Quote Originally Posted by Sarmatian View Post
They do have their uses, but the typical hero worship is undeserved, especially Hollywood crap in which they're represented as superhuman. Throw them behind enemy lines with two nails and a piece of rope and they'll build tanks, helicopters, airplanes and a makeshift base. After that they'll destroy ten enemy divisions, stop a nuclear warhead from launching, capture a dictator and be home for lunch. At least one of them will then quit the army and devote his life to his girlfriend who he dumped just prior to the mission. At least until the sequel in which he will again be recruited and he won't be able to refuse because of his sense of duty.

In the case of Osama mission you mentioned, think about what they really did - they crossed into another country illegally (creating a diplomatic incident) and performed an assassination (creating another diplomatic incident). The effect - Bin Laden is now dead, hurrah!!! Unfortunately, the terrorist organization is still alive and well and it falls again to the grunts on the ground to deal with it in the only way possible, by cutting the funding and taking away their manpower and support, either by direct combat or by winning hearts and minds of the population.
I daresay the bolded part is taken care of by Special Forces. The Green Berets do exactly this, I posted it once and Husar also did. The Rangers and Green Berets are the ones who handle this. You can't fight a war on terror (it's a stupid name but bear with me) with tanks and grunts. The movies are stupid yes, but the OP on Osama achieved what it was supposed to do. Diplomatic incidents don't matter much to a country as powerful as the USA, while eliminating this rogue CIA trained agent was a priority. The pure profit in public opinion was worth it. My point was not whether it was a good idea or not to kill Osama or what it achieved, but when presented with the need to carry out such an operation you have to assign it to someone. Who is that someone if not the Special Forces units?