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An actual U.S. special forces attack inside Syria


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Yup, I'll quote what I said concerning it on another forum:

...Basically, without knowing the exact location of the incident, I would say it was near either Al-Qaim or Tal Afar, but probably Qaim.

Anyways, Al-Qaim is one of the major stations on the network that feeds foreign fighters into Iraq. Foreigners, particularly those of Sudanese, Palestinian, and Lebanese are trained in other countries, like Sudan, by other groups, such as the Chinese military or Sepah or whomever. Once trained, the fighters (or suicide bombers) are infiltrated into Iraq, and from there make contact with their assigned units.

Raids into Syria, Iran, and Pakistan are only a natural extension of the operations currently being conducted. The Iranian Republican Guard has been conducting operations in Iraq for quite some time, since before the 2003 invasion, in fact. Through the use of "bottom-up" organization, media manipulation, religious and cultural exploitation, and a few other 4th Generational Warfare tactics, the jihadist movement has done a pretty good job of making gains against us, while minimizing their losses.

Unfortunately, Westerners seem to be unable, or unwilling, to grasp the idea that Asians and Middle Easterners/Muslims, or whomever, fight differently than we do. We assume that once we take out Bin Laden, the entire jihad movement will collapse upon itself...if only that were true. As we have seen with Al-Qaeda in Iraq, the death of Zarqawi meant very little in the grand scheme of things, the death of Saddam did nothing to weaken the Ba'ath remnants in Iraq, nor the Ba'ath party in Syria.

There are a lot of things we need to do to combat the threat we're facing, but they are all very delicate, because again, Westerners are weak and think the entire world thinks and acts exactly like them. The future will be interesting....

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I don't think many people are expecting AQ to fall apart after Bin Laden is captured or killed. I look at the war against the jihadist movement as kind of like the war against drugs or the war against gang violence in poverty-stricken inner city areas. You can be "winning" or "losing," depending on how conditions are trending towards your favor or against it, respectively, but the war will be ongoing and never won or lost by either side. If by some method, all gangs in Los Angeles are eliminated for example, I could go up there right afterwards with 4 friends and call ourselves the New Crips. Killing Bin Laden is more of a symbolic victory against AQ where we can say that we delivered justice against the man that coordinated the attack against us on 9/11, even though he did his best to hide from us.

In regard to the special forces operation in Syria, however, I would imagine that it was to severely degrade some function of those who organize the infiltration of fighters to Iraq, as opposed to a symbolic or justice-based attack. I do not know enough about what Zarqawi actually did to know what effect killing him had on the insurgency in Iraq, but do remember seeing a lot less AQ-in-Iraq claims of responsibility for attacks after his death.

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Alan,

Yah well, the war on drugs is going just great, innit?

On the Syria raid I imagine the US intell people are now telling the ops people the raid "severely degraded" the ability of the Iraqi insurgency to funnel people or weapons or money or something into Iraq, but "severely degraded" is a very fuzzy term. We can assume these people that got killed had replacements - are they more or less competent than the dead superiors? We can assume these people that got killed had backers - will this raid make the backers more or less willing to support the insurgency? We can probably assume the Syrians are royally pissed - will this raid make Syria a better or worse place for insurgents to operate? We can assume this raid had to get approved by the US President - does this mean such raids in the future are more or less likely?

The answers to most of those questions are pretty murky. No one - not you, me, the Syrians, the insurgents - knows how the results of the raid will play out, and the only thing that is going to give clear answers is time. Which is an excellent case example of why insurgencies take so friggen' long to stamp out.

So all we can really do at this point is guess, just like the people in charge. I for one am not sure, but if I had to choose between two groups of people - first an American government lacking the support of a majority of its people, about to get the war on terror hard-liners kicked out of office, and in the middle of a financial crisis; and second 1 billion Muslims and whatever percentage of their young men are willing to go fight a jihad, and I had to guess which group to bet on in an insurgency, I wouldn't rush to read too many implications into a dinky special forces raid.

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ClaviculaNox

"Unfortunately, Westerners seem to be unable, or unwilling, to grasp the idea that Asians and Middle Easterners/Muslims, or whomever, fight differently than we do."

So why aren't we taking the ways in which we are exactly the same - we fight for beliefs and feelings, we organise fights for money - and working on these? Screwing up someone's account keeping would probably do more for halting the trade in fighting men than anything else.

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When I heard the report about the 'raid' my first thought was "October surprise" a political stunt pulled just before the election in an effort to change the dynamics of the race. Can't exactly go bomb Iran because, unlike Syria, Iran might actually DO something as a response!

