PDA

View Full Version : Before Abbottabad: hunting AQ leaders (merged thread)



jcustis
05-16-2007, 05:08 PM
I wanted to poll the SWC for input on a thought I've had for a while, and it centers on our vilification of Al Qaeda and, in particular, one Osama Bin Laden.

Has our inability to produce verification that we have captured/killed OBL, actually worked against us in terms of actually bolstering the confidence of current and potential terrorist actors around the world?

Or put another way, could we have avoided a Catch-22 by simply saying that we would seek to bring those responsible for 9/11 to justice, without using by-name references? Do we face a credibility gap because we haven't produced OBL's remains, and are terrorists out there confident that if OBL can remain aloof in the hinterlands of Afghanistan/Pakistan, then they stand a chance as well?

I ask these questions from the perspective of future IO, as I wonder if we would be better served reducing the rhetoric. I read a lot from folks (military included) who believe that Afghanistan should have always been the main effort, and since that chapter has not closed, their attitudes about Iraq will always remain lukewarm.

tequila
05-16-2007, 05:28 PM
I think the failure to catch and kill OBL in the immediate wake of the invasion of Afghanistan was a major strategic failure. It revitalized jihadism when its main representative evaded capture to taunt us again and again. It showed potential jihadis that even when fully roused from its slumber, the U.S. was not invincible.

A combination of other factors has sustained jihadism. OBL has become a cultural marker now, an Islamist Che Guevara. Killing or capturing him now would still be a major tactical victory, but it would not be the potential deathblow to Islamism that it would have been back in 2001.

marct
05-16-2007, 05:30 PM
Hi JC,

That's a really good question - and a touch one. My suspicion is that, yes, there was too much aimed at Bin Laden (and Saddam Hussein), but not for the reasons you listed. From what I can see, a large part of the personalized rhetoric was aimed at the home audience, not the foreign one. I have a (totally unconfirmed) suspicion that part of the frustration with the current war in Iraq could be described as "We got SH, why isn't it better?".

Marc

Steve Blair
05-16-2007, 05:35 PM
I think we should have avoided names, but that's more because of the rapidity with which terrorist groups can spawn new leaders (and I consider AQ to be more of a hybrid terrorist group/TNI than a true insurgency). I agree that the knee-jerk use of OBL was intended for domestic consumption, but it was a bad call.

There's still too much of a tendency on the part of some to want to view everything through the lens of World War II. "Get Adolf and it's over." Well...it don't work that way now and hasn't for some time. When dealing with a decentralized cellular opponent, there ain't just one head you can cut off. But that urge lead us straight to Iraq (IMO) when we should have stayed focused on Afghanistan (agree with your friends there, JC).

jcustis
05-16-2007, 05:43 PM
Aha!


From what I can see, a large part of the personalized rhetoric was aimed at the home audience, not the foreign one.

So is there a lesson to be learned there as well? Is home consumption strictly home consumption, and do we need to think deeply about what goes out across the airwaves, youtube, and liveleak? I'm trying to come up with a few Cold War analogies about perception vs. reality. That's what really started this idea.

Steve Blair
05-16-2007, 05:49 PM
We always need to consider perception versus reality, especially with IO-type operations. One good Cold War parallel could be the rhetoric about "wars of national liberation." By seeing every insurgency as Communist backed or inspired, we backed ourselves into supporting some rather questionable folks, and gave the Soviets a free hand when it came to propaganda.

marct
05-16-2007, 05:54 PM
Hi JC,


So is there a lesson to be learned there as well? Is home consumption strictly home consumption, and do we need to think deeply about what goes out across the airwaves, youtube, and liveleak? I'm trying to come up with a few Cold War analogies about perception vs. reality. That's what really started this idea.

Oh, it's definitely a perception vs. reality dichotomy :D. I'm not sure, however, that the Cold War has that many good analogies for today's communications environment.

First off, I would suggest that there really is little difference between a "home" and a "non-home" information market - at least in the sense of them being reasonably isolated and, hence, amenable to differing messages.

Second, I suspect that no "unified" message strategy, a least in the conventional sense, will work - there are just too many alternate venues for dissenting voices to appear.

Third, and coming out of these two, I would suggest that there has to be a fair degree of decentralization of content production but grouped around as specific philosophical or ideological stance. Something along the lines of "We will track down the irhabi responsible for 9/11", followed by a tiny explanation of the word irhabi, and a call for Islamic states to support the suppression of them. Leave individuals out of it and cast it as a general world problem, even for the home audience.

Just some thoughts off the top of my head...

Marc

Tom Odom
05-16-2007, 05:54 PM
JC

From the IO perspective, you are absolutely correct. Fixation on an individual as a target for revenge is never good; you are for one thing staking your credibility internally and externally to getting the target. If you don't you lose in both arenas. If you do, you may still lose in the external arena by creating a martyr.

From a war of ideas perspective, personalization of the fight has similar flaws. You say you are fighting for ideas and liberty then stick to the ideas and the liberty to express them. Getting into the demonization oif a figure like OBL adds to his credibility in the sectors he most wishes to cultivate.

Although it would have been near impossible to do immediately after 9-11, certain use of humor and sarcasm would better serve our purpose. Here WWII does apply because we did use such tactics to diminish key personalities like Hitler.

Put another way, we talked the talk about OBL after 9-11 but we never walked the walk. And yes it does affect us.


Tom

wm
05-16-2007, 06:06 PM
Whether it was a good or bad move is definitely open to debate.

The fact of the matter is that we put a face on Terrorism, which gave the folks at home a "someone" to rally against. I suspect that a review of Orwell's 1984 might be instructive. After Winston Smith is arrested, he finds out the arch-enemy of the people(Goldstein is the name, I believe) is really a fiction created by the folks in power to give the people in the street a target against whom to direct their anger.

