Some particular places are under special observation. Information about them is being collected constantly by satellites. Every vehicle going in and out is watched. Every phone call and e-mail going in and out is captured and studied. Every electro-magnetic impulse is recorded. People associated with those places are being questioned and recruited.

The longer we do this, the more we improve. Sometimes we get some really big breaks and more insight, more penetration into their communications and planning. Success builds upon success.

A wet dream of some almighty “eye in the sky” made by a young man utterly ignorant of military limits to US air surveillance capacity.
The few “birds” that scan a small fraction of the humanity below them are utterly ignorant to what is in the hearts of such people, what their intentions are. Nothing substitutes for human intelligence and winning the information, and ideological warfare outside the military’s sphere. Something the US has learbed to rue time and time again.

Our ability to target top leaders is especially devastaing. In their administration of their forces and resources, relatively little is written down, so when any such leader is killed, much organizational policy and information perishes forever.

More crap. Most terrorist groups except those foolishly aggragating power to a few charismatics (shining path, PLO) are learning organizations. The Israelis stupidly played whack a mole couterterrorism for years as they built up their Settlements, refused to address grievances, and relied on WMD and technical superiority.

All they did was provoke a Darwinian process in terrorist groups to make them fire-tested, more flexible, and weed out the unwary and stupid leaders for the likes of Nasrallah. They lost demographically, had to quit Gaza, and now face a weary USA and West not so interested in preserving Zionist nuclear and technical monopoly.

There are about 40 million Pashtuns, but a few thousand of our soldiers are controlling them.

Yeah, a few thousand of our red-blooded Jesus-loving high-tech, special ops supersoldiers are controlling 40 million born to fight mountain warfare Pashtuns.
In your dreams.

You’re making the mistake of equating “reasonable and ethical” with “realistic and practical.” In today’s world, with the MSM and unwillingness of many to support this effort, PR always needs to be considered. Unfortunate, but true.

Also, I highly recommend Fred Burton’s GHOST: Confessions of a Counter-Terrorism Agent (Hope the link came through all right…) Finished it last night. Very good. Very educational, even to a retired Intel Geek, who was on the preiphery of some of the things he writes about.

30 plus year, Army Command Sergeant Major

No one is making that claim. But Righty talking points are making the claim that the February-July 2007 Surge somehow caused the Anbar Awakening, which the Pentagon first briefed reporters on in September 2006.

Newtland: We’re trying real hard not to do the same and it’s cost us lives but perhaps saved our souls. Perhaps.

Souls are saved by trusting in the atoning work of the Prince of Peace, not by trusting in the sacrifices of our own soldiers. No perhaps about it.

Doug: Additionally, the terrorist would need a handy dandy portable radar setup to find either the Predator or the Reaper prior to arming the Stinger.

And that would make the terrorist vulnerable to being taken out by a HARM missile following right back down his signal path.

RWE: Perhaps a better example is the cruise missiles and upgraded Pershings we put in Europe in the 80’s, thus ensuring that the diplomacy associated with the INF treaty had a chance to work.

Russia is threatening to pull out of the INF treaty if the US deploys missile defense in Poland and the Czech Republic. Russia is also threatening to return in force to Cuba if the US deploys missile defense in the aforementioned countries. One gets the idea that Russia really doesn’t like missile defense.