Tag Archives: Delta Force

military news

Bin Laden raid, plus 10

By John Kanelis / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

My goodness, has it really been 10 years since our special operations guys killed the world’s most wanted man and most despicable terrorist?

Yep. Time does fly.

Oh, how I remember where I was when the world heard the news about the death of Osama bin Laden, the 9/11 mastermind and al-Qaeda leader.

We were in our Amarillo, Texas, living room that night watching a bit of prime-time TV. Then we got word of a pending announcement from the White House. Hmm. I thought, “Hey, this is Sunday. What in the world are they going to announce on a Sunday night?” Then it dawned on me. I turned to my wife and I said, “I think they got bin Laden!”

It had been nearly a decade since the 9/11 attack. Three jetliners flew into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. A fourth airplane crashed in Pennsylvania after passengers fought with the terrorists. That day is seared in our national memory. I can barely watch to this day the footage of the WTC towers burning and then collapsing.

As for bin Laden’s death and the skill of the Navy SEALs, the CIA commandos and the Army Delta Force pilots that night remain equally seared in my memory.

I recall vividly the sight of President Obama striding to the podium that evening to deliver the news and to assure the world that the fight against those who followed bin Laden’s perversion will continue. The president told us later in a “60 Minutes” interview that the first person he called once he knew our forces had cleared Pakistani airspace was President Bush, on whose watch the 9/11 attack occurred. Obama gave appropriate credit to the diligence of our anti-terror network that had worked since the attack and eventually found bin Laden.

Although bin Laden is dead, the network he led is still alive, although it has been significantly downgraded in the years since our special forces killed bin Laden. The fight has gone on since that raid, beyond the Obama administration. Indeed, the Trump administration also had a hand in wiping out the terrorists’ high command when it sent forces in to kill Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the leader of the Islamic State.

The fight must go on, even as the Biden administration prepares to remove the last of our troops from Afghanistan, where they were dispatched immediately after the 9/11 attacks to take down the Taliban government that gave bin Laden’s goons the safe harbor from which they plotted their attack against us.

I want to mark this date, though, as one that demonstrates the enormous skill of our military and intelligence forces who — when given the order to do the seemingly impossible — answered the call.

military news

SEALs spill beans on one of their own

Special operations forces — be they Navy SEALs, Army Green Berets, Delta Force or Air Force commandos — generally aren’t inclined to blab about their colleagues unless they have valid reasons to do so.

So, when a group of Navy SEALs tell investigators that one of their own was known to be an out-of-control killer of innocent bystanders, then I believe we ought to listen and take heed.

What’s more, they are talking about a SEAL on whose behalf Donald Trump intervened. He is Navy Chief Edward Gallagher, who was convicted of conduct unbecoming a special operations warrior. Trump decided the Navy acted incorrectly and ordered that Gallagher retain his SEAL Trident emblem. Yes, the commander in chief interceded on behalf of a SEAL who had been found guilty of behaving in a manner not in keeping with the elite fighting force.

Navy Secretary Richard Spencer was forced to resign over the matter. The president has come under intense — and justified — criticism for meddling in a military command issue. Yes, he is the commander in chief, but that doesn’t make his meddlesome behavior any more correct.

Now the New York Times has heard from a number of SEALs who served with Gallagher as members of SEAL Team 7. They say that Gallagher shot children. The NY Times acquired some video of the SEALs spilling the beans on Gallagher.

According to the Times: “The guy is freaking evil,” Special Operator (Craig) Miller told investigators. “The guy was toxic, ” Special Operator First Class Joshua Vriens, a sniper, said in a separate interview. “You could tell he was perfectly OK with killing anybody that was moving,” Special Operator First Class Corey Scott, a medic in the platoon, told the investigators.

And yet this is the individual who drew the commander in chief’s attention and for whom the president upset the traditional military chain of command. He interceded where he was empowered to go, but where he should have stayed away.

