You can’t just “fly them in.” An attack using special ops is a very complicated affair. The first thing you have to do is have a team who can blend in with the locals, there’s a real shortage of those folks. (And it’s made worse by the fact that the military bounces out homosexuals.) Next, they have to be familiar with the area, and ideally, have a local contact who can help them move around. You also have to have a safe landing site for dropping off the forces and then a seperate extraction area, where the guys can be picked up, both of which have to be relatively safe from hostile fire. If you’re after a person who knows that you’re after him (as the heads of AQ surely do, in a general sense), then he’s likely to not stay in the same place for very long, and is liable to change his modes of travel frequently. This means that you might have as little as a few minutes to act on the intel that the bad guy is at location X.
As for making us more vulnerable to a terrorist attack, I’d have to disagree. Certainly, it does piss more folks off at America, but the odds of it enabling AQ or some other terrorist group to put together a 9/11-style operation are pretty slim, IMHO. Iraq didn’t inspire a wave of suicide bombers to hit the US, despite predictions from some that it would. While our guys are getting hit by suicide bombers in Iraq (and possibly Afghanistan), AQ and their ilk haven’t gotten anyone to do the same in the US. Of course, that doesn’t mean our luck will hold forever.
Revtim, the problem is that we can never be certain that there won’t be innocent victims. Even if we sent in a special ops team to an isolated AQ hideout in the middle of Godforsakenistan, there could be hostages or wives and children of AQ who could get hurt. Then there’s also the trick of putting desirable targets smack in the center innocents, in order to deter a US attack. War is an ugly, nasty, brutal business, and unfortunately, both AQ and the US were willing to enter it while only thinking lightly.
Whatever. Half of the Pakistani government is in cahoots with the baddies. They accept our weapons with one hand while finding nice hiding places for OBL and assorted “terrorist training camps” with the other. Their military, secret military, and official government each tell us different things at the same time.
Anyway, none of that matters. Would you ever remain friends with a nation that made an ‘accidental’ attack on civilians on US soil? Three houses in Baltimore get bombed by the Latvians, who thought there were terrorists there. Do you keep friendly relations with Latvia?
However, in the theoretical attack in which Osama is killed, there may be a case made that the death of innocents is Osama’s fault unless it were proven that such an attack could have been executed successfully without the death of these innocents. If Osama were hiding behind innocents in order to protect himself from attack, then the responsibility for harm to those innocents must to a great degree be carried by Osama.
That said, it is the height of irresponsibility to launch missiles into civilian areas without guaranteed intelligence. It is the height or irresponsibility to launch missiles into civilian areas unless there are no other reasonable alternatives available. Criminal irresponsibility.
What’s good for the goose… Let’s start using this tactic here in the US.
Los Angeles, CA (NK) -- A house suspected of containing a convicted murderer was attacked today by the Los Angeles Police Department. Two LAPD F-16's dropped laser-guided bombs and incendiary devices on the ranch-style bungalow in northern Long Beach.
LAPD spokesperson Johnathon Irons, acknowledging the collateral damaged, commented: "We regret the destruction of the three surrounding blocks, but people need to remember that this was a very bad man. I'm pleased to announce that earlier today an LAPD forensic unit reported finding a fragment of a tooth that most likely came from the suspect. Justice may come with a cost, but a dangerous felon is off the streets."
Civil rights activists criticized the home attack for being racially motivated. When reached for comment, a spokesperson for the Rev. Jessie Jackson said the black leader was still missing after last weeks firebombing of suspected drug dealers in Harlem.
~~~~ wavy lines ~~~~ wavy lines ~~~~ wavy lines ~~~~
Unfortunately, if in your scenario Latvia has become the world’s dominant military and economic force (but still has the possibility of turning itself around and using that force wisely after the next regime change, so it’s not a complete political “lost cause”), you do maintain somewhat-friendly relations with it. You hold your nose while you do it, and take a long hot shower afterwards, but you do it. Realpolitik.
Well, frankly, I’d be pissed at my government for being so corrupt that the nation of Latvia felt that it had no other choice than to launch such an attack. Of course, I’m funny like that.
IAC, your analogy doesn’t really work in this case. Pakistan’s not a democracy, and even if the Pakistani intelligence forces had done the thing all on their own, the US would probably get the blame for it thanks to the shitty rep. we’ve managed to make for ourselves over the years.
True. It was a ground operation on US soil, led by US forces who thought that they had everything under control, and it went horribly wrong. It also happened under the first Clinton Administration, and despite the large number of children killed, the American populace didn’t feel the need to elect Bob Dole president.
Oh, I don’t know about that. John Mace suggested that we use a special ops squad, implying that it’d be better and reduce the risk of civilian casualties. The raid at Waco was conducted by the ATF who are supposed to be highly specialized law enforcement folks, in friendly territory, where we had ample intel, and knew right where the bad guys were, and the thing turned out badly for a lot of innocent folks. It should have been a fairly simple operation for the ATF, instead, it turned into a blood bath. It’s entirely possible that the same thing could have happened in Pakistan if a ground operation had been attempted.
True. But the possibility of a squad of commandos accidently destroying a building is significantly less then that of an airplane intentionally dropping a bomb on one.
We don’t know that for sure yet. I mean, sure, they mainly got one family, and only ten of them were women and children. Even ignoring the four men, the dead might have been terrorist women and children. At least four people who weren’t members of that family were killed, too. I think those are the ones whose bodies were taken away to be identified.
Some reports are as high as twenty-five dead, so there’s even more hope that there’s a bad guy or two in there amongst the innocent dead, if true. Probably, though, that’s just the typical whinging exaggeration you get from people with the bad sense to live in housing developments targeted by remote-controlled missiles.
Ouch. Sorry.
One thing that puzzles me, if true… There are some reports of locals having seen the drones circling in the few days before the attack. Is this possible? Do these things fly so low that they’re visible from the ground? If so, um… wouldn’t it be kind of expected that bad guys would run to the basement, wait for the all-clear, and then get the fuck out of Dodge? Or would they be counting on how unthinkable it would be for someone to rain missles down in a densely-populated area instead of waiting for a relatively clear shot at a vehicle in an untrafficked area, or something?
You poke a stick into a hornet’s nest, you’re going to have problems, even if it was on accident. Depending upon on the attitude of the locals, our guys could have lots of problems. If the place is a hot bed of anti-American sentiment (and what place isn’t these days), then our guys could expect to be shot at by your average Pakistani, just because they were American. Do you think that our troops should then not shoot back? Because that’s the only way they’d be certain that they didn’t kill any innocent folks, and if they didn’t shoot back, you can be certain our guys won’t be coming back alive.