Steve Blair
05-16-2007, 06:15 PM
JC

Although it would have been near impossible to do immediately after 9-11, certain use of humor and sarcasm would better serve our purpose. Here WWII does apply because we did use such tactics to diminish key personalities like Hitler.



Agreed, Tom, but we also have the PC sensitivities now that didn't exist during WWII. I suspect that attempts at humor or sarcasm would be branded as racist almost immediately, whereas they were not during WWII. It would have to be very carefully done, if it were to be done at all.

jcustis
05-16-2007, 06:15 PM
That's what I'm trying to dissect wm...did the benefit of putting a face on terrorism really bear any fruit, relative to a credibility loss? Did the balance of the scale favor us, and then shift as Afghanistan lingered, or was the balance always favoring the extremist

I know folks are somewhat inclined to say that we shouldn't cry over spilt milk, but put our shoulder squarely into the business of finishing what we started. I read/hear that over and over again, but I believe we need to look at these "moot points" in order to make more informed decisions in the future. This is just one of those points that intrigues me.

Don't get me wrong, I am all about making sure we have our share of boogeymen to use as a target reference points. I just think we need to be very judicious when we decide to set priority targets, cancel them, and roll to a new one.

goesh
05-16-2007, 06:18 PM
If he was caught today, it would be as important to us in the Western camp as the recent capture of 3 GIs in Iraq is to the jihadist camp. I suppose there are a rare few who would actually think that the capture of OBL would result in major cessation of jihadist attacks all over the planet. I for one have never had a problem believing that the jihadist camp simply wants us and our way of life dead and we need villains and heroes more than they do. They are more ideologically pure and driven and it shows in their tactics. I rather doubt his freedom has inspired very many to take up the fight, not nearly as much as fiery speeches in mosques, fatwas and videos have. If I were born in Iraq or Iran or Syria or Egypt or any number of other places, I would be fighting the West instead of waving the flag here.

Steve Blair
05-16-2007, 06:25 PM
I don't consider this a moot point at all, but rather an opportunity to learn from what might be one of the bigger mistakes of the immediate post-911 period.

Tom's right in that humor and sarcasm could have been used, but I tend to think they should have been aimed at the group in general. While it can be handy to have a "face on the evil menace," that same face can also grant legitimacy to someone who might not otherwise have it. It also sets you up as targeting that person, whether or not that's actually a valuable or practical option.

Tom Odom
05-16-2007, 06:40 PM
Steve

I was thinking of DeNiro's now classic skit on Saturday Night Live...

Besides as a former FAO I am expected to suggest possible cross cultural gaffs...:wry:

Seriously, I agree 100%; it would have to be done carefully but it could be done. The Arabs I have worked with do have a sense of humor that is quite developed, subtle and at once crude when it fits their mood.

overall though I believe the salient issue in this thread is the "rush to speak memorably" versus a more cautious but necessary "imperative to speak convincingly".

Best

Tom

jcustis
05-16-2007, 06:48 PM
overall though I believe the salient issue in this thread is the "rush to speak memorably" versus a more cautious but necessary "imperative to speak convincingly".

Good summation. Anyone know of analysis on 9/11 and OBL that speaks to this? I imagine it's a lot like opinion polling, but I'm curious nonetheless. Someone's written a master's or doctorate thesis on this...

wm
05-16-2007, 07:02 PM
That's what I'm trying to dissect wm...did the benefit of putting a face on terrorism really bear any fruit, relative to a credibility loss? Did the balance of the scale favor us, and then shift as Afghanistan lingered, or was the balance always favoring the extremist

I know folks are somewhat inclined to say that we shouldn't cry over spilt milk, but put our shoulder squarely into the business of finishing what we started. I read/hear that over and over again, but I believe we need to look at these "moot points" in order to make more informed decisions in the future. This is just one of those points that intrigues me.

Don't get me wrong, I am all about making sure we have our share of boogeymen to use as a target reference points. I just think we need to be very judicious when we decide to set priority targets, cancel them, and roll to a new one.

I'm not sure that we can cancel the priority targets that simply. Even the FBI tends to leave folks on their 10 most wanted list for a long time, despite putting their priorities/sights on other bad guys.

I think we might need to look for other targets to take out, but we probably need to do so very quietly.

As others have pointed out, putting a face on a bad guy in an asymmetric war provides a rallying point for the folks on the short end of that assymmetry to rally around--I think that is the ultimate point I would derive from my reading of 1984--real or not, a rebel name provides a point arond which nascent rebels can rally. Since there will probably always be rebels, it may be a good thing to give them a focus that makes it easier for the powers that be to locate and target. In other words, keeping OBL around may be a good thing because at least we have an idea where the threat comes from -- he and AQ will draw the bulk of the malcontents who desire to disrupt the status quo. At least that is the point I get from Orwell (as well as the other anti-Utopian writers I've read, like Aldous Huxley in Brave New World).

jcustis
05-16-2007, 07:24 PM
Since there will probably always be rebels, it may be a good thing to give them a focus that makes it easier for the powers that be to locate and target. In other words, keeping OBL around may be a good thing because at least we have an idea where the threat comes from -- he and AQ will draw the bulk of the malcontents who desire to disrupt the status quo.

Excellent point, perhaps more so when looking at our surreptitious collections effort. "he must take these to brother Osama" must make for a decent spike to orient on.

slapout9
05-16-2007, 07:34 PM
From an LE standpoint it was one of the worst possible things we could have done along with GWOT. The war on drugs, the war on crime, the war on poverty were and are political slogans that set you up to loose. The moment you call it a war it implies an enemy and a victory date, none of which is going to happen in the long war. Which is why we should call them global law enforcement operations or something like that. Take the wining and loosing part out of the equation. You need to position him (OBL) as a psyco-mass murderer of all people, not a War Hero which is exactly what you do when you call it a War. When you call him a criminal the capture date is left open because people are used to seeing the effort and time required to catch people like serial killers in our country, but they also see that you never close the case until he is caught or killed by us or someone else. My2.5 cents.