The SEALs who have outed their colleague have told us plenty about the consequence of a president intervening where he didn’t belong. That they would do so while breaking an unwritten rule that they remain silent about their operations tells me about the enormity of what they witnessed.

International news

It was right to toss al-Baghdadi’s corpse into the drink

The head of U.S. Central Command, Marine Corps Gen. Frank McKenzie, has told us that Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi was “buried at sea” after Army Delta Force commandos completed their mission to take him out.

I guess I should accept the notion that the military personnel charged with disposing of the Islamic State founder’s remains did so with a modicum of respect. I mean, he didn’t show any respect to those victims he killed over his many years leading the hideous terrorist organization. Thus, he didn’t deserve the respect that Central Command reportedly gave his remains.

However, it was a prudent call to dispose of this individual’s corpse in the fashion that our military did. There would be no way in the world that we should bury him in the ground and create a shrine that would attract Islamic perverts to draw strength from being near his remains.

U.S. forces disposed of Osama bin Laden in the same manner after Navy SEALs killed him in May 2011. They hauled his remains out of the compound where the SEALs found him, took him to the USS Carl Vinson and then sent his body into the drink where it was likely consumed by undersea creatures.

I am going to presume that al-Baghdadi’s remains will meet the same fate. That’s fine with me.

Although it does anger me that these terrorist monsters likely got the respectful treatment they never accorded to their own victims. Whatever. They’re both dead. That’s the best part of how these stories have ended.

International news

Liar in chief likely at it once again in describing terrorist’s death

Donald Trump went on that ridiculous riff Sunday in which he said the Islamic State’s founder/mastermind/terrorist in chief was crying and screaming like a little boy when he met his death over the weekend.

Now we hear from the Pentagon that the brass cannot confirm what the president described.

Hmm. Who’d have thought such a thing? Do you think Donald Trump was, um, making it up? Was he lying yet again? Was he seeking to glorify himself about Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi’s death as the U.S. Army Delta Force soldiers were closing in on him?

Well, I have adopted the view that Trump cannot be trusted to tell the truth about anything, under any circumstance. He is unable to speak with any semblance of truthfulness.

Yet the president thought it was fair comment to go into detail about what happened to al-Baghdadi’s body when he detonated the “suicide vest” he had strapped to his torso. I heard him say it in the moment and thought, “Well, duh … ? That’s what happens when you blow yourself to pieces!” 

Yep, as the president’s allies keep telling us: That’s just Trump being Trump.

Good grief.

International news

War on terror: a conflict with no end in sight

While the world digests the death of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi at the hands of U.S. Delta Force and CIA commandos, it is grappling with what the Islamic State leader’s death means in the war against international terrorism.

I want to offer this perspective, which is that al-Baghdadi’s death won’t signal the end to the war against terrorists, let alone against the Islamic State.

It is my view at least that 9/11 signaled a new era in U.S. geopolitical activity that doesn’t appear to have an end anywhere in sight.

We’ve known for many decades that terrorists were out to “get” us. The 9/11 attack 18 years ago simply burst that awareness to the front of our minds. Al-Qaeda’s daring attack signaled to us all that we were perhaps more vulnerable than we ever thought.

So the war has commenced. I share the critics’ view that the war on terror has taken a bizarre turn at times, particularly with our invasion of Iraq in March 2003 and the misery that the Iraq War brought, given that Iraq had no connection with al-Qaeda, nor did it possess weapons of mass destruction.

However, the war on terror is likely to continue until the world no longer contains terrorists willing to die for the perverted cause to which they adhere.

In other words, we’ll be fighting this war forever.

Whether we fight at the level we have been fighting remains to be seen over the span of time. If 9/11 taught us anything it should have taught us that we cannot let our guard down for a single moment.

Not ever.

International news, military news, national security

Baghdadi is dead, but ISIS remains a threat

Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi’s death overnight in northwestern Syria at the hands of U.S. Army Delta Force and CIA commandos is a gigantic blow to the Islamic State terrorist organization he led.

