Word: commands
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General Colin L. Powell has had a tough time staying out of Washington. Since he was first spotted as a bright young comer while a White House Fellow in 1972, Powell has shuttled in and out of Pentagon and civilian desk jobs. No sooner had he finally won command of the prestigious V Corps in West Germany in 1986 than Washington beckoned again, asking him to trade his coveted flag post for duty as Deputy National Security Adviser...
Last week Israeli Defense Minister Yitzhak Rabin laid out his unflinching quid pro quo for hostage trades in Lebanon. "We must have commanders and leaders of the terror organizations," he said. "Only when they are in our hands can we move ((them)) to exchange prisoners." Jerusalem has not hesitated to resort to kidnaping in the past. In 1983 Israeli troops in Beirut kidnaped the nephew of Ahmed Jabril, head of the P.F.L.P. --General Command and later the suspected mastermind of the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103. Two years later Israel swapped the captured nephew -- and 1,150 Palestinians held...
...commando raid might not be possible even if Bush ordered one. The U.S. still lacks special units trained for antiterrorist warfare. Though Congress has mandated the establishment of a Special Operations Forces Command, the separate services refuse to cooperate -- the Navy, for instance, will not assign SEAL units to the force -- and Congress has not funded equipment like new MC-130 Combat Talon attack aircraft needed to drop commandos in enemy territory...
There is little support in the Pentagon for a military response this time. "What are we supposed to hit?" an admiral asked last week. For the most part, the group has no major command centers outside heavily populated districts, where an American strike would be sure to result in many civilian casualties...
Under the circumstances, the man can hardly be adjudged "rude" for having courteously refused to execute what amounts to a command, no matter what inflection Taggart's friend may have used in uttering it. No one can say how the man might have reacted to a different approach. But the likelihood of his punching the button could only have increased, had the friend remembered her manners and said, "Could you press 13 for me please?" Marvin Hightower...