That is the trouble with rescue operations of the most difficult kind. Regardless of assets on the ground and real time intel going in and extraditing hostages will always carry that element of risk.
After all, how long does it take to kill a person even if one is under fire? If you are going down you might as well take them with you. Cruel, terribly hurtful when they are civilians and especially out of uniform but those who undertake such missions also put their lives at risk and need to be commended.
The problem lies in the fact that when things go wrong and a mission fails then no one wants to responsible for the botched up job. And it might really not have been botched up. After all, even in the Yemen attack the death of an American journalist and a teacher from South Africa was a given and not sending a task force in to give it a military try would have been act of cowardice.
Much of the world finds it easy to critique such initiatives without realizing that even when they are not successful they do impact and put pressure on the adversaries. It is a line of defense and a very important one.
There is nothing more poignant than a hostage situation, be it that of innocents in the hands of terrorists or an urban stand-off. The massive amount of training and co-ordination that goes into the assault is prodigious and there is always the fear that things will not pan out. While everyone wants a piece of the pie when the mission is a success it is easy to be an armchair analyst.
The fact is that each effort sends out a message that there will be consequences and that life is not cheap. Indeed, to even categorize any such plan as a failure is unfair. While one concedes that the Americans were unable to get their man out on three occasions in trouble spots this year (Syria and James Foley, Luke Somers earlier in Yemen) and now this one cannot deny the ‘we’ll come for you’ element is still a positive. As much as the threat of ‘we’ll come after you.’
While the deaths are regrettable in the extreme the terror cell gets badly damaged and loses manpower. It also surrenders its hideout and those captured become conduits of vital information. There is a crack in the network and other hideouts become vulnerable as data is collected. Then, as is true in human nature, doubt comes into the cadres about who is giving information. This doubt plays a major role in undermining discipline and trust in each other.
In the case of the Yemen attack the Seals got as close as 100 meters to where Luke was captive. And what is most important to underscore the cliché that such deaths are not totally in vain is that the next person captured means that much more time, effort and expense in keeping him hidden.
Ergo, if journalists and aid workers are targeted along with others not in uniform should they not at least be given a slender thread of regardless of who they are or where they come from on this planet of ours where peace stays elusive.