But forgive me for emphasizing what ought to be the obvious: ISIS will remain a serious threat for as long as there are young men and women willing to buy into the terrorists’ religious perversion.

Donald Trump this morning confirmed what had been reported during the night, that special forces conducted a raid that killed Baghdadi. The commander in chief had authorized the raid after hearing extensive briefings from military and intelligence analysts that they had located the terrorist monster hiding underground near the Syria-Turkey border.

One cannot possibly overstate the importance of killing Baghdadi, just as the death of al-Qaeda mastermind Osama bin Laden in May 2011 was a huge blow to that terrorist organization. Let us take stock in the fact that just as al-Qaeda was able to reconstitute its leadership after bin Laden’s death at the hands of a Navy SEAL team in Pakistan, so will ISIS likely be able to do the same thing.

I believe it is important, too, to salute the meticulous work done by our intelligence forces in tracking Baghdadi down and enabling our special forces to find him, hunt him down and deliver ultimate justice to him. The president, infamously I should add, has been critical of some aspects of the intelligence community’s work in certain areas … relating, for example, to the Russian interference in our election.

They did their job with great skill and professionalism, which we all know they are capable of doing.

As for the special forces team that completed this highly dangerous mission, their capabilities are unmatched all of the world’s military history.

All that said, the fight against ISIS, al-Qaeda and all other terrorists who declared war on the United States on 9/11 must go on.

Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi is dead. May he rot in hell.

International news

‘Happy anniversary,’ you monster … you

A hilarious Facebook meme came to my attention this evening.

It shows a mug shot of Osama bin Laden and notes that on May 2, 2011, he was snuffed out by a team of Navy SEALs, Delta Force and CIA commandos. It wished him a “happy anniversary . . . fu**er.” 

Wow. Eight years ago tonight, President Obama stood before the nation to tell us and the rest of the world that the “United States conducted a mission that killed Osama bin Laden.”

I remember that evening quite well.

My wife and I were watching TV when we got a news alert that the White House had announced that the president would make “an announcement” later in the evening. It didn’t specify the topic — quite obviously.

Hmm. What could it be? Why would Barack Obama come on in the evening to make some sort of an announcement.

Then it occurred to me. I blurted out to my wife, “I think they got bin Laden!”

Sure enough. There it was. The announcement came. Cheers broke out in front of the White House, and in Times Square and in town squares all across the nation. “U-S-A! U-S-A! U-S-A!

Yes, it was a moment that brought joy to households across the land. The man responsible for the worst singular act of violence on U.S. soil had been killed. He was as dead as dead gets. We cheered.

Sadly, though, bin Laden’s death did not signal the end of international terrorism. The fight has gone on past. It was being fought full throttle when Obama took over from George W. Bush. It was still being fought when Donald Trump took over from Barack Obama.

I don’t know when we can declare victory, or even if we’ll ever able to make such a declaration.

Our dedicated anti-terror network, though, did score a huge single victory when it sniffed out bin Laden, laid the groundwork for this most perilous mission and then waited as the skilled U.S. warriors carried out the order to kill this terrorist monster.

It’s worth noting here today. I only hope for many more such victories as the fight goes on.

International news, military news, national news

Say it again, Trump: ISIS is ‘winning’ … seriously?

adnani

Abu Muhammad al-Adnani is dead — reportedly.

Who is this guy, Adnani? Oh, he’s the No. 2 man in the Islamic State hierarchy. He’s one of the founders of ISIS. He’s believed to be the mastermind behind the recent terrorist attack in Paris.

Adnani apparently bought it in Aleppo, Syria, according to ISIS’s media arm.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/31/world/middleeast/al-adnani-islamic-state-isis-syria.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=a-lede-package-region&region=top-news&WT.nav=top-news

This is a big deal, man. A real big deal, in fact.

It’s not clear yet how Adnani was killed. Was it an air strike by a manned jet fighter with an American or allied pilot at the stick? Was it by a drone strike?

