Letter to Bangkok Post and Nation Paper

[M.D. Holloway]

Dear Sir,
I suppose it would be best to just ignore the tired old axioms being run out by many in the aftermath of U.S. Navy SEALS killing the most wanted man on earth. You would think we had a multitude of individuals with experience in hunting down terrorists and kicking down doors writing into your paper. Some even run out tired old clichés from Vietnam and to hear their pontification one would think they had vast experience in that war also. In the midst of a war words like ‘murder’ and ‘execution’ are bandied about by people who have never shot anyone nor stood on a battlefield (desk jobs or sorting socks do not count). People, including reporters who should know better, speak of ‘women’/’wives’ shot and ‘killed’ /’murdered ‘ by the SEALS with nothing but rumor and innuendo to base these accusations on. The bottom line on UBL/OBL or UbL/ObL (whichever we choose to call him this week) is very simple. He took responsibility for numerous murderous terrorist events and thus he needed killing. He and those with him swore to go down fighting and that they were taken at their word is a lick on them.

The problem America had in the initial hours after the raid is that our President decided to go on TV and spoke of things he only had a peripheral knowledge of and ended up misrepresenting much of it.

Many speak of this purely military operation as if it were a police raid where loud speakers are set up and the culprits asked to surrender. It is not only war but counter-terrorist war and there are no rights read nor was UBL some common criminal but an admitted terrorist who gloried in his killing from the shadows using useful fools to do his bidding. These are all things we know as facts and not just some opinion from the left or the right. In war it is ‘kill or capture’ and not ‘capture or kill.’ There is a difference and all UBL had to do to be captured was to throw his hands in the air at that critical moment and scream ‘I surrender.’ Standard procedure in any anti-terrorist unit in the world, in the absence of outright surrender, is to double-tap him in the chest and head. There also is the option to just shoot them dead because no international convention gives them any prisoner of war protection.

Traditionally small groups of highly trained determined operators conduct these operations in the dark and yes sometimes others than the terrorist are harmed because he surrounds himself with them. In spite of that, this is not an episode of ‘Cops’, he will not be allowed to walk/run away.

Many, including educators, write in speaking about international laws and conventions and how UBL and his terrorist mates should be treated. First and foremost there is a difference between uniformed military, guerrillas and terrorists. The U.S. operates under the Geneva Conventions and the Law of Land-Warfare. Frankly the only military in the world which have even tried to adhere to these are the U.S. and it’s allies. As my North Vietnamese captors in Cambodia used to state often in 1972-73 ‘we are not signatories of these conventions and can torture or kill you as we like.’ Having served in Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos from 1965 until my capture in 1972 I detest people talking about a war they only observed from afar or read about in a book.

Some of us were actually there and know many of the personalities in surrounding countries well. Prime Minister Hun Sen needs Thailand as an enemy right now and that is why there are problems on the border. Khun Taksin is but a side show for him and his allies. He has no other country to point to as a threat and thus Thailand is ‘elected’ to be his enemy to divert attention from his internal problems and to promote his young son’s ‘military prowess.’ He cares nothing about temples or how many innocent people die because he simply needs Thailand as an enemy. Will the detained Thais get a Royal Pardon from the Cambodian King? If Hun Sen tells him to pardon them he will. One thing is certain, there will be no end to border conflict until Hun Sen no longer needs Thailand as an enemy and no intermediaries or negotiations will change that. What the Yellow Shirts did on the border did not serve this country but merely gave Hun Sen two more arrows for his quiver.

One of the problems Hun Sen and too many in this country have with the current Thai Prime Minister is simply they have no idea how to deal with an educated man. From reading many of your editorials and reporting some of you may well have the same problem.

I have written the above from forty five years of experience in Asia and from my perspective in leading the first U.S. Counter-Terrorist unit to this region (1981) to train beside all such units in Korea, Singapore, Phillipines, Malaysia, Indonesia and Thailand. All must operate in a world measured in milliseconds with no time or inclination to call for surrender of terrorists. If they live or die is totally up to them but those little hands better reach for the heavens in a hurry.

Major Mark A. Smith, USA, Retired

7/192 Vipavadi-Rangsit Road, Soi 36, Bangkok 10900
Telephone; 02-513-5166, Mobile; 081-828-8405, FAX; 02-513-5166

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[Zeke]

blah, blah, blah.

He could have said that in 3 sentences.

[mossguy]

Which three sentences, Milt?