From Foxnews.com:
The Pentagon is sending 1,000 more special operations forces and support staff into Afghanistan to bolster a larger conventional troop buildup, and is revamping the way Army Green Berets and other commandos work to rid villages of the Taliban…
McChrystal, who underwent a Senate Armed Services confirmation hearing Tuesday, is expected to put more emphasis on using commandos in counterinsurgency operations and on finding or killing key Taliban leaders.
Underscoring that theme, McChrystal has asked two veteran special operators on the Pentagon’s Joint Staff, which he directs, to accompany him to Afghanistan once he wins Senate approval for a fourth star. The two are Maj. Gen. Michael Flynn, who headed intelligence for the chief terrorist hunting unit in Iraq; and Brig Gen. Austin Miller, a Joint Staff director for special operations.
Military sources say Brig. Gen. Ed Reeder, who commands special operations in Afghanistan, went in-country earlier this year to revamp the way Green Beret “A” Teams, Delta Force and other special operators conduct counter-insurgency.
Green Berets, the same group that led the 2001 ouster of the Taliban from power, now primarily work out of fire support bases, often independently of conventional forces. They fight to control the Taliban-infested border with Pakistan, and train the Afghan army.
This could just be Fox’s phraseology, which tends to emphasize the “kill ‘em all” approach while de-emphasizing the actual lion’s share of the relationship-building and reconstruction work, but still. This raises a few questions:
- Who actually expects McChrystal to focus a thousand operators on HVT strikes?
- Where in his testimony did McChrystal indicate that, or is this based solely on the assignment of two extra GOs to accompany him?
- Given McChrystal’s supposed focus on changing CAS policies, how will the tasking of an extra thousand small unit operators affect the issue of air strikes?
And so on. I don’t know what this means, as Scarborough has a habit for running off all anonymous sources, repeating unsubstantiated rumors, and writing books accusing entire agencies of treason while singing the praises of Don Rumsfeld as our Lord and Savior of counterterrorism. So he could just be making shit up. But we really just don’t know—as it becoming the norm with McChrystal’s ascent into power, everything is both public and shrouded in secrecy.
This post was written by...
Joshua Foust – author of 1801 posts on Registan.net.
Joshua Foust is a Fellow at the American Security Project and the author of Afghanistan Journal: Selections from Registan.net. His research focuses primarily on Central and South Asia. Joshua is a correspondent for The Atlantic and a columnist for PBS Need to Know. Joshua appears regularly on the BBC World News, Aljazeera, and international public radio. Joshua is also a regular contributor to Foreign Policy’s AfPak Channel, and his writing has appeared in the New York Times, Reuters, and the Christian Science Monitor. Follow him on twitter: @joshuafoust
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