Steve Blair
05-16-2007, 07:40 PM
The only issue I see with labeling him a criminal is that you then get into that odd position of having to "arrest" him (at least according to MSM criteria), "try" him, and so on. It creates a whole new level of expectations that may not be at all suited to the situation at hand.

I have mixed feelings about calling it a global law enforcement operation. Not sure why, but it just doesn't sit right.:confused:

slapout9
05-16-2007, 07:44 PM
Steve, no doubt the name sucks, I just couldn't think of anything else. Key word is try to arrest, no requirment to be stupid and it dosen't mean you don't use military forces.
Remember the man from U.N.C.L.E.? United Network Command for Law and Enforement. See we already had a TV show about it.

Steve Blair
05-16-2007, 07:54 PM
Yeah, slap, I remember that show. Interesting stuff....:D

But what gets me with LEO-type stuff is that the media jumps on it and acts like you should be replaying "Dragnet," complete with reading the rights and all that. It's the outside spin that comes with it that tends to drive me nuts.

slapout9
05-16-2007, 08:00 PM
Steve, if we could pull it off there is real I/O merit in that SOB in handcuffs and have his rights read to him before we give him a fair trial and hang him:wry: But to go to the straight military side we had a manual and a concept called MOOTW military Operations Other Than "War" which is exactly what need to call it, but we dumped that for some reason??:confused:

carl
05-16-2007, 08:04 PM
I agree with slapout on the disadvantages of declaring "war" on everything.

I think Americans aren't as tolerant or patient as in the past. There is also a tendency to equate lack of immediate result with lack of legitmacy. By putting OBL front and center we set ourselves up for discouragement that it is taking so long along with doubts whether the effort against the irhabists should be made at all.

Additionally when he does go down, some will think it is all over and be further discouraged when it is not.

The irhabists stand to win when he does go down. They have their martyr who defied the mighty US and did it for a long time.

Steve Blair
05-16-2007, 08:06 PM
Yeah, the whole name game is enough to drive someone nuts. MOOTW was interesting, but so is small wars.... Perhaps Leveraged Actions with Synergistic Termination (LAST) or Controlled Utilization of National Termination Systems (you can do the acronym for that one, lest I be banned to the Club) might make some wordsmiths happy....:D

But with LE you get into that whole legal loophole question, and that tends to make me nervous. I agree with the SOB in handcuffs image, but in this day and age it also conjures up images of certain gloves that didn't fit. But what the hell, right? We all have our little word preferences.;)

jcustis
05-16-2007, 08:13 PM
Additionally when he does go down, some will think it is all over and be further discouraged when it is not.

The irhabists stand to win when he does go down. They have their martyr who defied the mighty US and did it for a long time.

I guess this speaks to the necessity to have a message ready now, loaded and cocked. I'd personally like to see him de-mystified and put down as a low-lying cretin. There needs to be a full-court press that he died on the run, cowering like a frightened child, and not some bold entity.

I'm surprised that most of those who praise Che and wear his t-shirt don't realize that he died dirty, starved, and certainly not some valiant warrior.

slapout9
05-16-2007, 08:17 PM
The legal loopholes would not be as big a problem as we think if it was done right. Just like with Noriaga in Panama was taken under special warrants and tried in a non public way. We could do the same for OBL and everyone in AQI don't just stop with him.

wm
05-16-2007, 08:43 PM
The legal loopholes would not be as big a problem as we think if it was done right. Just like with Noriaga in Panama was taken under special warrants and tried in a non public way. We could do the same for OBL and everyone in AQI don't just stop with him.

Your last sentence says it all. We may have killed of the head of AQI a while back but we have a new face and name as head of AQI to be the bad guy now, don't we? Even if we get OBL, we still will find another name and face popping up to haunt us--if for no other reason than so that the media can continue to gartner their profits.

LawVol
05-16-2007, 09:06 PM
Slapout's Law Enforcement Operation is intriguing. I definitely see a potential down-side with the whole legality thing (I am a lawyer after all), but perhaps there are some benefits too. We get to label him as something Americans easily understand. There are no PC-type arguments about why his acts were committed and it denies him his perceived legitimacy. After all, if America has declared war on OBL then he must be important, legitimate, etc. However, a criminal is something that carries a negative perception throughout the world. In this sense it would be helpful to indict him not only for American deaths on 9/11 but also for Arab deaths.

I'm still thinking this part through, but I also see a benefit on the home front. Fighting global criminals would not seem to require a huge military presence. We, of course, would use military force to effectuate an "arrest," but that military force would be of limited duration since the mission objective is to make the arrest or kill.

Immediate questions that come to mind involve the type of seizure law (think 4th amendment) that would apply since even killing is a seizure; sovereignty issues; if captured, who would try OBL and others like him and how;etc.

pvebber
05-16-2007, 09:44 PM
My take on this is that asking if a specific decision "went wrong" or not can't really be answered. There are too many audiences and interpretations of the decision to be able to definitively say one way or the other. It may have been "terribly wrong" to the perception of some audiences, but a benefit to others. What is the result "on balance" - the answer is not as important as the way you try to take account - and the implications on future decisions.

What did we try to accomplish with the decision? My recollection is that it likely had more to do with the audience here at home - rather than overseas -and the pervasive notion that we "need to hold someone to account" when bad outcomes occur.

That naming him likely had a beneficial effect on early morale and confidence here in the US, compared to a situation where a "shadowy unnamed group" was behind it is arguably true. Specifying AQ as the agency behind 9/11, de facto implicated bin Laden - distancing that name from responsibility would have been difficult and opened assorted Pandora's boxes. Would it have been possible to go after AQ without bin Laden figuring highly? My sense is probably not...would the media have hyped him anyway, with equivocating on the part of officialdom on his role feeding conspiracy theorists in the press?

