U.S. NEEDS HIT SQUADS, ‘MANHUNTING AGENCY’: SPEC OPS REPORT

CIA director Leon Panetta got into hot water with Congress, after he revealed an agency program to hunt down and kill terrorists. A recent report from the U.S. military’s Joint Special Operations University argues that the CIA didn’t go far enough. Instead, it suggests the American government should set up something like a “National Manhunting Agency” to go after jihadists, drug dealers, pirates and other* enemies of the state [emphasis added].**

Lt. Col. George Crawford instead would like to see a permanent group with clear authority, training, doctrine and technology to go after these dangerous individuals. These “manhunting teams would be standing formations, trained to pursue their designated quarry relentlessly for as long as required to accomplish the mission,” he writes. Sometimes, that will mean operating “in uncooperative countries.” In those cases, the teams must be prepared “to act unilaterally, with no support or coordination with local authorities, in a manner similar to that employed by Israel’s Avner team in response to the Munich Olympics massacre.”

[Thanks to Mark Fee]
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*I didn’t realize that “other” included drug dealers. Drug dealers are an enemy? Drug agents, perhaps.
**Will “other enemies of the state” eventually include LRC blog writers?