Beggar's Banquet

The individual has always had to struggle
to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe.
If you try it, you will be lonely often,
and sometimes frightened. But no price is too high
to pay for the privilege of owning yourself
--Friederich Nietzsche
__________________

The military's Special Operations Command last week rightly declined a contentious 2004 mandate to conduct "secret counterterrorism missions on its own around the world" per a plan fronted by then-Sectretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld.

The New York Times reported, "Rumsfeld's Unified Command Plan [UCP] proposed that the Special Operations Command 'leads, plans, synchronizes, and as directed, executes global operations against terrorist networks.' He stressed that his reorganization was intended to permit the command to send out its own small teams to capture or kill terrorists."

"The [SOC] decision culminates four years of misgivings within the military that the command, with its expertise in commando missions and unconventional war, would use its broader mandate too aggressively, by carrying out operations that had not been reviewed or approved by the regional commanders ("Wider Antiterror Role for Elie Forces Rejected.")

The MSM suggested the problem lay with a SOC which, due to its UW expertise, would bypass regional commanders like CENTCOM and NATO. However, the key issue is that Rumsfeld/Bush/Cheney were attempting to turn the SOF capabilities of the Department of Defense into assets that could be deployed and hidden from Congressional oversight.

Since Congress demurred from addressing the issue, it devolved to new Special Operations commander Admiral Eric T. Olsen to clarify the situation.

It is not known how [Secretary of Defense and former Central Intelligence director Robert] Gates views the decision by the Special Operations Command to back away from Mr. Rumsfeld’s view of its role. Mr. Gates has not discussed it publicly, and senior aides said they were not privy to his thinking on the matter.

It seems odd for SOCOM Cdr. Olsen to issue a policy statement when senior Gates aides claims they do not know his posture on the matter. Hopefully SOCOM is not wagging the dog.

"[S]enior Pentagon and military officers made clear that the Special Operations Command was not independently carrying out its own secret counterterrorism missions, but was instead coordinating counterterrorism planning across the military, as well as fulfilling its traditional role of training and equipping Special Operations forces for the armed services.

Counterterrorism missions are not strictly a military function. Coordination at the national level is required, especially with the State Department. The world is not the DoD's playground.

Rumsfeld's UCP sounds glam, and would make a great episode for the t.v. show "The Unit," but exactly what were these elite forces to do with any terrorists that they might capture? Again, the adminitsration's confusion with counterterrorism rears its ugly head.

Having U.S. military teams capturing terrorists is not a law enforcement function, and the Special Operators possess neither the legal authority to arrest nor question any captured personnel. Simply stated, the military teams would not be the correct tool for the job.

What happened to the concepts of international cooperation and host nation law enforcement? DoD is not a law enforcement agency. If DoD has co-opted law enforcement purview, then the U.S. has crossed a serious divide unbeknownst to most citizens.

Here is a novel idea: have the DoD fight wars, and the Department of Justice enforce U.S. Code. The two have distinct and clearly quantifiable functions; the plan may lack bling, but has served our country well for a couple of hundred years.

Besides being efficient it has the added bonus of preserving our Constitution -- no small gain after the past seven years.

________________

Cast your vote below for Ranger as Florida's best Progressive
National Political Blog -- only two days left to vote! :