UK officer calls for US special forces to quit Afghan hotspot
August 12, 2007
"Sir,
Recently I read an article(Im having difficulty finding it again to post) about a change in mindset in US Special Forces while Rumsfeld was the boss. The gist of the article was that during Rumsfeld's tenure as Sec Def Special Forces started to place emphasis on the direct action role to the detriment of their other traditional roles. Could this be a result of that change? The comment made by one British Officer that, "sensitivity is not their strong suit" is especially disturbing. As Special Forces sensitivity should be exactly their strong suit." HKDan
UK officer calls for US special forces to quit Afghan hotspot
High civilian toll as teams rely on air strikes to provide cover
Declan Walsh in Islamabad and Richard Norton-Taylor
Friday August 10, 2007
Twelve-man teams of US special forces had been criticised for relying on air strikes for cover when they believed they were confronted by large groups of Taliban fighters and their supporters.
British officers say US special forces are cavalier in their approach
to the civilian population. The tensions were illustrated by an
incident the Guardian witnessed in Sangin earlier this summer.
A British patrol was abandoned by its American special forces escort
in the town for several hours. Stranded in central Sangin, British
officers tried to establish radio contact with the Americans, who had
disappeared without warning, and swore impatiently when they could
not.
The British criticisms intensified after the Americans led them to
their proposed site for a new Afghan patrol base in the town - beside
a graveyard and a religious shrine. "Sensitivity is not their strong
suit," said one British officer.
Most British soldiers work well with regular American troops and some
speak admiringly of them. But US special forces units are a different
matter.
They operate under a different chain of command, with their own rules
on everything from dress code to the use of weapons. Whereas the
British troops operate under Nato command, the American special forces
are commanded from the US-led coalition in Bagram airbase outside
Kabul. That means the Americans can call on a wider range of
airstrikes, and also that British officers have little control over
which munitions are dropped in populated areas. .
EXCERPTS:
"The American troops’ training, in contrast, seemed ad hoc, usually carried out by each unit on its own, rather than by a dedicated training staff. And it involved very few civilians, despite the crucial humanitarian and political aspects of the mission here." SARAH CHAYES
"I was trained and trained well to sacrifice myself to war and I was also training others to make the same sacrifice. But what is it all for? Money for the power elite? A chance to prove my manhood? No, in the end all you get if you kill someone is a dead human being, or you are dead. That is all there is. There is no glory. There is no honor." Sgt. Kevin Benderman
My Space: *"Yes . . . F---ING Yes!!!" said one blog entry on the Schlessinger site. "I LOVE MY JOB, it takeseverything reckless and deviant and heathenistic and just overall bad
about me and hyper focuses these traits into my job of running around
this horrid place doing nasty things to people that deserve it . . .
and some that don't."* KingOf*Hearts. Deryk Schlessinger is the son of Laura Schlessinger who writes a bi-weekly column for the Santa Barbara News-Press.
Movie: KingOf*Hearts
EXTREME EXHAUSTION
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