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Like the War on Drugs, the War on Poverty, and other incorrect uses of the term "war"... the War on Terrorism will flounder and fail if the concept of winning is limited to killing the enemy or even taking over its territory. There isn't a single counter-terrorist expert I've ever heard, in my entire life, that thinks cross border raids, arrests/killings, and even bank account neutralization will do anything more than present a minor setback for the bad guys.

Mexico just made a major arrest of one of the last family members of a massive and violent drug cartel. It doesn't matter because the underlings have taken over the business as the top guys were arrested. In fact, it probably increased the violence since there was no clear successor and therefore they different factions are trying to kill each other. The same thing goes for Bin Laden.

From what I understand, taking out Bin Laden would probably dramatically affect AQ. Perhaps even causing it to disappear as a major player in the terrorism arena. But as sure as the sun will rise tomorrow, something else will take its place. For a while, perhaps, it might not be as prolific and successful as AQ, but eventually some organization will rise up and pick up where AQ left off. And it is quite possible that organization will be even "better" at its job than AQ. Darwin's laws apply very, very well to Human organizations. The slower, less intelligent operatives get picked off first.

The experts I see as having their heads screwed on straight suggest that the two easiest ways to minimize (though not eliminate!) radical Islamic terrorism is to stop importing oil and cease propping up the oil producing regimes. And since that's about as likely to happen in the near future as me becoming Pope, we can expect that Islamic terrorism will be a problem for a very, very long time to come.

Steve

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the War on Terrorism will flounder and fail if the concept of winning is limited to killing the enemy or even taking over its territory. There isn't a single counter-terrorist expert I've ever heard, in my entire life, that thinks cross border raids, arrests/killings, and even bank account neutralization will do anything more than present a minor setback for the bad guys.

Steve

First, most "experts" love to have mental circle jerks more than actually accomplishing anything.......has been my experience and observation in life...... They love to be monday morning QBs even more....

And secondly, the above notion is really nothing more than straw-man. No one is advocating simply killng bad guys and not doing anything else......What is the whole purpose of us trying to help new quasi-democracy governments stand up in Iraq and Stan......And it is working.

Furthermore, the notion that the WOT is about oil is foolishness.....Unless those of that mindsent want to say it is only about ME (Middle Eastern) oil....... . Because most of those same people saying it is about oil...and the need for it......Do everything possible to stop the U.S. from obtaining more of its own supply within our Country and off our shores.....

The old wise adage of "people should be upset at those who CAUSE higher prices not those who charge them" comes to mind here....

Lastly, killing bad guys, does work. Especially on those you are killing if they are effective in what harm they are trying to create or in the leadership they provide. Sr / productive leadership is not easily replaced. Hell, we all can see this in our daily lives. Be it working at a gas station or a fortune 500 company...... AQ and AQ elements are no different.

We have killed over 3/4+ of AQ original leadership and yes, after all the mental masturbation by "experts"....the bottom line is AQ is worse off for it.....

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Like many things of this nature, I'm going to wait for more information before I form an opinion on this one. I sure hope the target was worth the fallout...

Update -

U.S. Official: Syrian Strike Killed Al Qaeda Target

Created: Monday, 27 Oct 2008, 3:43 PM GMT

A U.S. strike on a network of foreign fighters in Syria killed its main target — an Al Qaeda coordinator who was wanted for sending foreign fighters, weapons and cash into Iraq, a U.S. official told FOX News.

Killed in Sunday's attack by Special Operations Forces was Abu Ghadiyain, Al Qaeda's senior coordinator operating in Syria who was closely associated with the leader of Al Qaeda in Iraq.

The assault, which took place about 4-5 miles inside Syria, came just days after the commander of U.S. forces in western Iraq said American troops were redoubling efforts to secure the border, which he called an "uncontrolled" gateway for fighters entering Iraq.

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The more important question is did they just kill him or did they actually get to go thru his stuff and find something useful. One of the most under reported break points in the whole Iraq war was the capture and exploitation of a laptop that was used by a senior AQI coordinator in Anbar that basically had chapter and verse on their whole network.

The vast damage done to the FARC by the capture of one of their senior leaderships laptops is another excellent example.

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When I heard the report about the 'raid' my first thought was "October surprise" a political stunt pulled just before the election in an effort to change the dynamics of the race. Can't exactly go bomb Iran because, unlike Syria, Iran might actually DO something as a response!

I agree the emphasis on this news story reeks of political manipulation, although the raid itself was primarily a military decision.

I think the easiest ways to minimize radical Islamic terrorism would be to change our foreign policy, particularly the US support of Israel and its illegal occupation.

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I agree the emphasis on this news story reeks of political manipulation, although the raid itself was primarily a military decision.

