Soft Targets

 --the Jolly Roger 

 We kindle and char and inflame and ignite
Drink up me 'earties, yo ho
We burn up the city, we're really a fright
Drink up me 'earties, yo ho 
--A Pirate's Life for Me

 And the seasons they go round and round
And the painted ponies go up and down
We're captive on the carousel of time
We can't return, we can only look behind
from where we came 
--The Circle Game, Joni Mitchell
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Terrorists -- our topic du jour and theme de l'annee, for the forseeable future -- habitually attack soft targets. Vis-a-vis this fact, let us look at the United State's Special Operations Command (SOCOM), a group of not-terrorists, and its historical tactics.

First some history. Your study assignments are the S'on Tay Raid in Vietnam and the Cabanatuan prison camp raid of World War II.

At S'on Tay, U.S. Special Forces led an incursion into a hard target, killing enemy soldiers and exfiltrating following the mission's completion. The Rangers breached another hard target at the Cabanatuan prison camp in the Philippines, deep in enemy terrain ("The Great Raid"). There, they sought to liberate allied prisoners of war and civilians. (In the European theatre, the Hammelburg raid was a similar operation, though with a more dire outcome.)

At both S'on Tay and Cabanatuan, there was a great possibility that the action could go South, which is exactly what happened to Task Force Baum, but those difficult actions characterized the Special Forces credo. The Special Forces of yore enlisted special men for challenging operations.

Today, the U.S. enlists its Special Forces to "take out" soft targets, crowing after the fact about the foregone conclusions. SEALs now kill such soft targets in their bedroom (= Osama bin Laden), or kill meaningless pathetic targets like the Somali pirates (the fictional Black Spot still inspiring fear.) The U.S. may as well paint targets on the foreheads before doing them the favor of releasing them from their miserable lives of poverty and desperation.

--Special Forces recruiting poster, ca. 1970

Now you have men like former SEAL Robert O'Neill bragging about being the triggerman in the OBL assassination, but not all soldiers in his community find his braggodocio endearing.

No one has the pirate's backs, and if the UBL raid went South the Pakistanis (stationed a short hop away) would not have moved to destroy the SEAL team; they love our money too much for such a dumb overreaction.

But what happens when the SEALs move against medium threat targets as in Robert's Ridge (Takur Ghar), the site of the Murphy Medal of Honor scenario? Well, they get blown out of the water.

Now to the current Islamic State (IS) - ISIL scenarios. Why don't the SEALs attempt hostage rescues against hard targets, like the British-speaking beheading specialist, for he is surely no less a target than the pirates. Do they lack the capability? Why not attack and destroy an IS command post? 

Word is, the SEALs who whacked UBL in his jammies received Silver Stars (SSM) for conducting their assassination. However, the Army regulations for bestowing such an award requires "close combat with the enemy", none of which was reported. Where is the heroism required to meet the bar of "conspicuous gallantry"? 

Special Operations has become specialized in "taking out" soft targets, much as the terror organizations against whom they are arrayed.