If we had gotten him that would have been a handsome payday in 'political capital'. Not getting him eroded that inititial benefit, but its not clear that turned to a net negative, or just back to zero. OR set the stage for a later shift to net negative when other bad outcomes occured...

But that is here at home.

On the other hand, overseas audiences, particularly in the Islamic world, the focus on AQ and bin Laden was undenyably an early victory for our adversaries. Demonstrating that they could poke the great Satan in the eye, AND provocing such responses BY NAME was much more than 15 minutes of fame and the equivalent of Billions in ad money. Could that victory have been moderated with a strategic comms effor that payed more attention to the differences between messages aimed at home and messages to be reinforced overseas? Undoubtedly. It is not clear from any of the books I've read so far that the finer details of the needed strat comms effort was even appreciated, let alone planned out that early on. Its not clear that the lesson there has been learned.

Other audiences are not so clear, I think Europe was far more influenced by the "with us or against us" rhetoric, than anything to do with pronouncements on bin Laden. The media itself - simultaneousy an audience and a cacaphony of messeges itself would be a wild card in any strategy to down play AQ and bin Laden - the potential for a media blowback that awarded AQ a victory anyway, and was a net loss on the home front was not outside the realm of possibility.

So in some ways there is the "was it really a choice" - once AQ was identified, bid focus on bin Laden follow as fair accompli? I may ascribe too much to the media, but that is at least possible. If it was not a choice, but a matter of priority given his name was going to come up, what were the pros and cons of going 'all in'? How do you evaluate the various unitened consequences of "paying too much attention" vs "not paying enough attention" or the dreaded "looking you are deliberately being evasive on the topic" opening the door to who knows what?

Bottom line, the answer may not be as interesting as the train of logic and new questions trying to answer it leads you down. Even if we can definitively answer for this case, does that mean following the same course next time will be right? Maybe, maybe not. We tend to be too peoccupied with predicting results of decisions and their goodness, (a result that often occurs for reasons totally unrelated to the decision itself) rather than on the decision-making framework that allows examination of the ramifications of various interactions in the decision space.

Work the various outcomes of "if I do this and then this happens and other people do these other things..." Gee that is starting to sound like something that one needs to do with games and game theory-like stuff :eek: Being a proponent of "truely complex problems require game-like exploration" guy I often end up there :D

slapout9
05-16-2007, 11:25 PM
LawVol the US Marshal's can and do serve international warrants, 4th Amendment would not be a problem due to the demonstrated danger to society at large (fleeing felon law). Also one of the authors was a...gulp..Air Force Officer...there is hope after all, and to top it off it is a Navy published paper.



Here is a link to a paper on how I think it should have been done. This is basic police work. In this case the main consultants were the US Marshal Service,British Security Service and plain old detectives.
http://www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/nps/manhunting_marks_jun05.pdf

PS Goesh and Stan some good huntin stuff in here for real:wry:

Stan
05-16-2007, 11:59 PM
LawVol the US Marshal's can and do serve international warrants, 4th Amendment would not be a problem due to the demonstrated danger to society at large (fleeing felon law). Also one of the authors was a...gulp..Air Force Officer...there is hope after all, and to top it off it is a Navy published paper.



Here is a link to a paper on how I think it should have been done. This is basic police work. In this case the main consultants were the US Marshal Service,British Security Service and plain old detectives.
http://www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/nps/manhunting_marks_jun05.pdf

PS Goesh and Stan some good huntin stuff in here for real:wry:

Evening Slapout !
Coincident with our night off from evening duties (it’s Wednesday aye), we gathered for a few brews and much needed humor with EOD Techs and friends from specialized LE units (pictured below).

As politics reared its ugly head, I related Slapout’s comments and a senior LE opined: “You Yanks have made the whole affair far too personal. We don’t name our criminals. What did that get you?” Deep pause…”I would encourage the military to kill people and break things, because that is what they are there for. Do I need to send my team there and collect the 1 million ?”

I like the hunting gear, Slapout !

LawVol
05-18-2007, 07:32 PM
Slapout: thanks for the great paper. There is some very interesting stuff in there. I can't help but wonder if OBL would be dead or behind bars if we'd used this approach. Perhaps he wouldn't have the same following either.

I'm intrigued by the LE approach to fighting the war on terror.

slapout9
05-18-2007, 07:59 PM
LawVol your welcome. except for some of the more hi-tech stuff I have used every technique in there. All boils down to my original 3F sometimes 4F technique. It is not complex it is just hard work, labor intensive as the accountants say. Oh yea want to find OBL no problem, he has a whole bunch of kin folk and a construction company in Saudia Arabia. Who IMHO are in this whole GWOT think up to their eyeballs. Me Goesh and Stan and Jedburgh and Tom and RTK and Rob Thornton and Marct could find him. Might need some Air Support from you... Doing anything the next couple of years?? Gotta go.

Sargent
05-20-2007, 04:26 AM
I wanted to poll the SWC for input on a thought I've had for a while, and it centers on our vilification of Al Qaeda and, in particular, one Osama Bin Laden.


I think we ought to have turned his world upside down and defied him to come to America on a speaking tour to sell his position in the free market place of ideas. Offer him complete security. And keep making the offer, and keep making him decline.

Ok, this is a bit wacky, but the point I'm driving at is that, to a degree, the ideas the AQ et al are selling aren't all that great. They really haven't made anything much better for the people they purport to serve, support, or represent. Who thinks that the Taliban did a good job with Afghanistan? Who thinks that the work that they did in Pakistan has really improved the lives of anyone who has attended one of their Madrassas? And their big idea is to replicate this model across the world? I don't really know that many people really _want_ this. However, what they like is that he stands up to America. What the young men who join the movement like is that he gives their lives some bit of purpose, something to do. But if he were forced to really sell his ideas, the flaws in the grand design would be made breathtakingly apparent.

He's a great strategist, but he really has a terrible idea. If he were made to have to rely on the idea rather than the strategy his stock would fall.

