Navy SEALs Led Covert War Against Al-Qaida

Ventura County (CA) Star | September 22, 2002 | Seth Hettena

[2banana]

James noted that at Zhawar Kili, special operators found craters outside the entrance to a mountain cave and scorch marks from U.S. cruise missiles launched in 1998 by President Clinton against Osama bin Laden, but the insides of the caves were untouched.

Pretty well sums up Clinton's efforts on combating terrorsim...

[Ditto]

Good article, but a question. What's with this"

Commodore Robert S. Harward

I didn't know the Navy still had that rank.

[Cicero]

James noted that at Zhawar Kili, special operators found craters outside the entrance to a mountain cave and scorch marks from U.S. cruise missiles launched in 1998 by President Clinton against Osama bin Laden, but the insides of the caves were untouched.

No comment.

[thisiskubrick]

Pretty well sums up Clinton's efforts on combating terrorsim...

Too bad that for anything that he DID try to do, he was accused of doing it in order to divert attention from the Monica Lewinski affair..

[harpseal]

FYI

[river rat]

Wake up ping

[PLK]

In Harward, K-Bar had a well-traveled commander who learned fluent Farsi in his youth in Tehran, Iran, where his father worked in the U.S. embassy. During a summer off from high school, he had hitchhiked through Afghanistan

Harward, a rock-ribbed 46-year-old with deep-set blue eyes

There were allegations that we shot people in their sleep, that we assassinated people," said Harward, who dismisses such claims. "If we want to assassinate someone, we just put two bullets in their head."

I think I'm in love.

[Steely Tom]

Res ipsa locutorum.

If I'm spelling that right.

(steely)

[Stand Watch Listen]

res ipsa loquitur

- Latin. "the thing speaks for itself"

[Charles Martel]

Too bad that for anything that he DID try to do, he was accused of doing it in order to divert attention from the Monica Lewinski affair..

"Too bad"? Hardly. Clinton deserves every bit of criticism that he receives on this topic. If he had been focused on doing his job and been less obsessed with getting his horn scraped, there would've been no scandal. Had that been the case, those missile attacks would be seen as merely inadequate, rather than being self-serving above all. Either way, the SEALs would still be out there now, taking care of business.

[Frumious Bandersnatch]

I didn't either. Of course, it was always just a temporary rank anyway. But I did think that they had gotten rid of it a few years ago. Did they decide to reinstate it?

[Ditto]

I checked a web site and no current rank of Commodore is listed. Maybe the guy is a Commander (CDR) and the writer called him Commodore.

[Frumious Bandersnatch]

That was what I was thinking too, although his duties also resemble, in many ways, what a commodore would do.

[Aggie Mama]

Hah! Me too. =)

[Billthedrill]

K-Bar -- named for a military knife used by SEALs...

< Pedantic mode = ON > The K-Bar was a USMC implement of destruction, issued in WWII and Korea and discontinued afterward. The SEALS use a number of different knives, but the K-Bar itself was only recently put back into limited production after a hiatus of some years. The big complaint against the K-Bar was that its severely clipped tip, while useful for opening C-ration cans, was somewhat delicate for a killing instrument, and caused a curvature that put the tip off the center of thrust. Most old Marines I know would rather be caught without their pants than without their trusty K-Bar... < pedantic mode = OFF >

[CaptRon]

It's been brought back recently to denote someone in charge of a task force under a certain amount of vessels I believe. I don't think it's a permanent rank.

[Stand Watch Listen]

USMC WWII

USMC

US SEALS

[tracer]

"In a first, K-Bar's troops worked hand-in-hand with FBI agents who were brought in to help determine which prisoners should be let go and which were "keepers" headed for further interrogation, Harward said."

FBI this, FBI that. A friend of mine who is a US Customs special agent has spent a lot of time in Afghanistan and Guantanamo (and elsewhere) in the past year or so for the purpose of tracking terrorist financial networks. I wonder which Madison Avenue PR firm has the FBI contract??