Check this out from Military.com...read the whole thing but the juicy bits....
It'll test it to the breaking point for some units.
We'll see exactly how this supporting command functions when its no longer in the lime light. The only forces I'm sure that won't have a problem with this tasking (if its true) is US Army Special Forces and US Army Rangers.
But SEALs?
I see them heading to N. Africa real quick. More headlines, less control and they won't have to fall under the control of the CIA. They also have the "Bullfrog" of the teams as head of SOCOM so he'll protect his spoiled brats.
The blowback continues...its there for all to see....if you're willing to open your eyes and read between the lines.
The notion of longer-term assignments to the CIA does not sit well with some senior special operations commanders, who want their units to remain autonomous in order to keep their troops under Defense Department legal parameters. If CIA-assigned troops are captured, for example, they are treated like spies, not protected by the Geneva Conventions, which govern the treatment of prisoners of war.This part is a steaming pile of bullshit! Prisoners whether identified as soldiers or spies are not treated well in the Middle East. SOCOM has dreams of being a Combatant Commander and wants control of the war effort in Afghanistan once conventional forces pull out. The idea of being put under the operational control of the CIA is a bitter pill for them to swallow.
But putting special operations troops in the CIA's employ in Afghanistan could be attractive to the Afghan government because it would make the troops less visible and give Afghan President Hamid Karzai the added bonus of being able to say U.S. troops had withdrawn from his country. Technically, he would be right: Troops would have been rendered as spies by answering to the CIA's Kabul station chief instead of a U.S. military commander.Another bitter pill.
Such troops would presumably augment the CIA's current training and partnership with Afghanistan's own elite paramilitary intelligence forces, the Counterterrorism Pursuit Teams.
Afghan officials, and the general public in Afghanistan, express much warmer sentiments toward the CIA than to U.S. special operations troops, after a decade of occupation has built up anger and bitterness over civilian casualties from special operations night raids. The CIA as an institution seems to have escaped that collective Afghan resentment, with Afghan officials eager to tell visiting reporters that they regularly work with "OGA," or "Other Government Agency," the slang term for the CIA.
Counterterrorism Pursuit Teams (hmmm thought they had a different designation) are probably some good guys but this news will test SOCOMs vaunted "one fight" mantra.
We'll see exactly how this supporting command functions when its no longer in the lime light. The only forces I'm sure that won't have a problem with this tasking (if its true) is US Army Special Forces and US Army Rangers.
But SEALs?
I see them heading to N. Africa real quick. More headlines, less control and they won't have to fall under the control of the CIA. They also have the "Bullfrog" of the teams as head of SOCOM so he'll protect his spoiled brats.
The blowback continues...its there for all to see....if you're willing to open your eyes and read between the lines.
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