rssSpec-Ops School: The Time Has Come for a Manhunting Agency
Tuesday, November 03, 2009 at 1:46 pm
- 4 Comments
I wrote today about the problems inherent with ad-hoc relationships between civilians and military officers during wartime, but I confess I didn’t think about another, more problematic ad-hoc arrangement — the dangers of treating global manhunts like a deadly game of pick-up basketball. I swear to God I’m serious.
Noah Shachtman at Danger Room has come across a proposal emerging from the Joint Special Operations University that has to be seen to be believed. Noah:
CIA director Leon Panetta got into hot water with Congress, after he revealed an agency program to hunt down and kill terrorists. A recent report from the U.S. military’s Joint Special Operations University argues that the CIA didn’t go far enough. Instead, the American government should set up something like a “National Manhunting Agency” to go after jihadists, drug dealers, pirates, and other enemies of the state.
America’s military, intelligence, and law enforcement agencies already devote thousands of people and billions of dollars to tracking down top terrorists and insurgents. But even the most successful of these efforts — like going after Iraqi militant leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi — have been “ad hoc” efforts, with units cobbled together from different corners of the government. Report author and retired Lt. Col. George Crawford instead would like to see a permanent group with clear authority, training, doctrine and technology to go after these dangerous individuals. These “manhunting teams would be standing formations, trained to pursue their designated quarry relentlessly for as long as required to accomplish the mission,” he writes.
The director of this agency, of course, has to be Gary Busey.
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4 Comments
Comment posted November 3, 2009 @ 2:45 pm
Yep. We need death squads. What's a little extra-judicial killing…
Trackback posted November 3, 2009 @ 8:43 pm
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Comment posted November 11, 2009 @ 1:16 am
Spence, rather than read Wired's report, you ought to check out the Joint Special Operations University report at https://jsoupublic.socom.mil/publications/jsou/…, or read his book at http://www.amazon.com/dp/1604413328
Both reflect a pretty broad understanding of military and national security issues. Put simply: our folks are hunting down terrorists. The main question in these documents is, do we keep doing so as a “pick up game” as you put it? Or do we look at ourselves in the mirror, acknowledge that, if killing has to be done, it's better to kill a single bad-actor than to bomb innocent civilians. If we can rationally arrive at the obvious conclusion — albeit the least-worst choice — then it falls to experts like Crawford to roll up their sleeves and get to the nasty business we've asked them to do. Recommend you give them a serious read.
Comment posted November 11, 2009 @ 6:16 am
Spence, rather than read Wired's report, you ought to check out the Joint Special Operations University report at https://jsoupublic.socom.mil/publications/jsou/…, or read his book at http://www.amazon.com/dp/1604413328
Both reflect a pretty broad understanding of military and national security issues. Put simply: our folks are hunting down terrorists. The main question in these documents is, do we keep doing so as a “pick up game” as you put it? Or do we look at ourselves in the mirror, acknowledge that, if killing has to be done, it's better to kill a single bad-actor than to bomb innocent civilians. If we can rationally arrive at the obvious conclusion — albeit the least-worst choice — then it falls to experts like Crawford to roll up their sleeves and get to the nasty business we've asked them to do. Recommend you give them a serious read.
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