The New York Times published an article, U.N. Says Somalis Helped Hezbollah Fighters, that shows links between the tribal war in Somalia with the tribal war in between Israel and Hezbollah.
The Iraq war isn’t anything like Vietnam, but is much more like the tribal chaos we endured under Clinton in Somalia.
Watch Blackhawk Down
There are more things in common as well. Delta Force and Rangers. The footsoldier that hasn’t spent time at Fort Bragg, in San Diego, in Air Assault School, Ranger School, Jump School, will be made obsolete because counter-insurgency warfare is closer to spycraft than warcraft; closer to operations than mission.
Portions of JSOC units have made up the constantly changing counter-terror strikeforce variously known as Task Force 11, Task Force 121, Task Force 6-26, and Task Force 145 since the September 11, 2001 attacks.
It will make a lot of sense if you think “Iraq” or “Israel” instead of “Somalia.” Tribe comes before religion which comes before nation-state. To these insurgents, Somalia, Lebanon, Israel, and Iraq are meaningless. It is all about the tribe, the family. And the legacy goes back thousands of years. That’s even bigger and deeper than Legacy Yale.
Some acronyms to look up with regards to future of warfare: USSOCOM, AFSOC, USASOC, USASFC, SFOD-D, PSYOP, USAJFKSWCS, NAVSPECWARCOM, DEVGRU, MARSOC, and the baddest of them all, JSOC. When your buddy is sporting this patch, everybody looks. JSOC includes Delta Force, SAS, DEVGRU (SEAL Team 6), 160th Airborne, 1st Battalion (Little Bird helicopters), USAF’s 24th Special Tactics Squadron, 16th Special Operations Wing, ISA.
Or as I like to say, JSOC is the new CIA, James Bondwise.
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Yes, but what’s in common with vietnam is that the opposition’s only position is “cut and run” or “cut and run faster than that.”