely unbiased and can be believed without reservation is to deify this super being and we should all genuflect and walk backwards as we leave his "presence".
I am angry with the news media and their little news gatherers who do in fact influence their readers with crap that many times far exceeds the truth just for ratings.
I'm rapidly reaching the point where I don't believe any of these reporters if they tell just one obvious lie in the support of their careers.
All intentional liars are dispicably hateful!!
Very well...clearly you're entitled to your opinion but I submit it would be helpful if you were to include some evidence to back up this statement. None of the quotes in Hersh's article are attributed to named sources. In fact when you read the entire report at Drudge you come across this little nugget:
One Delta Force soldier told a colleague that military planners "think we can perform fucking magic. We can't. Don't put us in an environment we weren't prepared for. Next time, we're going to lose a company."
Perhaps you could explain how it is that Seymour Hersch was privy to this "conversation" between "one Delta Force soldier" and "a collegue" since, as you say, Hersh has done the best reporting so far on this operation and he has had a history of being able to tap sources at the operational level, whether in the CIA or military.
Seymour Hersch has zero credibility. Anyone familiar with his work knows he makes it up as he goes along. He makes outlandish claims in his articles that he knows will produce plenty of bang for the buck and when the government (or any entity for that matter) chooses not to respond, he then can, and does, claim accuracy. It's this kind of BS journalism that has kept the National Enquirer in business all these years.
If you disagree, perhaps you could point to just one story he's reported in the past that wasn't eventually thoroughly discredited. Just one...
Yes, it is...
Now, am I the only person who sees why our military would find it advantageous to leak such disinformation to Hersh?
Question: At this point in the war, do we want to scare the Taliban into scattering and going off into hiding, or do we want to sucker them out into the open so we can identify them and kill them?
What kind of story would be most likely to do that? 1. "We came, we saw, we kicked ass." 2. "Eek, they got the jump on us, they scared us, we almost got our butts whipped, they stopped us from achieving our objective, if they attack us next time we could be in big trouble, don't throw us in that briar patch".
Also, the best way to handle intelligence gathering is, "if you didn't get much, make them think that you did, and if you did, make them think you didn't." If we got a treasure-trove of information from the Omar raid, the best way to handle it would be to leak that we hadn't gotten much at all. That way the enemy won't think that they have to change their codes/positions/activities, which they would do if they thought we had now learned their inner secrets.
Ah, so I'm not the only one after all... (See my post #152)
Par for the course during a war. We should all maintain a healthy skepticism of "official" reports even now.
I was perfectly content seeing the pre/post images and films that Secretary Rumsfeld, and Diogenesis have been generously sharing with us a day or so after the activity. I am genuinely concerned that the media's fever for a story could have negative consequences for our troops.
Maybe I just worry too much.
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