Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!swrinde!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!usc!rutgers!att!cbnews!military From: shaig%shum.Huji.AC.IL@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU (Shai Guday) Newsgroups: sci.military Subject: Re: Panama Message-ID: <12766@cbnews.ATT.COM> Date: 4 Jan 90 04:24:58 GMT References: <12604@cbnews.ATT.COM> <12696@cbnews.ATT.COM> Sender: military@cbnews.ATT.COM Organization: Hebrew University of Jerusalem, ISRAEL Lines: 40 Approved: military@att.att.com From: shaig%shum.Huji.AC.IL@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU (Shai Guday) In article <12696@cbnews.ATT.COM> emery@aries.mitre.org (David Emery) writes: % % %From: emery@aries.mitre.org (David Emery) %>From: shaig%shum.Huji.AC.IL@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU (Shai Guday) %>It is still unclear to me why the US opted for a large %>scale involvement, to which I currently see no end, rather than %>a clean "surgical" operation by elite forces, with a large scale %>followup dependent upon a successful accomplishment of (1). %>Any opinions? % %Yeah. People who talk about "surgical" operations like this really %haven't thought about what that means. Unfortunately, "Mission %Impossible" operations work on TV. Kidnapping a head of state, %particularly one as crafty as Noriega, are basically impossible to do. First things first. I have an excellent idea of what a surgical operation means. I agree that "Mission Impossible" type ops, with no enemy soldiers killed or injured and without leaving any indication of penetration, is ridiculous. I do not agree that a penetration, without the limitation of leaving enemy soldiers alive is as difficult. %There's too much that can go wrong. Noriega deliberately did his best %to prevent such an operation from succeeding. For instance, no one %but Noriega and maybe his driver knew where he was night after night. That is incorrect as far as the facts I have heard. In fact, intelligence sources had pinpointed his whereabouts finely. %In military operations, the concept of "minimum necessary force" is %complete . It's been established %time and again that the way to save lives is to use overwhelming %military force. True, which just goes to back up my previous point.