Does this mean the end of the Islamic State? No.

However, it suggests — presuming Adnani’s death can be confirmed — that ISIS is in serious trouble.

Why mention this today? Well, we keep hearing from Donald J. Trump, the Republican presidential nominee, that ISIS is “winning,” that U.S. forces can’t defeat this Islamic terrorist organization because the commander in chief, Barack Obama, refuses to link the terror organization to the religion it purports to represent.

Let’s review for a brief moment.

Osama bin Laden is dead; drone strikes have taken out al-Qaeda and ISIS leaders throughout the Middle East; our special operations forces — Navy SEALs, Army Delta Force commandos and CIA operatives — are on the hunt constantly for the terrorist monsters.

We’re killing bad guys almost daily.

When we take out leaders of the Islamic State brain trust — such as Abu Muhammad al-Adnani — that’s a really big deal.

The fight will go on. Can we declare victory yet? Of course not. It is my sense, though, that we’re a lot closer to that moment than we were on 9/11.

International news, military news

ISIS leader killed, wife taken captive … what now?

U.S. Army Special Forces did their job with lethal precision overnight, killing an Islamic State leader and taking his wife captive in a daring raid in Syria.

But as with seemingly all things in this complicated war against international terror, complications may set in.

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/us-special-forces-kill-isis-commander-and-capture-wife-in-syria-raid/ar-BBjRkz5

The Delta Force raid ordered by President Obama killed Abu Sayyaf, who was supposed to be captured alive. That part of the raid didn’t work out as planned. Too bad for that, but at least another key terror leader is dead. His wife, Umm Sayyaf, was captured and taken to an Iraqi detention center.

This is where it gets a bit complicated. The Iraqis need to be monitored in the way they treat Umm Sayyaf. The Obama administration has notified International Red Cross authorities about her capture and are working to ensure that she’s treated humanely. I’m OK with that.

However, it’s reasonable to presume that Mrs. Sayyaf may be a font of knowledge about the activities of her terrorist husband. Even terrorists, I’m quite sure, engage in a little “pillow talk,” you know? She’ll need to be questioned aggressively by U.S. intelligence officials seeking as much information as possible about the Islamic State’s continuing operations.

No waterboarding, though. All right?

Defense Secretary Ashton Carter issued a statement: “The operation represents another significant blow to ISIS, and it is a reminder that the United States will never waver in denying safe haven to terrorists who threaten our citizens, and those of our friends and allies.”

Another terrorist monster is wiped out. Another one will emerge to take his place.

So, the fight goes on.

Well done, Delta Force.

 

military news

SEAL shooter seeks glory

Robert O’Neill says it “doesn’t matter” if he’s the Navy SEAL who killed Osama bin Laden.

So, why is he talking about it?

http://www.cnn.com/2014/11/07/us/bin-laden-shooter-interview/index.html?hpt=hp_t2

I must confess to a certain disgust in recent months over the discussion about who among the commando team actually put a bullet into the world’s most wanted terrorist. The SEALs — along with other special ops units, such as the Green Berets and the Delta Force — have a code that says members guard against revealing who does what to whom.

That code has been broken, it seems, by SEAL team members who now are taking public credit for their actions in the May 2011 raid that resulted in bin Laden’s death.

The one thing that O’Neill said in a CNN interview that doesn’t disgust me is his assertion that “He (bin Laden) died afraid, and he knew we were there to kill him. And that’s closure.” Do you think?

Some heavily armed men break into your compound, point high-powered assault rifles at your head. Yeah, anyone — even a monster like bin Laden — would be “afraid.”

The code that O’Neill has broken states that special operations forces must not seek personal attention for the participation in team efforts. Yet here he is, telling the world he’s the shooter — and then saying “it doesn’t matter.”

The fact that he keeps talking about tells me something quite different.

Yes it does matter. If it didn’t, this former commando never would have brought it up.