Night raid deal largely symbolic?

SnafuDude sends us an article from The Stars & Stripes which reports that “analysts” have declared that the deal which the US forged out with the Afghan government over night raids is just a piece of paper which has little meaning;

“It defines it fairly narrowly, and leaves open the possibility of a counterterrorism raid conducted by a CIA paramilitary group or other unit,” she said. “That’s not to say those operations will occur regularly … but it stands to reason that if the United States had a very high-value target in its sights, it would pursue that target as it needed to.”

Though Defense Department officials would not answer questions Monday about whether the U.S. would ever mount a unilateral night raid in Afghanistan, a counterterrorism expert said that given the right circumstances, the answer is clearly yes.

OK, so maybe that’s what it says, I haven’t read the document, but given what I do know about this administration, I doubt that they’d be tempted to work “around the edges” of the agreement. Remember that this administration was hesitant to mount an operation against bin Laden because of the political implications of it’s failure. I don’t think they could summon the testicular fortitude to mount a similar operation once again, let alone if it meant appearing to violate this memorandum of understanding.

It doesn’t make up for the possibility of leaks to the targets about the night raids which will go through the courts. Remember that’s why the US didn’t inform the Pakistanis about the bin Laden raid. Leaks are fairly common in that part of the world. I mean, it’s Afghan Army officers who have been more successful at killing US troops in the last few months than the actual Taliban.

Category: Barack Obama/Joe Biden, Terror War