Everyone knows that Rambo, and Bruce Willis and Steven Seagal, not to mention the Karate Kid and Batman, are fictional characters, but they are based on No, but seriously, we produce the finest athletes and the smartest \n NEWSWEEK has learned, the Pentagon is intensively debating an option Following that model, one Pentagon proposal would send Special Forces from Newsweek, via MSNBC<\/a><\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" We know we have readers in high places, but it still surprises us when the administrations starts considering policies we were advocating months ago, like taking America’s talent for producing stone cold killers and putting it to work in Iraq … Continue reading ![](\"http:\/\/cyber.law.harvard.edu\/blogs\/static\/dowbrigade\/deathinthenight.jpg\")
We
\n know we have readers in high places, but it
\n still surprises us when the administrations starts considering policies
\n we were advocating months ago, like taking America’s talent for producing
\n stone cold killers and putting it to work in Iraq (see Bring
\n Back the Assassins<\/a>). No smart bomb can be nearly as smart, and focused, and tightly
\n targeted, as a
\n trained
\n assassin. <\/p>\n
\n real people. And those WWF wrestlers can really fight! Round them up
\n and send them all to Iraq!<\/p>\n
\n scientists and the most cutthroat businessmen in the world, why shouldn’t
\n we produce the best assassins? Americans certainly do not lack in killer
\n instinct! We have no shortage of fanatics ready to dedicate years of
\n their lives living in Himalayan monasteries, studying obscure martial disciplines and mastering the tricks
\n of the assassin trade. Put them to work. Targeted assassination
\n is so much less messy and random than 1000-lb. high
\n explosive lightning bolts<\/a> cast down from the heavens.<\/p>\n\n
\n that dates back to a still-secret strategy in the Reagan administration’s
\n battle against the leftist guerrilla insurgency in El Salvador in
\n the early 1980s. Then, faced with a losing war against Salvadoran
\n rebels,
\n the U.S. government funded or supported "nationalist" forces
\n that allegedly included so-called death squads directed to hunt down
\n and kill rebel leaders and sympathizers.<\/p>\n
\n teams to advise, support and possibly train Iraqi squads, most likely
\n hand-picked
\n Kurdish Peshmerga fighters and Shiite militiamen, to target Sunni insurgents
\n and their sympathizers, even across the border into Syria, according
\n to military insiders familiar with the discussions. It remains unclear,
\n however,
\n whether this would be a policy of assassination or so-called "snatch" operations,
\n in which the targets are sent to secret facilities for interrogation.
\n The current thinking is that while U.S. Special Forces would lead operations
\n in, say, Syria, activities inside Iraq itself would be carried out by
\n Iraqi
\n paramilitaries, officials tell NEWSWEEK.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n