As much as 9/11 and the loss of the WTC pained me personally, I think we conflated a great tragedy with a great threat.

Steve Blair
05-20-2007, 01:02 PM
That may turn off the American listening public, but I really don't think that idea would hinder his ability to recruit in the least. What he's appealing to is emotional, not rational, and if he's a good speaker the idea could easily backfire.

There are a number of historical examples to back this up, but I'd like to look quickly at just two. The first are the European terrorist groups of the 1970s and 1980s (some of which still exist today). How many Germans really believed that the Red Army Faction wanted to "free" the workers? Or how many Italians thought the Italian Red Brigades had the same goal? Not that many in real terms. But they both could tap into just enough resentment, idealism, and urges to destroy the "system" that they managed to keep a flow of recruits coming. The second example is Hitler. I'm not saying Bin Laden is "evil" in the same sense, but many in Germany (and the rest of the world) figured that his message was too nonsensical to be believed. It was, but he was also a hell of a speaker and audience manipulator. By the time some folks figured that out, it was too late.

Messages can be tailored. Hitler understood this, as did Stalin, Castro, Ho Chi Minh, and other revolutionary leaders. They also understand that just because we (and I use the term in a very generic sense) think their message is absurd doesn't mean that others will feel the same way. And if they can win over a few of the others they come out ahead.

slapout9
05-20-2007, 02:14 PM
Steve, your right OBL gets his talking points form God we get ours from....well wherever we would get them from, which is exactly my point attempting to engage this guy in anyway that gives him a public platform is playing his game....buy his rules.....and you can only loose.

Sargent, I agree with you that he gained a great deal of respect for standing up to the US. Which is exactly why we should not call it a war! We turned a mass murderer into a great General who is leading his rag-tag rebel army in total defiance of the only superpower on earth. Again he can only win from this position and we can only loose. This is exactly how small criminals become big guys. Just go pick a fight with the biggest guy on the block! It doesn't matter if you win or loose in rational terms, the fact that you are willing to fight gives you a great deal of status and sets you up to draw support from the enemy. It gets people thinking maybe I should switch sides because this guy is just crazy enough to pull it off, so lets go jump on the winning team so to speak.


Law Enforcement is a process not a war. It that sense you never need to win you only have to enforce the law as long as that law exists-hence no time limit. By taking away the status of war from OBL you automatically deny him victory from the start, he can not win the war because there isn"t one. President Bush had the right idea from the very start he should be Wanted Dead or Alive as a criminal mass murderer.

Sargent
05-20-2007, 03:20 PM
That may turn off the American listening public, but I really don't think that idea would hinder his ability to recruit in the least. What he's appealing to is emotional, not rational, and if he's a good speaker the idea could easily backfire.


The concept is mostly meant to be illustrative of what sorts of things need to be done to take his movement down a peg. I grant that his appeal to the young men is not something that we're likely ever going to be able to touch -- and probably don't need to directly -- although you can reduce the size of the pool of the potentially willing. Nevertheless, the willing to be recruiteds are not the primary targets in this case -- it's the vast populations who sit on the fence or just to his side of the fence. Head to head, most people in the world pick the American/Western idea (in part, if not in whole), hands down -- even though it is far from perfect itself. If Afghanistan had had free immigration, who would have moved there to live under that regime? I think if you couple that idea with a dose of humility and empathy in American policy, the Bin Ladens and AQs of the world don't really stand a chance.

Steve Blair
05-20-2007, 03:27 PM
Another issue with this would be that when you grant someone a speaking tour in the US you're more or less saying that you believe their cause is legitimate. Any sort of sponsorship can be constituted as an endorsement. It might also allow him to reach into areas that might otherwise be difficult for him, and if the guy's a good speaker....well...we've seen historically where that leads.

Interesting discussion, though.

Sargent
05-20-2007, 07:17 PM
Another issue with this would be that when you grant someone a speaking tour in the US you're more or less saying that you believe their cause is legitimate. Any sort of sponsorship can be constituted as an endorsement. It might also allow him to reach into areas that might otherwise be difficult for him, and if the guy's a good speaker....well...we've seen historically where that leads.

Interesting discussion, though.

We allow all manner of reprehensible sorts to speak and demonstrate freely in this country. It doesn't mean that anyone necessarily grants them legitimacy, it just means that even the idiots are allowed to sell their ideas here. It's that freedom that's meant to keep the firebrands in check -- the other side will always be able to speak out in opposition. I recall that the Fascists were making some pretty good inroads prior to our involvement in WWII -- but in the end, people just didn't want that.

In the end, I don't think OBL would entice more people here than we'd gain elsewhere by standing firm on our freedoms. But that's just a gut response -- maybe it's just the idealist in me.

SWJED
07-08-2007, 12:42 PM
8 July NY Times - U.S. Aborted Raid on Qaeda Chiefs in Pakistan in ’05 (http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/08/washington/08intel.html?hp) by Mark Mazzetti.


A secret military operation in early 2005 to capture senior members of Al Qaeda in Pakistan’s tribal areas was aborted at the last minute after top Bush administration officials decided it was too risky and could jeopardize relations with Pakistan, according to intelligence and military officials.

The target was a meeting of Qaeda leaders that intelligence officials thought included Ayman al-Zawahri, Osama bin Laden’s top deputy and the man believed to run the terrorist group’s operations.

But the mission was called off after Donald H. Rumsfeld, then the defense secretary, rejected an 11th-hour appeal by Porter J. Goss, then the director of the Central Intelligence Agency, officials said. Members of a Navy Seals unit in parachute gear had already boarded C-130 cargo planes in Afghanistan when the mission was canceled, said a former senior intelligence official involved in the planning...

goesh
07-09-2007, 02:46 PM
There is no earthly telling what all our great grandkids will learn once the declassification process runs its course. What a catch that would have been.

