Kerry Spot    [ jim geraghty reporting ]
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A reader to Hugh Hewitt raises this point:

"Hugh,

Kerry’s comment stating that President Bush “outsourced” the fighting in Tora Bora was a direct slap in the face of all Special Operations soldiers. The whole Afghan campaign is a classic “Unconventional Warfare” scenario. A UW mission is one where teams of Green Berets enter a denied area (Afghanistan) and train a rebel force to overthrow a rogue government. Our Special Forces soldiers in Afghanistan accomplished in weeks, what Alexander the Great and the Soviet Union could not accomplish in years. John Kerry is an idiot.
______
Former SOTA Team Leader
10th Special Forces Group (Airborne)."

Even though I think Kerry is right that in hindsight, it would have been better to use American troops to secure the perimeter of Tora Bora, his comments sound too much like Monday morning quarterbacking.

Would Kerry, as president, deploy many more American soldiers to Afghanistan and Pakistan in 2005? How would that move go over with the Pakistanis - Musharraf, the ISI, and the Pakistani people?

UPDATE: Blogger and Navy SEAL corpsman Matthew Heidt of Froggy Ruminations
writes:

As to the Tora Bora issue, Kerry said that we "outsourced" the job and therefore missed an opportunity to kill UBL. Tell that to the SF A-Teams that had infiltrated Afghanistan, trained and led the Northern Alliance into battle within a month of 9/11. The Unconventional Warfare operation conducted by the Army in Afghanistan will serve as a textbook example of how to conduct UW ops into perpetuity. Tell that to the CCT guys that were dumping air on Tora Bora, stacking up CAS 10 layers deep. Tell that to the SEALs who spent 9 days searching the caves for signs of UBL and finding only fingernails and tooth chips left from the bombing. Wrong answer, bitch! The invasion of Afghanistan by SOF affiliated with local fighters will go down in history as a marvel of military strategy and execution. What was Kerry thinking, that Bush was orbiting Tora Bora in an AC-130 making radio calls and personally directing troops in the field? Those comments were a slap in the face to the SOF community and to General Tommy Franks. He should definitely be called on this because this is more conclusive proof of his utter disdain for our military.

This comment, while it probably sounded good to a political consultant who wanted to simultaneously score points on fears of outsourcing jobs, will be ripped apart in the military and veterans' communities.

[Posted 10/01 03:07 PM]