Return of the Special Forces (In other words, no more sitting ducks)

Pittsburgh Tribune Review ^ | 12/21/03 | Ralph R. Reiland

[thesummerwind]

The real story in Saddam's capture is that the Bush administration has turned loose the Special Forces to fight a covert, no-holds-barred war in Iraq.

"A revitalized Special Forces mission is a policy victory for Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld, who has struggled for two years to get the military leadership to accept the strategy of what he calls 'Manhunts' -- a phrase that he has used both publicly and in internal Pentagon communications," writes Seymour Hersh in The New Yorker's Dec. 15 issue. "According to American and Israeli military and intelligence officials, Israeli commandos and intelligence units have been working closely with their American counterparts at the Special Forces training base at Fort Bragg, N.C., and in Israel to help them prepare for operations in Iraq."

[thesummerwind]

Well said.

[RAY]

Thank God! Go Rummy!

[somemoreequalthanothers]

Thank God. It's about time.

[thesummerwind]

Critics of this policy switch express the fear that things could fly out of control, pointing to the Phoenix Program in Vietnam where American counter-insurgency actions claimed the lives of tens of thousands of Vietnamese believed to be working with the Viet Cong.

From David Talbot - “William Colby was not destined to die peacefully in his sleep. His life was too full of blood and mystery for that. And so police found the spymaster's bloated body this morning face down in the cold marshes off the Potomac River. Some things end as they should.

I met Bill Colby a dozen years ago while writing a magazine story on three icons of the Vietnam War who had resurfaced as spokesmen for the nuclear disarmament movement -- Colby, Robert McNamara and McGeorge Bundy. The last two were clearly wrestling with the demons from their past. Bundy could only open up on the subject in a late-night interview in his hotel room after fortifying himself with a couple tall Scotches. McNamara, who was reportedly on the verge of a nervous breakdown when Lyndon Johnson finally took pity on him and removed him from the Pentagon, would later pour out his own mea culpa in his Vietnam memoir, "In Retrospect."

But Colby in 1984 was still the same trim, cold, owlish man who had run the CIA's infamous Phoenix program in Vietnam, which claimed the lives of more than 20,000 Viet Cong suspects. Though he was sharing the stage in these years with nuclear freeze activists and pacifists, he never renounced his past. There was a chilling pride in his monotone voice when he told me that by the North Vietnamese leadership's own admission, Phoenix was "the single most effective thing that was ever done against them."”

[thesummerwind]

Thank God! Go Rummy!

I thank God for Rummy! Seems like God sends us an exceptional one now and then.

Thank God.

[thesummerwind]

"According to American and Israeli military and intelligence officials, Israeli commandos and intelligence units have been working closely with their American counterparts at the Special Forces training base at Fort Bragg, N.C., and in Israel to help them prepare for operations in Iraq."

This should be a bonus!

[atomic conspiracy]

The Phoenix Program, headed by future CIA director William Colby, WORKED. It put the NLF (Vietcong) out of business in most of South Vietnam, leaving the fight to the invading North Vietnamese army and the western fifth column. This is why the Left and the entire mighty array of the Hollywood/Madison Avenue Propaganda Axis has gone out of its way to demonize the program.

[thesummerwind]

This is why the Left and the entire mighty array of the Hollywood/Madison Avenue Propaganda Axis has gone out of its way to demonize the program.

I hear you.

Now we're growing some 'nads.

[thesummerwind]

ping

[Miss Marple]

I am dubious about much of this article. Seymour Hersh, writing in The New Yorker, and quoting unnamed sources including a former CIA official, and using overly theatrical quotes, to boot.

I am sure the Special Forces are in Iraq. I don't think the scenario is quite what Hersh says it is.

[thesummerwind]

ping

[martin_fierro]

An American who has advised the civilian authority in Baghdad explained the new plan of attack to Hersh: "The only way we can win is to go unconventional. We're going to have to play their game. Guerrilla vs. guerrilla. Terrorism vs. terrorism. We've got to scare the Iraqis into submission."

Col. Kurtz: I've seen horrors... horrors that you've seen. But you have no right to call me a murderer. You have a right to kill me. You have a right to do that... but you have no right to judge me. It's impossible for words to describe what is necessary to those who do not know what horror means. Horror. Horror has a face... and you must make a friend of horror. Horror and moral terror are your friends. If they are not then they are enemies to be feared. They are truly enemies. I remember when I was with Special Forces. Seems a thousand centuries ago. We went into a camp to inoculate the children. We left the camp after we had inoculated the children for Polio, and this old man came running after us and he was crying. He couldn't see. We went back there and they had come and hacked off every inoculated arm. There they were in a pile. A ile of little arms. And I remember... I... I... I cried. I wept like some grandmother. I wanted to tear my teeth out. I didn't know what I wanted to do. And I want to remember it. I never want to forget it. I never want to forget. And then I realized... like I was shot... like I was shot with a diamond... a diamond bullet right through my forehead. And I thought: My God... the genius of that. The genius. The will to do that. Perfect, genuine, complete, crystalline, pure. And then I realized they were stronger than we. Because they could stand that these were not monsters. These were men... trained cadres. These men who fought with their hearts, who had families, who had children, who were filled with love... but they had the strength... the strength... to do that. If I had ten divisions of those men our troubles here would be over very quickly. You have to have men who are moral... and at the same time who are able to utilize their primordial instincts to kill without feeling... without passion... without judgment... without judgment. Because it's judgment that defeats us.

[thesummerwind]

overly theatrical quotes

indubitably?

[thesummerwind]

Col. Kurtz: I've seen horrors... horrors that you've seen. But you have no right to call me a murderer. You have a right to kill me. You have a right to do that... but you have no right to judge me. It's impossible for words to describe what is necessary to those who do not know what horror means. Horror. Horror has a face... and you must make a friend of horror. Horror and moral terror are your friends. If they are not then they are enemies to be feared. They are truly enemies.

Now that is theatrical.

[thesummerwind]

You have to have men who are moral... and at the same time who are able to utilize their primordial instincts to kill without feeling... without passion... without judgment... without judgment. Because it's judgment that defeats us.

Bingo, 'Burgh man.

[Joe Boucher]

Great movie revealing the craziness of war.

[martin_fierro]

...based on a great book.

[atomic conspiracy]

Lefties will say that we are no better than the terrorists. "One man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter" as though the interchangeability of words makes the reality equivalent. They are quite wrong in this, as in so many things. Al Qaeda and its allies seek to manipulate the media, and to alter public opinion in favor of appeasement, thereby achieving their goals. The manipulation is by unspoken consent, for the ultimate objectives of terrorists are often compatible with the interests, prejudices, and worldview of the media culture itself.

Our hit squads; whether 35 years ago in Vietnam, or today in Iraq; do not seek to influence the enemy media, or to reinforce the claims of academic appeasers and vested interests. They seek to destroy the killers themselves and the killers' allies; and take mass murder off the table of political discourse. They are not the same, they are the opposite. The fifth column media know this and we should therefore expect them to pull out all the stops to undermine this campaign.

[AHerald]

I am dubious about much of this article. Seymour Hersh, writing in The New Yorker ...

Same here. Hersh has a long history of writing stories of dubious authenticity. In Woodward's Bush at War, President Bush is quoted as having said that "Seymour Hersh is a liar."

[RippleFire]

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