A Wide World of Winless War
Huffington Post
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The tabs on their shoulders read “Special Forces,” “Ranger,” “Airborne …” (But) for all their abilities, tactical skills, training prowess, and battlefield accomplishments, the capacity of U.S. Special Operations forces to achieve decisive and enduring successes ― strategic victories that serve U.S. national interests ― have proved to be exceptionally limited, a reality laid bare from Afghanistan to Iraq, Yemen to the Philippines …
In an Esquire interview, Robert O’Neill, the SEAL who put two bullets in bin Laden’s head, confessed that he joined the Navy due to frustration over an early crush, a puppy-love pique. “That’s the reason al-Qaeda has been decimated,” he joked, “because she broke my fucking heart.” But al-Qaeda was not decimated ― far from it according to Ali Soufan, a former F.B.I. special agent and the author of Anatomy of Terror: From the Death of Bin Laden to the Rise of the Islamic State. As he recently observed, “Whereas on 9/11 al-Qaeda had a few hundred members, almost all of them based in a single country, today it enjoys multiple safe havens across the world.” In fact, he points out, the terror group has gained strength since bin Laden’s death …
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