I think the easiest ways to minimize radical Islamic terrorism would be to change our foreign policy, particularly the US support of Israel and its illegal occupation.

Illegal occupation? Care to explain this one. Do you mean just certain areas or the whole of Israel?

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meade95,

First, most "experts" love to have mental circle jerks more than actually accomplishing anything.......has been my experience and observation in life...... They love to be monday morning QBs even more....

No, these are people who understand the way the enemy thinks and wear both civilian and military uniforms. When I want my taxes done I go to an "expert" in the form of an accountant. I don't go to a radio shock jock that rails on and on about how accountants don't know what they are doing. Which is why when I want to understand how terrorists think I don't tune into Rush Limbaugh. I also don't seek the opinion of politicians who already have a clearly established track record of poor judgement in these matters. Terrorism experts don't need to be monday morning QBs because they've not been wrong yet. Various politicians, on the other hand, have had to do Monday morning spin control because they failed to listen to the experts.

It is a very important military tenant, ever since the days of Sun Tzu, to understand your adversary before you get into a conflict. This can be done either one of two ways... dedicating one's life to becoming his own expert or by going to people that have spent their lives figuring out how terrorists think. Sure, not all experts on a given topic agree... but the ones who study terrorism have a fairly narrow range of disagreement.

And secondly, the above notion is really nothing more than straw-man. No one is advocating simply killng bad guys and not doing anything else......What is the whole purpose of us trying to help new quasi-democracy governments stand up in Iraq and Stan......And it is working.

Well, there was no fundamentalist Islamic terrorist threat in Iraq until after the botched initial occupation, so I don't consider whatever is going now to be any more than undoing a previous screwup. By any measure Iraq has more of a terrorism problem today than it did before the invasion.

Unfortunately, Afghanistan is sliding the wrong way by many counts (including the men in uniform in A-Stan in charge of military ops). The primary reason is that Afghanistan is not a country but an artificial collection of tribes which have never, ever been ruled by a central government for long. They will only be ruled by a central government when the vast majority feel that it is in their best interests. That is definitely not the case today.

Now, having said that... the fall of a dictatorship or oligarchy is always a good thing if it is replaced by something more benevolent (even if it is still a dictatorship or oligarchy). Unfortunately, we support some pretty nasty governments when it suits our purposes. For example, Saddam. I think it was good that we finally took responsibility for that madman and removed him from power, however what about Saudi Arabia? There's a reason why most of the 9/11 hijackers and even Bin Laden are Saudis, and it ain't because the Saudi government is a flourishing democracy.

Furthermore, the notion that the WOT is about oil is foolishness.....Unless those of that mindsent want to say it is only about ME (Middle Eastern) oil....... . Because most of those same people saying it is about oil...and the need for it......Do everything possible to stop the U.S. from obtaining more of its own supply within our Country and off our shores.....

If you do not understand that the primary interests the West has had in the Middle East for the last 60 years is oil, then you don't understand much. As for oil within the US, we couldn't supply more than a few percentage points of our oil consumption even if we drilled in every single last place within our territory. And it will take at least 10 years for even that trickle to come in, by which time our projected growth in oil consumption will make that trickle even more useless. That is an established fact which not even the "drill baby drill" group even tries to counter. So exploitation of domestic resources can not possibly do anything but make a few people quite rich.

The old wise adage of "people should be upset at those who CAUSE higher prices not those who charge them" comes to mind here....

We, the people of this world, cause higher prices because we have made ourselves completely dependent on a single, limited natural resource that is largely found in unstable parts of the world. Adding insult to injury, we needlessly waste much of what we pull out of the ground. As several billion new people want to enjoy the same wasteful habits that we in the West have developed, there is more demand than supply and the price therefore must go up. So yes, we are all to blame.

Lastly, killing bad guys, does work. Especially on those you are killing if they are effective in what harm they are trying to create or in the leadership they provide. Sr / productive leadership is not easily replaced. Hell, we all can see this in our daily lives. Be it working at a gas station or a fortune 500 company...... AQ and AQ elements are no different.

So we have no problems with Mafia here in the US? No drug cartel issues worth speaking of either, right? I mean, we've arrested and killed all the major leaders of these groups several times over, have we not? And with greedy corporations who have officers which break the laws or at least act against the best interests of their shareholders, we fixed those problems by imprisoning the worst of the worst? Or dirty politicians too, right? By your logic they should be not a major concern drug cartels, no mafia families, and no crooked politicians, etc.

Sure, killing/imprisoning bad guys isn't a bad idea, but if that's the best that can be come up with then it has to be understood that the basic threat posed by their type will not be fundamentally changed.

