Members of America’s Special Operations community are concerned that the hashtag #bringbackourgirls will guilt senior leadership into sending them into a fight in Nigeria.
“We’re being tweeted into combat,” a military official told NBC News Tuesday. Commanders believe that the social media hashtag’s influence might mean U.S. troops are sent to rescue the 276 girls who were kidnapped by the Islamic terrorist group Boko Haram.
NBC reported that “two well-placed defense department sources, senior Special Operations commanders” told the news organization that special forces operators were told to “be ready,” because of the probability that “the hashtag will bring us out.”
“There is a logic building that it took the U.S. 10 years to search for Osama bin Laden and then we found him, so why not spend a few months looking for the girls in Nigeria and find them, too?” a source told NBC News.
The Pentagon has officially said that no such rescue is being planned, NBC reported.
• Douglas Ernst can be reached at dernst@washingtontimes.com.
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