Posted on 12/17/2001 1:51:24 AM PST by kattracks
U.S. military and government officials are secretly debating whether the U.S. war on terrorism should include plots to assassinate terror leaders before they can strike America, it was reported yesterday.
The Bush administration is also said to be considering a covert plan to send U.S. troops to help topple Saddam Hussein in Iraq.
The assassination issue has been discussed very delicately by key officials, Newsweek reported.
Officials at National Security Council meetings never use the word assassination directly — and don't discuss targeting specific individuals, the magazine says.
Instead, the talk is of whether to take out "command and control" outposts or strike "strategically decisive blows" against heads of terror cells.
Sen. Richard Shelby (R-Ala.), a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, told Newsweek the CIA has been "given the go-ahead by presidential order to untie their hands and take the shackles off" in the fight against terrorists.
Nevertheless, says Shelby, "As far as sending in a hit team to take these guys out, I don't know about that."
But a Pentagon official said many in Washington see that as "inevitable."
"Terrorist organizations are not about buildings. They are not about weapons. They are, at their core, about human beings," the official said, "and usually not that many."
Meanwhile, The New Yorker reported that a new war plan for Iraq is now the subject of furious debate within the Bush Administration.
Iraqi opposition forces, led by the Iraqi National Congress, have "given the Bush administration an updated war plan, which calls not only for bombing but for the deployment of thousands of American Special Forces troops," says writer Seymour Hersh.
The plan also would involve neighboring Iran, which supposedly has agreed to allow opposition forces and U.S. troops to enter Iraq from its borders.
One defense analyst said the American success in Afghanistan would be used as a model for the Iraq campaign.
"They believe they have found the perfect model, and it works," the analyst told the magazine. The model is bombing, a modest insertion of Special Forces, plus an uprising."
But not only the terrorists themselves should be individually targeted, but also their families who encourage and honor them (terrorists don't arise in a vacuum), their friends, their classmates, their business associates, their neighbors, their mullahs and others at their mosques, where this insane, primitive hatred of westerners is encouraged, taught, preached, nurtured, disseminated, aided, abetted and glorified. We have to turn terrorists into pariahs in their homes, instead of heroes, by out terrorizing them and their loved ones by orders of magnitude.
It's war now. You don't win by wringing your hands over the corpse of political correctness.
So that the al Queda terrorists here and elsewhere know that we're going to kill them. That's a very good thing for them to know. It's the only thing they understand.
Right! That's the way I like to play the game.....they use real bullets I get to shoot blanks.
Like post #11 by " weikel " ......"tack em & whack em". ;^)
Secret? Just shut up and do it.
"U.S. military and government officials are secretly debating whether the U.S. war on terrorism should include plots to assassinate terror leaders before they can strike America, it was reported yesterday."
Yesterday? How 'bout every day since before Kennedy and Castro?
"The Bush administration is also said to be considering a covert plan to send U.S. troops to help topple Saddam Hussein in Iraq."
No spit. So did Bush, Sr. and even Billy.
"The assassination issue has been discussed very delicately by key officials, Newsweek reported."
Bull. Why would they need to discuss it "delicately." I'm guessing Dubya's and Dick's conversations are more in the vein of "major league Clymer" and "big-time," when they're in private.
"Officials at National Security Council meetings never use the word assassination directly — and don't discuss targeting specific individuals, the magazine says."
Of course not at official NSC meetings -- too many potential embarrassing leaks. But I'll bet Rummy has some choice, memorable, colorful ways of discussing targeting specific individuals.
"Instead, the talk is of whether to take out "command and control" outposts or strike "strategically decisive blows" against heads of terror cells."
Again, bull. This from the administration whose head once again this weekend said, "I don't really care. Dead or alive, it doesn't matter to me. "
(Ya gotta love our team!)
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