Unless the root causes that produce terrorists (or drug lords, Mafia, etc.) are not addressed then more will simply come up and replace them. It is a simple fact and there isn't any way you can prove otherwise because the facts are so overwhelmingly against such a position. Specific to radical Islam, one can not stamp out religion by brute force. The best you can do is blunt it for a while and hope that it doesn't come back stronger than it was before.

We have killed over 3/4+ of AQ original leadership and yes, after all the mental masturbation by "experts"....the bottom line is AQ is worse off for it.....

But AQ is just one group. The Taliban are currently causing us more problems than AQ, and we supposedly defeated them already. There will be more groups to fill whatever vacuum that AQ leaves. In fact, it's already happening.

Steve

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I agree the emphasis on this news story reeks of political manipulation, although the raid itself was primarily a military decision.

I think the easiest ways to minimize radical Islamic terrorism would be to change our foreign policy, particularly the US support of Israel and its illegal occupation.

No. Until those majorities within Muslim countries learn to love their children more than they hate....... These people will need to be confronted with force at times....plain and simple.....while at the same time where possible looking to continue to plant the values of freedom and self-worth within the citizens of said countries.....who for far too long have been denied even the notions of such....

Blaming Israel or the U.S. is beyond absurd.

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The Warrior,

Illegal occupation? Care to explain this one. Do you mean just certain areas or the whole of Israel?

I can't speak for what Dan wrote, but it is factually correct to say that Israel is illegally occupying some specific lands:

UN Security Council Resolutions 425, 476, and 478.

There are others, I'm pretty sure, but those are the ones I found in 2 minutes of Googling.

Steve

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meade95,

No. Until those majorities within Muslim countries learn to love their children more than they hate....... These people will need to be confronted with force......

You can not force someone to love. Which is why most counter terrorism experts agree that military intervention, on a grand scale at least, is usually counter productive. The invasion of Iraq was an AQ recruiter's dream gift. The CIA is just one of the organizations fighting terrorism that agrees with the truth in that statement.

Having said that, avoiding military conflict can have equally bad results. Which is why the counter terrorism experts emphasize other solutions. Unfortunately, the solutions require economic compromises that people don't want to accept. The probable fact that the economic cost of war and counter terrorist security is greater than the sacrifices being proposed makes no headway. Americans, in particular, have a very shortsighted "how does this affect me today" attitude. Which is why our economy is where it is right now. Short sighted thinking always leads to short sighted goals which in turn lead to short lived positive results.

Steve

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abdeken5,

I agree the emphasis on this news story reeks of political manipulation, although the raid itself was primarily a military decision.

As soon as I read the first report I figured it was a deliberate and likely aimed at someone very specific. Four helos do not accidentally pass over a border that has not been accidentally crossed over in about 4 years, then clobber a very specific target. Instead, it's the same sort of op that's still going on over in Pakistan.

There may be political hay made out of it, but I agree this was purely a military action taken for military reasons. However, it is also true that Bush had to sign off on the violation of Syria's sovereignty. There is no way that America's professional military would act on its own in such a way.

Steve

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So why aren't we taking the ways in which we are exactly the same - we fight for beliefs and feelings, we organise fights for money - and working on these? Screwing up someone's account keeping would probably do more for halting the trade in fighting men than anything else.

There are a lot of things we could be doing, and some things we are doing that could be done better. Capture/Kill is only one of those things, and not necessarily the best of them. Right now, *they* are playing to their strengths and our weaknesses, while we are consistently playing to their strengths. We shouldn't be deploying armored brigades, we shouldn't be deploying artillery batteries, and our mechanized assets should be limited keeping the borders sealed, with a reserve set aside for contingencies.

The primary way we need to be engaging the population is through dismounted actions emphasizing a positive role in their lives. This is one area in which we have gotten quite a bit better, but there is always room for improvement.

Civil Affairs, Psy Op, MI, and Special Forces are the leaders of the fight, everyone else should be supporting their missions.

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Steve -

At work at the moment but plan to get back with you later tonight - Your post if full of false notions, half-truths and strawman throughout -

And what don't you get about establishing the true notions/ values of freedom and self-worth in the heart of the ME....as not taking on the "root causes".......

Furthermore if some guy is raping my neighbor.....I really don't care about the root causes (and neither does the victim) more so than they care about the police showing up and killing or capturing the guy doing it........

But that is off topic somewhat........More later tonight and you are dead wrong about oil across the board. From how long it would take to actually get if there were REAL economic insentives to do so.....to what quanitites are actually out there....to what effect it would have on other oil producing nations......(and wasn't it those on the LEFT saying 10 years ago, that we didn't need access to these oil reserves because it would take 10 years.....hmm, sure would have helped the past couples years now wouldn't it).

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