Reports reveal US involved in "shadow ops" around the world

... and you thought the war on terror was limited to Iraq and Afghanistan. On Monday the NY Times published a report that US Special forces have been conducting secret raids on Al-Qaeda targets since 2004; strikes that have been made without the knowledge of foreign governments in Pakistan, Syria, and elsewhere.

The Times states that "These military raids, typically carried out by Special Operations forces, were authorized by a classified order that Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld signed in the spring of 2004 with the approval of President Bush, the officials said. The secret order gave the military new authority to attack the Qaeda terrorist network anywhere in the world, and a more sweeping mandate to conduct operations in countries not at war with the United States."

According to the Time Online of London, this "secret" war consists of 50,000 US Special forces troops (Green Berets, Navy Seals, Rangers and a shadow unit codenamed "Gray Fox") that are on standby for these covert ops.

Apparently though, this "groundbreaking" discovery is only news to those who haven't been paying attention. In fact Bill Roggio of the Weekly Standard wrote that, contrary to the secretive nature that the Times has portrayed, "anyone who has been remotely following operations against al Qaeda and its allied terror groups has long been able to deduce the U.S. government has granted approval for the military and CIA to attack high value targets outside of the hot zones of Iraq and Afghanistan." Roggio reported that with very little time and effort he was able to track down seven such raids, the most blatant being an assassination of Mohammed Jamal Khalifa, Osama bin Laden's brother in law, in Madagascar during January 07. In addition, Roggio points to US covert ops that targeted Al-Qaeda cells in Somalia, Kenya and Tanzania.

The NY Times has reported on this in a way that seemingly attempts to paint these actions as an overreaching use of power on the part of the Bush administration, something that has been kept secret, while more conservative sources have said this was no secret at all.

Here's the truth of the matter: this kind of action is not new at all. It should be no surprise to anyone that after the attacks of 9/11, our government committed to hunting down Al-Qaeda anywhere in the world they might hide. Naturally these operations are kept secret, as the diplomatic ramifications of conducting military operations within states we are not at war with would obviously be negative. Clearly we don't fear any response from states like Somalia or Madagascar, as they pose no threat, either militarily or diplomatically, to the US. However it is not in our best interests to have the world know that we are sneaking across borders and blowing things up in the night. But this is exactly the kind of action that many opponents to the Bush administration's strategy of conducting this war have been in favor of. Those who opposed the use of large ground forces like those in Iraq and Afghanistan usually favored special-ops missions that would "surgically" strike at Al-Qaeda targets. It is clear now that those types of missions have been ongoing.

Further reading:
Report Confirms "shadow war" waged by US Special Forces - csmonitor.com