Osama bin Laden's American legacy

[AzariLoveIran]

[skyhook77sfg]

interesting but implausable theory.

ISI Chapter of Muslim Brotherhood knew.

CIA only learned recently that the best way to hide

is to hide out in the open.....

[Tinker]

Totally on point about how our over reaction payed into his hands. Tai Chi Master is the prefect metaphor. I said this in 2001.

[AzariLoveIran]

[skyhook77sfg]

and the indian ruling class are your blood cousins.

with such a headstart on US...

how come you're

so far impotent?

[lzzrdgrrl]

[AzariLoveIran]

[Colonel Sun]

[Tinker]

[Tinker]

As to Iatrogenic damage: The Butlerian Jihad is coming.

[the glowing carp]

in Congress have just passed a bill stating the US is "engaged in an armed conflict with al Qaeda, the Taliban and associated forces." It also affirms that the president has the authority to detain "certain belligerents" until the armed conflict is over.

"Al Qaeda, the Taliban and associated forces still pose a grave threat to U.S. national security," the bill says. "The Authorization for Use of Military Force necessarily includes the authority to address the continuing and evolving threat posed by these groups."


Hooray, so the death of OBL changes nothing and the military industrial complex can have their eternal war product testing ground called Afghanistan. The only way this will end is if the Pashtun can control Pakistan and then threaten the US with Nuclear weapons or America goes broke, US needs 'hot' Military actions to justify it's military expenditure and economy, 'cold' ones ie Korean border don't cut it, looks like Pathan Nukes is what it's gonna be.

[AzariLoveIran]

[Mr. Perfect]

[avicenna]

[the glowing carp]

[skyhook77sfg]

[Colonel Sun]

[Colonel Sun]

No more knock, knock jokes for Hoosiers . . .

[Demon of Undoing]

My first inclination was to go high and to the right on this , but decided to think on it more. Ruling otherwise , so it seems , might make people think they are arbiters of whether they get to shoot a cop or not. I have yet to see the subject of a search that was in a position on the spot to verify whether a search was wholly legal.

As little as I like the idea of the police being able to enter with impunity , they are actually entering with impunity only for their physical safety ( at least as far as the law is concerned). In theory , a bad search could still lead to corrupted charges , suppressed evidence due to unlawful searches , civil suits and civil rights charges. I don't know that the answer to diminished rights and a militarized police is giving people cause to think that a contended warrant is green light to kill police. Nobody is going to win that.

[Ibrahim]

[skyhook77sfg]

Resisting a peace officer violently

is a fatally flawed coping strategy.

Like Gump said,

dumb is as

dumb does.

[skyhook77sfg]

Part of OBL's legacy

is the flawless bold operation

the quiet Navy professionals

carried out on Obama's watch.


The civilian and military clash described below is prima facia false.

Party hacks are by definition hacks.


Following was posted prior to MayDay inAbbottabad:



After 26 months in office, President Obama still has not forged a smoothly working national security team that can both nimbly pounce on military crises and deftly manage festering problems, say current and former U.S. officials.

That's right. This is a combination of vacillation and incompetence. So much for the army of advisers waiting in the wings.

As in previous administrations, much of the problem lies in the friction between civilians working in the White House and military officers and Defense Department civilians working across the Potomac River in the Pentagon. Senior officials describe the predicament as a "culture clash." The miscommunications and misunderstandings.....

[skyhook77sfg]

LATEST U.S G. THINKING



"The joint force should develop frameworks and mechanisms with academia, business and industry, NGOs and other USG agencies to enable the identification and analysis of the appropriate leading indicators that measure the effectiveness of developmental, governance, and security activities in an IW environment.

Special operations elements will require enabling combat support as they work in more remote locations or politically sensitive missions. In general, countering irregular threats will require distributed, small-unit operations and scalable, tailorable, integrated military-civilian teams with a mix of mutually supporting SOF and GPF. Distributed operations on a global scale place great stress on enablers' capacity for providing mobility, aerial sensors, field medics, remote logistics, engineering planners, construction, intelligence, regional specialists, human terrain teams, interpreters/translators, communications, dog teams, close air support specialists, security forces, and base operating support.

There are principally five activities or operations that are undertaken in sequence, in parallel, or in blended form in a coherent campaign to address irregular threats: counterterrorism (CT), unconventional warfare (UW), foreign internal defense (FID), counterinsurgency (COIN), and stability operations (SO). In addition to these five core activities, there are a host of key related activities including strategic communications, information operations of all kinds, psychological operations, civil-military operations, and support to law enforcement, intelligence, and counterintelligence operations in which the joint force may engage to counter irregular threats.

In order to maximize the prospect of success, the joint force must understand the population and operating environment, including the complex historical, political, socio-cultural, religious, economic and other causes of violent conflict. The joint force must adopt collaborative frameworks to understand, plan, act, assess, and adapt in concert with U.S. Government (USG) interagency and multinational partners and the host nation. Adequate frameworks for such collaboration do not currently exist in any codified or institutionalized form, although a variety of ad hoc mechanisms have been used and various studies have proposed such frameworks

."

ad hoc is classic way to say

we're still wingin it

kentucky windage

seat of pants

kindathing.


but things are looking up.

Abbottabad was a wendepunkt(for azari)

tipping point to others....


no more hands tied hand wringing.

obama trumps Cheney/Bush tough talk

with tough call and bold move

as commander in chief.


Tough guy posturing by darkside dick

and connecticut cowboy cheerleader failed.


Competent refocus on mission by Barack Hussein succeeds.



Col Maxwell says:

The bottom line is that USSOCOM “experiment,” while perhaps not perfect, has served our nation and its strategic interests well and has demonstrated that SOF have ade significant contributions and achieved significant effects as part of the joint and interagency team.

When closely examined, the “SEAL operation” against Bin Laden will be touted as the most successful joint special operation in recent history... a joint and interagency operation and not a SOF unilateral one.



Colonel David S. Maxwell, US Army Special Forces is a member of the military faculty at the
National War College of the National Defense University. He has nearly 30 years’ experience in
the Infantry and Special Forces, with more than 25 years of service in Asia. He is a graduate of

[Demon of Undoing]

Not to take anything away from Barry , but I wonder if a generational shift has occurred in terms of SOF usage. Skyhook can attest to the disfavor ( not to say disdain) that "snake eaters" once got from Big Army. Hard to get promoted , no voice at the table , resource jealousy , etc. Clearly , the military has progressively gotten over much of that , but it should be remembered exactly how much resentment the establishment of SOCOM created.

The civilian command , however , may not have really seen the potential of these units until now. Obama grew up in the post - Chuck Norris era. He never thought of military bad ass as being a product of tank divisions and infantry corps. For anybody that became sentient after 1980 , the idea of a squad sized element changing the world isn't strange at all , but a go- to option. Just wait until the HALO generation hits the water.

I've said for 20 years now that in some ways , video games are making the military's job easier. We've already seen it in pilots and surgeons. Why not strategic thinking ?

[skyhook77sfg]

BOY OH BOY DEMON

you got that right. disdain often tinged with disgust at the way special forces officers and noncoms fraternized, drank and womanized together
after coming out of the field where they didnt wear rank insignia, had strange headgear and non GI mountain boots....

and were tagged "sneaky petes" no commander of blue or red forces wanted on their side in major maneuvers... they'd flip a coin... .loser took SF unit.