Better Than Drones

During the Obama years, the USA did not capture terrorists.  Capture was too messy; the terrorists would have to go to Guantanamo and Obama wanted to close that facility.  Captured terrorists also had to be interrogated and Obama wanted to avoid anything that could be called "torture" as part of that effort.  Instead of capture, the American military was directed instead to use drone strikes to kill the terrorists who were uncovered.  If you think about it, try to remember the last high ranking terrorist leader who was captured while Obama was president.  It may take you a while, because there weren't any terrorist leaders captured.  Even when it came to Osama bin Laden, he was just shot in a raid, not captured.

Things have now changed.  The US and coalition forces just took out five very high ranking ISIS leaders.  This was done by capturing a leading ISIS field commander in late February and then using his cell phone to lure out four other high ranking ISIS leaders so that they could be captured.  Had the first guy just been hit by a Hellfire missile, there wouldn't have been any phone to use to get the rest.  Indeed, we now have some of these terrorists in custody, and the intelligence that we will get from them should make the battle against the remnant of ISIS that much easier to win.

It has been an important change by President Trump to let US forces plan for and carry out the capture of terrorists rather than just their destruction by drones.