Not Your Father's G.I. Joe

Should have seen this one coming.

MediaBistro.com reported Friday that the Walt Disney Company has officially trademarked "Seal Team 6," which is the unit designation of the special operatives that waged the assault on the al Qaeda leader's Abbottabad compound.

The trademark applications were submitted just two days after President Barack Obama announced the commando mission that resulted in the death of bin Laden.

Every regime - even the most democratic - needs monsters. Not monsters to fight against, but monsters to fight on our side, against other regimes' monsters. Democratic regimes especially need monsters to do the near-impossible, inhuman work that no one else can.

The key is keeping the number of monsters small, the work they do severely circumscribed and infrequent, and - most crucially - their subordinate position to civilian leadership crystal clear.

Once you let the monsters start setting the rules, you've become them.

We're there.

Jeremy Scahill at The Nation:

The JSOC team that ultimately smoked bin Laden was led by the elite Navy SEAL Team Six. Officially known as the Naval Special Warfare Development Group, or DEVGRU, SEALs from Team Six are considered the most elite warriors in the national security apparatus. Bin Laden is said to have been killed by a “double tap”—two shots to the head, one above the left eye. Soon after, his body was on a helicopter en route to the USS Carl Vinson. DNA tests and photos were taken before bin Laden was dumped into the sea to sleep with the fishes.

Col. W. Patrick Lang, a retired Special Forces officer with extensive operational experience throughout the Muslim world, described JSOC’s forces as “sort of like Murder Incorporated.” He told The Nation, “Their business is killing Al Qaeda personnel. That’s their business. They’re not in the business of converting anybody to our goals or anything like that.” Shortly after the operation was made public, retired Gen. Barry McCaffrey called JSOC’s operators the “most dangerous people on the face of the earth.”

I am one of the people who, nine and a half years ago, blithely recommended that instead of wasting billions invading a country already in the stone age, we just send special ops in to "take out" bin Laden.

Grade-D movie dialogue spoken out of ignorance and fear. But also correct. And dead wrong.

Scahill again:

JSOC—and the Navy SEALs in particular—will become legendary in a much broader circle because of the bin Laden killing, but the secretive unit has had its share of controversy. JSOC forces were responsible for the October 8, 2010, botched rescue that ended up killing British aid worker Linda Norgrove in Afghanistan. JSOC also carried out a raid in Gardez, Afghanistan, in February 2010, during which five people, including two pregnant women and a US-trained Afghan police commander were killed. In that case, senior Afghan security officials and eyewitnesses claimed that US forces dug the bullets out of the women’s bodies. NATO had initially tried to cover up the incident, suggesting it may have been a Taliban “honor killing”; but eventually Admiral McRaven took responsibility for the botched raid and apologized to the family.

The primacy of JSOC within the administration’s foreign policy—from Yemen and Somalia to Afghanistan and Pakistan—indicates that Obama has doubled down on the Bush-era policy of targeted assassination as a staple of US foreign policy.

Read the whole thing.

Hat-tip to loyal reader WG.