Pragmatic Thinker
07-09-2007, 04:35 PM
Please tell me this isn't shocking people? We continually observe borders that our adversaries do not and this isn't limited to our current conflicts. We suffer from some sort of phobia about image tarnishing and public fallout from possible failure in regards to missions that aren't fully rehearsed and prepped for...read Richard Kaplan's "Imperial Grunts" and his observations from his time in Afghanistan in 2004 and 2005. The special forces troops on the ground were continually constrained from timely action due to "higher headquarters" requirements to provide CONOPs and getting approvals from hundreds of miles away. We still suffer from the memories of Desert One and the bad day in '93 in Mogadishu, Somalia...despite our mantras and claims by the President we're not attacking foes "...anywhere, anytime..." nor do we "..make no distinctions between the terrorists and those who harbor them...". Not too mention, history tells us that Vietnam was run from D.C. and Saigon, I would argue that this war is also run from D.C. and Bagram and Baghdad and Balad. Our special forces continually suffer from too much oversight and staff requirements from higher to effectively do their missions.

As far as allies go, I am still wondering why we even sided with the Pakistanis in the first place? Musharraf aborted CIA attempts in October 1999 to capture Osama Bin Laden in Tarnak Farms according to numerous open source articles. Musharraf refused to honor the deal between the CIA and the Pak government (that was formulated under then Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif who was overthrown in a coup led by Musharraf that same month) that would have provided Pakistani commandos to assist in such a raid to capture Osama Bin Laden should he be detected by CIA Predator drones (which he was). This was prior to the strike capability of the Predator, I believe had that mission gone off we would have seen UBL hauled to the Hague to stand trial for the '93 WTC attack, the '98 Tanzania-Kenya bombings, and possibly avoided the Oct '00 bombing of the USS Cole.

This article is a sad commentary on how we fight wars and in some form or another I hope to someday find out why we sided with Pakistan in the first place. Plus, I won't even comment on how this alliance flys in the face of the so-called "spreading democracy" doctrine once touted by this administration.

Pragmatic Thinker
07-09-2007, 10:42 PM
All,

Apologies for the tone of my previous reply...this is a topic near and dear to my heart with which I find no easy answers and my emotions tend to get the better of me. Without going into much detail in this forum it is needless to say that I am a believer in Special Forces and our other SOF capabilities, and that the United States has by far the best SOF capabilty of any country on this planet. However, I also recognize that a horse will never run if it is left in the stable all its life. Enough said... -- PR

Tom Odom
07-09-2007, 11:09 PM
All,

Apologies for the tone of my previous reply...this is a topic near and dear to my heart with which I find no easy answers and my emotions tend to get the better of me. Without going into much detail in this forum it is needless to say that I am a believer in Special Forces and our other SOF capabilities, and that the United States has by far the best SOF capabilty of any country on this planet. However, I also recognize that a horse will never run if it is left in the stable all its life. Enough said... -- PR

PR

I read nothing that offended and I know that most of us if not all us have endured similar frustrations at sometime in our careers...

Best

Tom

RTK
07-10-2007, 12:13 AM
All,

Apologies for the tone of my previous reply...this is a topic near and dear to my heart with which I find no easy answers and my emotions tend to get the better of me. Without going into much detail in this forum it is needless to say that I am a believer in Special Forces and our other SOF capabilities, and that the United States has by far the best SOF capabilty of any country on this planet. However, I also recognize that a horse will never run if it is left in the stable all its life. Enough said... -- PR

No apologies needed. Charlie Mike.

Armchairguy
08-26-2007, 05:47 PM
Here's a link to a story on the hunt for OBL that was kind of interesting.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20430170/site/newsweek/page/0/

SWJED
08-26-2007, 06:27 PM
Here's a link to a story on the hunt for OBL that was kind of interesting.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20430170/site/newsweek/page/0/

Next step is telling us why you find it "kind of interesting" - I'm prodding you along into full-fledged Councildom;)

davidbfpo
08-26-2007, 09:29 PM
I am constantly amazed by some American news reporting, yes the Newsweek article is interesting and some aspects have appeared before, e.g. smarter PR. Is all the material in the public domain? I think not. So why does Newsweek publish this? Sensationalism, settling bureaucratic scores and rivalry between parts of government?

Looks to me as if the USA, or parts of it, are setting up a legend similar to "we were stabbed in the back", or in this case "we had in our sights, but had no bullets".

Strange.

davidbfpo

Ken White
08-27-2007, 02:10 AM
parts of government?"

Mostly.

bourbon
08-27-2007, 05:57 PM
I have respected Evan Thomas, who wrote the article, since I read his book The Very Best Men ten years ago. And I consider Christopher Dickey, Mark Hosenball, Michael Hirsh, and Michael Isikoff, who all reported the story, to be some of the better journalists out there. True, there is not a lot of new information in the article, but in aggregate it made me sick to my stomach. I read it yesterday afternoon and am still angry.

Ken White
08-27-2007, 07:00 PM
Here's a link. Scroll down to "Quotes." Notice the top one, the last phrase is telling, I think....

LINK (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evan_Thomas)

My observation has been that all you name subscribe to the same ethos. If one could call it that...

See also my comment #10, above.

Old Eagle
08-27-2007, 09:06 PM
Unfortunately, in spite of the line up of pretty reputable journalists in the research, the article smacks of typical MSM marketing. You write what sells, you lead with what grabs folks attention enough to buy your mag. The job of newspapers is to sell newspapers, the job of politicians is to get elected.

The underlying thesis of the piece is that higher ranking military officers are overly conservative and risk averse. Unexamined were the likely consequenses of 1) launching scarse U.S. forces into the mouth of an inferno without proper support, extraction plans, etc, -- imagine how that story would read 2) launching major attacks at every shadow that may or may not be UBL. or 3) launching attacks that needlessly (emphasis) kill innocent civilians, incite political consequences that lose the strategic war at the expense of the tactical victory.

