I had just read the Hersh article, and was going to post about it, when I see you beat me to it. It is amazing how you and I read the same story, and see it so differently. You see it as Rummy running amuck, I see it as Rummy trying to get those Pentagon Princes off the dime. I was really surprised that Hersh was a nice to Rummy as he was, given his general dislike of this administration. It shows that he understands the problem.
First off, a "Side Bar" the "Grey Fox" operation. Just what we need, another "Special Ops" group, but I can see why Rummy wanted it. I googled this.
>>>>>Office of the Secretary of Defense resurrection of the old Intelligence Support Activity (ISA), now dubbed "Grey Fox" and proposed for institutionalization as the Proactive, Preemptive Operations Group, (P2OG)--in layman's terms, an organization that will go all over the world poking bees' nests and then trying to kill the individual bees. <<<<
Rumsfeld wants "hunter-killer teams,"and the present Brass is horrified.
What we have here is an Al Queda Organization, with about 500 top people that need to be killed or capured, and a Four Star Air Force General running "Special Ops" that refuses to come up with a plan to get them. On top of that, the rest of the "Pentagon Princes" agree with him. "Couldn't do that, Wouldn't be Prudent." The Defense Department is supposed to be in the business of killing people, but you would think they were Harvard Academics when you see their reaction to being asked to go to war.
I have been reading for years that our Military Personnel System is promoting the wrong people, and this sure confirms it.
Hersh waves the "Bloody Flag" of the "Pheonix Operation" but not too hard. He knows that the after action feedback from the Vietnamese is that "Pheonix" was highly effective against them during the war.
I love this quote: "The worst way to organize for the manhunt . . . is to have it planned in the Pentagon. . . . Our prerequisite of perfection for 'actionable intelligence' has paralyzed us."
Sound like Carter's incursion into Iran? "New Tree, Same Monkeys!" |
