Comment by timsally | Hacker News Reader

Comment by timsally | Hacker News Reader

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The argument that we should send special operations forces every time to go grab people is a common one, but it falls short in several respects.

The first is that most people do not realize how long and difficult the modern training pipeline is for SOF. Operators are extremely valuable and hard to come by and you do not want to risk them unnecessarily when you have other legal means of accomplishing the mission. For example, it takes 12 months to even qualify as a Navy SEAL, and then another 12-18 months of platoon training before a deployment. Only a tiny fraction of those who start the SEAL pipeline actually make it through due to the difficulty of the training. It is for this reason that the Navy offers $40,000 to anyone who can make it through the training (http://navyseals.com/files/ChallengeSEAL.pdf) and reenlistment bonuses for operators can approach $100,000. And never-mind the cost of the equipment used during the operation. How much do you think the stealth helicopter that got destroyed during the Osama Bin Laden raid cost?

The second is that there is some serious armchair quarterbacking going on. I think its crazy to assert what our armed forces should and shouldn't do without a full understanding of what you are asking of them. The complexities of planning a SOF operation that goes deep into a place like Yemen are quite involved. For more on this, I suggest the book The Black Banners by Ali Soufan. It possible (and even likely) that a capture operation for Anwar al-Awlaki was either impossible, or possible but likely to end in the death of al-Awlaki anyway.

But this is what they do. This is why we train them. This is why we pay them such (which is still paltry for the risks). Of course it's risky, and extremely dangerous. My argument is that every American citizen deserves the right of due process and trial before they are executed.

My point is that you and I have no idea whether a mission to capture al-Awlaki is "what they do or not". To know whether such a mission is possible or realistic requires knowledge that few people in the world actually have. Whether to deploy SOF or not is a command decision made on a case by case basis. We can't know sitting behind our computer terminals whether it was a realistic option or not. I assume it wasn't, otherwise why wouldn't they have tried to capture him? I imagine he would have been a very valuable source of intel.

There are a lot of people out there who seem to feel pretty strongly about sending our armed forces in harms way in this type of situation. I can't help but wonder if any of those people stand to lose anything if such an operation were to go poorly. It just boggles my mind that we would risk American lives and millions of dollars of training and equipment when we have other legal options that are less risky.

I argue that the fact that they were able to track down and kill Bin Laden is prima facie evidence that we DO have that capability.

I believe that the question is not one of capability, but of resources. We could do it, but the cost to do it is deemed too high -- especially when the gov't feels that they can just send in a missile.

Then I think you have to let Anwar al-Awlaki go, plain and simple.

>when we have other legal options that are less risky.

What other legal options are you talking about? What they are doing is 100% illegal, it goes directly against the 5th amendment. Straight from the article:

"The Bill of Rights is clear. The Fifth Amendment provides that no one can be “deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.” The Sixth Amendment provides that “the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury,” as well as the right to be informed of all charges and have access to legal counsel."

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