I was also intrigued to learn that Stan McChrystal was only a major when he commanded JSOC. Makes me automatically wonder what else is of questionable "fact" (see Ken's point above).

Armchairguy
09-02-2007, 06:03 AM
Next step is telling us why you find it "kind of interesting" - I'm prodding you along into full-fledged Councildom;)

It's kind of interesting for me first because unlike many here I've not heard a lot of this, and can't vouch one way or another for the truth of it. It seems to point to a pretty large amount of incompetence. The idea of zero defect warfare is a lesson in the stupidity of micromanagement. If they feel the guys they sent need to be managed to that degree then they have failed by choosing the wrong guys, or they have failed by choosing the right guys and not trusting their judgement. Going after every tall person in Afghanistan, or dropping a bomb on the basis of rumors isn't the way you want to go either, but I'd hope there was a practical medium.

Jedburgh
09-27-2007, 07:55 PM
The Jamestown Foundation's Terrorism Monitor, 25 Sep 07:

Assessing the Six Year Hunt for Osama bin Laden (http://www.jamestown.org/terrorism/news/article.php?articleid=2373678)

More than six years after the September 11 attacks, Osama bin Laden remains free, healthy and safe enough to produce audio- and videotapes that dominate the international media at the times of his choosing (http://www.jamestown.org/terrorism/news/article.php?articleid=2373639). Popular and some official attitudes in the United States and its NATO allies tend to denigrate the efforts made by their military and intelligence services to capture the al-Qaeda chief. The common question always is, "Why can't the U.S. superpower and its allies find one 6'5" Saudi with an extraordinarily well-known face?" The answers are several, each is compelling, and together they suggest that the U.S.-led coalition's military and intelligence forces are too over-tasked and spread far too thin to have more than a slim chance of capturing or killing bin Laden and his senior lieutenants.....

Armchairguy
10-21-2007, 06:09 AM
I'm thinking if we ever kill OBL and his inner circle that we should not tell anyone about it. Just let the videos and pronouncements stop coming and the faithful wait for guidance that never comes.

MattC86
10-21-2007, 09:22 PM
I'm thinking if we ever kill OBL and his inner circle that we should not tell anyone about it. Just let the videos and pronouncements stop coming and the faithful wait for guidance that never comes.

Perhaps useful from an overall strategic standpoint; but impossible because of domestic politics. Killing OBL (or any of his lieutenants) is a big deal domestically, especially for a Republican party currently taking a beating on its bread-and-butter arena: national security.

Also, I'm not entirely convinced how valuable that would be in the first place, particularly given the credibility gap we've created by talking him up and not getting him.

Matt

goesh
10-22-2007, 12:00 PM
He has already attained mythical status and killing him will only enhance his standing and stature - t'is a far better thing he mutter and threaten from flea-infested hovels on the Paki frontier thus keeping him off a white horse in full Public view on the Arab street.

tequila
10-22-2007, 12:20 PM
Right. So now it's a good thing that we allow the murderer of 3,000 American civilians to survive and continue to both lead his organization and propagandize against the U.S.

No doubt Bill Clinton could have followed a similar tactic after the African embassy bombings and saved us some money on Tomahawk missiles and a CIA bin Laden unit. Much better to allow bin Laden to continue muttering from Afghan caves - what harm could a guy like that possibly do?

goesh
10-22-2007, 02:57 PM
Personally I think he died of sepsis 5-6 months after Tora Bora and was cremated but the tally of their dead, and its been in the thousands since 9/11, gives us more than a pound of flesh and we are still killing them. His message is not reaching the mass of neutral muslims, not as long as we stand our ground in Afghan and Iraq. I'm not saying don't keep trying to kill him but once the insurgency surpassed expectations in Iraq, it became more strategically viable to not pin his ears on the door of the White House.

tequila
10-22-2007, 03:10 PM
I wish you were right but I doubt it.

Ken White
10-22-2007, 04:46 PM
Personally I think he died of sepsis 5-6 months after Tora Bora and was cremated but the tally of their dead, and its been in the thousands since 9/11, gives us more than a pound of flesh and we are still killing them. His message is not reaching the mass of neutral muslims, not as long as we stand our ground in Afghan and Iraq. I'm not saying don't keep trying to kill him but once the insurgency surpassed expectations in Iraq, it became more strategically viable to not pin his ears on the door of the White House.

Wheels inside of wheels...

Jedburgh
08-21-2008, 03:59 PM
GWU's National Security Archive, 20 Aug 08: 1998 Missile Strikes on Bin Laden May Have Backfired (http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB253/index.htm)

On the tenth anniversary of U.S. cruise missile strikes against al-Qaeda in response to deadly terrorist attacks on U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, newly-declassified government documents posted today by the National Security Archive suggest the strikes not only failed to hurt Osama bin Laden but ultimately may have brought al-Qaeda and the Taliban closer politically and ideologically.

A 400-page Sandia National Laboratories report (http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB253/sandia.pdf) on bin Ladin, compiled in 1999, includes a warning about political damage for the U.S. from bombing two impoverished states without regard for international agreement, since such action "mirror imaged aspects of al-Qaeda's own attacks" (http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB253/sandia_18-22.pdf). A State Department cable (http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB253/19981022.pdf) argues that although the August missile strikes were designed to provide the Taliban with overwhelming reason to surrender bin Laden, the military action may have sharpened Afghan animosity towards Washington and even strengthened the Taliban-al-Qaeda alliance.....

Tom Odom
08-21-2008, 04:26 PM
Ted,

Great find. I just wonder how much money it cost for that secret Sandia report. Aside from using OBL's name and pic, I could have written the conclusions in 1989-1990 when I was on terrorism watch.

Best

Tom

wm
08-21-2008, 04:34 PM
Ted,

Great find. I just wonder how much money it cost for that secret Sandia report. Aside from using OBL's name and pic, I could have written the conclusions in 1989-1990 when I was on terrorism watch.

