Frontline: Kill/Capture

Yesterday I watched the new PBS Frontline special, "Kill/Capture", which looks at targeted killings as part of our counterinsurgency strategy in Afghanistan.  Although the camera work was great, I thought it was badly biased.  Every mission shown is either a dry hole or they arrest/kill the wrong guy.  The only successful missions are presented directly by a military spokesperson (i.e. General Petraeus) or prefaced as "the military claims" rather than as an objective fact.  Conversely, the Taliban interviewees are allowed to speak without interruption (understandably, I supposed . . . ) or asked any challenging questions.

In other words, they are clearly skeptical of the U.S. military but permit the Taliban to go on extended propaganda diatribes.

Nowhere is it mentioned that there is clear evidence that these operations are having an effect.

"Targeted killings" such as those in Afghanistan/Pakistan, incidentally, are distinct from the strategic manhunts I examine in Wanted Dead or Alive.  Targeted killings are a form of a decapitation strategy, which directs strikes against key leadership and/or telecommunications nodes during a conflict under the assumption that these are an enemy's Achilles' heel.  Historical examples of such campaigns include elements of the Phoenix Program in Vietnam, Israeli forces' targeted killings of Palestinian terrorists during the Second Intifada, and by JSOC against AQI and Jaish al-Mahdi operatives in Iraq.  Although these campaigns targeted individuals, these leaders were targeted because of their specific role in a broader organization rather than the unique threat they posed.  In other words, decapitation strikes targeting individuals are a means to achieve the broader end of battlefield victory.  In a strategic manhunt, the neutralization of the individual is an end in itself. 

Simply put, the man is the mission.