The SwampThing

Loren, everything you need to answer that, is on the posts i wrote above. Read them ll carefully.
And then you can ask anything.

Loren Pechtel

No--you jumped right over the critical step--approaching the building!

pariah

theswampthing:

while all of your reasons are valid, there is still no way to prevent suicide. is there?

as for tear gas and what not, the US doesnt have a monopoly on gas masks...

Hot Karl

^ are you reading?
check the post about what the brothers had on them. see any gas masks? even if they did have masks, don't you think they should have at least tried(tear gas) oh...once?

it's like saying, well they may have this, they may have that. well we don't know, so let's not try at all.

satanka

glad you mentioned the Noriega affair.....how many days and nights did that fiasco go on? I recall how the American troops were blasting rock for 24/7. I bet after 48 hours of hip hop, country and western and rap, hundreds of innocent Iraqis have gathered in support of qusay and oday and formed a human shield.......then the brothers can pop open their last Trojan and like every western, ride their French Tickler into the sunset, unknown by the Americans.

pariah

why do you ignore argument about suicide? you don't think they would have killed themselves?

Hot Karl

didn't mean to ignore the suicide issue.

obviously it's almost impossible to prevent a suicide, particularly if they have a weapon on hand.

but considering the potential 'reward' how could it be not worth it? the fact that they _may_ commit suicide shouldn't affect the decision to try and get them out alive. it doesn't make sense for them to have jumped the gun so to speak. they were in the upper floor of a building, so it's not like there was this magic tunnel they could escape.
something that disorientates like a flashbang or some other weapon/tool, could give a team enough time to rush in and at least immobilize.
which i think would have been totally worth the risk.

it's safe to say that suicide was an obvious possibility from the brothers, but in the same respect they also could have chickened out at the last minute as well.

the fact that they did not even attempt a non-lethal method is completely incompetent. i'm not a general and i can tell you those boys must have had some information.

Koyaanisqatsi

It's not a matter of what they would, would not, may, may not have done. It's not as if the President said, "Well, you know what? They'll probably just kill themselves so kill them and don't even attempt to capture them alive."



EDITED TO ADD: You don't get to be a martyr if you simply pop cyanide pills. They would have to have blown themselves up taking out as many soldiers as possible to be considered martyrs. And what person do you know on the lamb with a suitcase of cash and a condom is planning on killing himself?

They were cowards and fled, but not the country, which means they didn't think they needed to leave the country and they were apparently unconcerned about being captured, considering they were caught by surprise. They allegedly opened fire and stood their ground once surrounded; i.e., no way out, which shows that they were intent on staying alive as long as possible and either clueless to their situation or resigned to fight to the death (repeatedly), which means that there was ample opportunity throughout those firefights for our guys to inundate the entire compound with gas, which we did not (as far as I've been able to see from any of the reports). Got that? We didn't even try to use non-lethal ways right out of the gate or throughout the firefights.

What should have happened, had there been orders to capture alive at all costs, is the minute the place was surrounded, hundreds of gas cannisters should have peppered the place along with ten or so flashbangs and other non-lethal, distractions while fifty or so troops stormed in. We knew where they were and what was in the house, from the informant, presumably, and I'm sure there was some sort of special ops/intel unit that cased the place before the troops showed up in force.

Had we gassed them and it turned out they were still capable of putting up a fight, then, perhaps escalating to blowing the shit out of the building could be justified, if the order was, "capture alive at all costs; number one priority; all other considerations irrelevant."

But all of this is totally pointless sidetracking from the issue of whether or not we could have taken them alive through non-lethal means and the answer is a resounding "yes." There was ample time, motive and opportunity to try to take them alive through non-lethal means right from the start and they were not employed. Whether or not they would have dropped real acid to try and off themselves is completely irrelevant to the issue.

The SwampThing

I say again: GO BACK AND READ WHAT HAS BEEN SAID!

Gas grenades don´t have to be thrown from 5 feet of the building, you know? There are launchers, likee the cops have, wich can fire from a long way. Check the photos. The troops are all standing there, wich means they were not receiving incoming fire!
And, the first floor was empty, wich they could use to launch hand held grenades inside the second floor!!!
Had you read what others post, i wouldn´t need to repeat myself!!


As for gas masks, i think Hot Karl answered beautifully.
The Army didn´t know shit of what was inside, but that is no reason not to try other tactics.
Who knows? Maybe they had a tunnel, and escaped long before they spent millions of dollars on TOW missiles! How about that, eh?
Or maybe they had a strong room, with 10 inch steel walls!! Or maybe they were playing Nintendo all along!!!
You don´t just strike out any chances, just because you don´t know what´s inside! Hell, how many times do the troops get to know what they are hitting???

The point is:
The US Army did NOT want to get them ALIVE, period!
That´s the bottom line.

:banghead: :banghead: :banghead: :banghead:

donaldkilroy

Ahhh...he's just mad because I kept proving him wrong.

Anyhow, your wish is my command!