Best

Tom

My thoughts almost exactly (except I think I could have written the conclusion as part of the research paper I had to submit to get out of MI Officer Basic Course)--I did the Homer Simpson headslap when I read the title of the post. Particularly instructive was the declassified report from the Embassy in Pakistan. But then since when has anyone in the Washington power elite deigned to trust the insights of those on the ground close to the action?

Ken White
08-21-2008, 06:54 PM
I also wonder how much said Sandia Report cost...

Lessee. Ineffective swat a Yellow Jacket makes him angry and draws allies. Novel discovery, that. :mad:

Danny
08-21-2008, 06:54 PM
I agree with Tom's conclusions. But additionally, once again it goes to show that the high value individual / high value target program can only have a finite and limited success, and I would argue that too much emphasis has been placed on sending SF operators after specific individuals. A very costly, very expensive, very consuming strategy that has yielded only marginal benefits.

There are no buttons to push, no magic incantations to utter. COIN takes a commitment of resources, including troops to build the security necessary to win the population and weed out the insurgents.

Almost every MSM report I see now on "Taliban commander killed in [such-and-such] province ...," I ignore and close within tenths of a second without so much as reading it. These reports don't matter.

SWJ Blog
05-15-2011, 12:20 PM
Errors in Man-hunting: The Long Road to Finding Bin Laden (http://smallwarsjournal.com/blog/2011/05/errors-in-manhunting-the-long/)

Entry Excerpt:

Errors in Man-hunting: The Long Road to Finding Bin Laden
by Will Chalmers

I wrote this short article with the intention to spark debate on the topic of why the conventional opinion on Osama bin Laden’s whereabouts over the last decade turned out to be incorrect. Discussing and analysing the factors that led to this discrepancy between western observers and bin Laden’s own assessment of his security needs is to me a worthwhile debate. This paper it not intended to be a criticism of any one individual’s past comments but rather a vehicle for potentially improving future analysis.

Will Chalmers is a research assistant at the Centre for Security, Armed Forces and Society (CSAFS) located at the Royal Military College of Canada (RMCC). He is a graduate of the War Studies MA program at RMCC.



--------
Read the full post (http://smallwarsjournal.com/blog/2011/05/errors-in-manhunting-the-long/) and make any comments at the SWJ Blog (http://smallwarsjournal.com/blog).
This forum is a feed only and is closed to user comments.

SWJ Blog
06-04-2011, 11:51 AM
The Death of Osama Bin Laden: Almost a decade too late? (http://smallwarsjournal.com/blog/2011/06/the-death-of-osama-bin-laden-a/)

Entry Excerpt:

The Death of Osama Bin Laden: Almost a decade too late?
by Matthew Ince

On Monday 2 May 2011 US President Obama announced the death of Osama Bin Laden following the success of a US operation conducted by an elite group of US Navy Seals in Abbottabad, Pakistan, where the Al-Qa’ida figurehead had been taking refuge. Despite the common belief that key members of Al-Qa’ida’s central leadership had been in hiding within the federally administered tribal areas of Pakistan, the suburban compound where Bin Laden was discovered was in fact just 1 km away from Pakistan’s Military Academy, close to the country’s capital Islamabad. While this raises many questions about US trust for the intelligence arm of Pakistan’s military, Pakistan’s President Asif Ali Zardari was however quick to point out Pakistan’s early assistance in identifying the Al-Qa’ida courier that had ultimately led to up to the elimination of Bin Laden. Irrespectively, Bin Laden’s death has come as good news for many, particularly in the US, where countless groups of individuals will no doubt believe that justice has finally been served for the attacks of 9/11. It also comes against the backdrop of wider transition within the Middle East and a movement towards greater freedom and democracy; a process that has already begun to render Al-Qa’ida’s rhetoric and doctrine increasingly irrelevant within many parts of the Muslim world.

Matthew Ince currently works as a Project Manager at the Royal United Services Institute for Defence and Security Studies. He has an MA in Geopolitics and Grand Strategy and a BA (Hons) in International Relations from the University of Sussex.



--------
Read the full post (http://smallwarsjournal.com/blog/2011/06/the-death-of-osama-bin-laden-a/) and make any comments at the SWJ Blog (http://smallwarsjournal.com/blog).
This forum is a feed only and is closed to user comments.

AdamG
08-16-2011, 07:23 PM
In Counterstrike: The Untold Story of America's Secret Campaign Against Al Qaeda, Shanker and his colleague Eric Schmitt detail how the Defense Department and U.S. spy agencies adapted several Cold War-era techniques, including many aimed at deterring attacks before they happen. The government also created new innovative strategies, including hacking into Jihadist websites and disrupting financial networks, for their battle against al-Qaida and Osama bin Laden.

On Tuesday's Fresh Air, both Shanker and Schmitt join Dave Davies for a discussion about the tactics used by the U.S. over the past decade to disrupt al-Qaida both in real life and online. Some of those tactics, says Shanker, included focusing on the middlemen instead of the leadership within the al-Qaida network.


In December 2006, U.S. military members out on patrol serendipitously captured a briefcase full of thumb drives and files outlining al-Qaida's battle strategy to counter the surge that had just been ordered by the United States.

"It showed the safe houses, it showed where all of the weapons were stored, and it showed that al-Qaida really understood the Iraqi people more than the Americans did," says Shanker. "Because among the chief targets al-Qaida was going to attack during the surge were the bakeries, and they were going to target the garbagemen, because they wanted the garbage to pile up to show that the U.S. was failing. ... [The U.S.] was able to reshape the entire force footprint and [one general described the seizure] as 'almost like the ability of the Allies to break the Enigma codes of the Nazis during World War II.' "

http://www.npr.org/2011/08/16/139649619/americas-secret-campaign-against-al-qaida

reed11b
03-16-2012, 04:53 AM
I just picked this book at the local library. I'll give a review once I finish, but unless I hear verification from a source I trust, I am very skeptical.
Reed