Two Seal teams against Pakistan.

Cartoon: By H Payne.

A rather curious story appeared in the NYT claiming that Obama had ordered the force to take out bin Laden be increased in order to fight its way out of Pakistan if their army got in the way. It claims, “The decision to increase the size of the force sent into Pakistan shows that he was willing to risk a military confrontation with a close ally in order to capture or kill the leader of Al Qaeda.”

My father once told me how on his return from WW2 everybody used to listen to a rah rah radio program about a character called First Light Fraser. It seems that First Light would regularly slip over the French coast, wipe out the Nazis in Normandy, hop up and liberate Belgium and Holland, destroy the industrial complex in the Ruhr Valley, and sort out Italy on the way out. All on his own, mind you.

It was of course made as a morale boosting effort for civilians. The trouble he had was that he thought it was ridiculous, but everybody considered it unpatriotic not to listen to it. I guess that after fighting in Egypt, Syria Palestine, then doing the battle of El Alamein, coming home and then doing the landing at Lae, and other actions in New Guinea this show would not send you rushing for the radio.

The NYT story seems to try to cast Obama in the image of First Light. The courageous POTUS insisting that four chopper loads of troops be sent in so that if called upon to do so they could clean up the Pakistani army if it dared to stand in their way. I accept that the Seals are a pretty tough bunch but this story kind of strikes me as bullshit.

It also states that two teams of specialists were on standby: One to bury Bin Laden if he was killed, (presumably the Special Forces Undertaker Team,) and a second composed of lawyers, interrogators and translators in case he was captured alive. Well I guess if you are captured you are going to need a Special Forces team of lawyers to inform you of your rights.

Do reporters ever check the sort of shit the White House tells them?