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Mar 1 • 3 tweets • 1 min read
I’m struck by news pics and video showing Russian soldiers dead on a bridge here or sprawled out on a street there. Or Tyler Hicks’ NYT photo of a corpse covered in snow. Russian forces aren’t taking all of their dead with them. USMIL’s ethos is “never leave a fallen comrade.”
Some in US SOF & natsec focused on “near-peer” adversary Russia view leaving bodies behind as an indicator of conscripts and/or troops forced to withdraw from battling Ukrainians so hurriedly they couldn’t collect their dead. Logistical problems may be insurmountable, they add.
“Cannon fodder or not, RUS logistical efforts and supply lines are so broken or nonexistent a 2nd wave isn’t sustainable. I think in a few days they’re fucked,” said a SOF observer. Another says a decade of teaching Ukrainians unconventional warfare is paying off. #Timewilltell

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More from @meekwire

James Gordon Meek Profile picture
Aug 30, 2021
“Where there is hope there is life.” A kid named Anne Frank wrote that.
Sometimes hope fades. On my phone all weekend, the last bitter hours of America’s longest war were personified by a young mom in a dusty black abaya with her two young children sleeping in rubble.

A thread.
Moving along the Kabul airport perimeter to attempt entry on Saturday, this Afghan wife of a former US Army interpreter in the American South faced a hard fact. He is a US citizen but she is not. She and her kids are “USPERS” but to Taliban guards, they were just in the way.
This strong mom had a clutch — her Afghan passport in her hand. And a paper copy of her husband’s American passport. She and the kids waited and waited in the heat, as a platoon of Americans in an encrypted chatroom called members of Congress, Green Berets and US Embassy contacts
Read 9 tweets
James Gordon Meek Profile picture
Aug 27, 2021
BREAKING @ABC — US special operations vets carried out daring mission to save Afghan allies — 500 smuggled into Kabul Airport on Weds night in complex, heart-pounding op by Americans determined not to leave comrades behind
abcnews.go.com/Politics/us-sp…

abcnews.go.com/Politics/us-sp…
With no money or no authority, 50 Americans who served in Afghanistan in military, intel and other roles formed up to get Afghan special forces out. Led by @RooftopLeader a retired Green Beret, #TaskForcePineapple got more than 630 to safety since 8/15
abcnews.go.com/Politics/us-sp…
The most daring and ambitious op was by a ground team led by ex-SF CPT Zac Lois coordinating dozens of movements by individual families thru dark streets of Kabul to rallypoints. He modeled the “Pineapple Express” on Harriet Tubman’s Underground Railroad
abcnews.go.com/Politics/us-sp…
Read 17 tweets
James Gordon Meek Profile picture
Jun 30, 2021
Thread: A very stressful June for a few US spec ops vets & me. Our dear brother, an Afghan special immigrant visa applicant—who hasn’t heard from the US emb despite 12 years fighting alongside US commandos—was trapped in a tiny base surrounded by Taliban texting him death threats
We heard from him around the clock for weeks as Taliban closed in, seizing Afghan govt checkpoints near his tiny outpost—many surrendering without a shot fired—surrounding his base where he was a contractor directing security for civil infrastructure
The alarming fragility of the Afghan government’s armed forces, which the United States and NATO allies spent two decades forming, forging and arming was acute to our friend, who was not an interpreter but an operator who worked with Green Berets and a tier 1 national asset
Read 11 tweets
James Gordon Meek Profile picture
Jun 17, 2021
SCOOP @ABC — Hope dims for American hostage as US hastily exits Afghanistan. 3 options pursued include a swap for an Afghan drug lord, a commando rescue op, or encouraging Pakistan’s spy service to intervene. Only 3rd option viewed as viable now.

abcnews.go.com/US/hope-dims-a…
US intelligence is now assessing rumors that Pakistan’s ISI already has gotten involved in the Mark Frerichs matter, one source told me. Many assume he is held captive inside Pakistan, like most of the Haqqani network's Western hostages in the past.

abcnews.go.com/US/hope-dims-a…
Pressuring Pakistan’s spy service ISI to lean on the Taliban’s Haqqani network to free American Mark Frerichs has precedent — Trump NSC threatened them in 2017 over US hostage Caitlan Coleman. JSOC knew her location and SEAL Team Six was ready to launch.
abcnews.go.com/US/hope-dims-a…
Read 4 tweets
James Gordon Meek Profile picture
Jan 11, 2021
My first story about US Capitol security was published for UPI 23 years ago. I interviewed lawmakers five months before gunman Russell Weston’s July 24, 1998 crazed attack which left 2 USCP officers dead. The issue was how to secure Congress and maintain public accessibility. 1/9
"The barricades give some amount of protection, but there's little protection against a determined terrorist," the late Rep. Ike Skelton (D-MO) told me in February 1998. (I’d known Ike since childhood.) "Americans should be able to visit their capital, and do it safely." 2/9
"The tragedy is that America's capital is subject to such threats," Ike continued in the interview 23 years ago. He was to become Armed Services Committee chairman before his 2013 death. "But we're blessed with excellent Capitol Police. I don't think you can do any better." 3/9
Read 10 tweets
James Gordon Meek Profile picture
Oct 31, 2020
BREAKING @ABC — American citizen kidnapped last Monday in Niger has been rescued by a US special mission unit in neighboring Nigeria, US and Nigerien officials tell @ABC

abcnews.go.com/International/…

By @meekwire @AichaEHC @cjf39
BREAKING @ABC — US citizen Philip Walton rescued by SEAL Team Six, who killed all but one captor in Nigeria, officials say. Walton, 27, was abducted by suspected criminals in Niger on Monday. Concern he’d end up in hands of terrorists drove urgency of op.
abcnews.go.com/International/…
Hostages freed are good for @realDonaldTrump who has made the issue a hallmark of his administration and highlighted it with several former hostages appearing at his convention, along with Kayla Mueller’s parents. This case has unfolded fast since Monday.
abcnews.go.com/International/…
Read 7 tweets

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