Posted on 09/13/2001 10:19:48 AM PDT by Jeff Head
Regards,
TS
As always....My Pleasure.
By declaring war, we afford them other legal status, that of potential prisoners of war. I support declaring war on any country that supports or harbors or otherwise gives aid and comfort to those who did this. I do not support "declaring war" on a group of individuals since this also affords them the status of belligerents, something I do not think they deserve. I simply don't see how declaring war would increase the flexibility of the military in responding to this.
So what do you recommend our response be? A resolution strongly condemning these kinds of actions at the U.N.?
We are at war. It will be fought in a nasty, difficult part of the world. But fought it must be.
I do not advocate targeting civilians or razing cities. Wars are about killing people and breaking things, but they are not about mindless, random applications of violence. That is terrorism.
Wars are about destroying an enemy's ability to resist. That means killing military personnel, destroying bases and military equipment, and neutralizing production facilities. Any bullet, shell, or bomb that does not hit one of those three things is wasted -- and potentially creates new enemies. That is a major reason why rational armed forces do not deliberately target innocents.
Your beliefs, I believe, are colored by Vietnam and Desert Storm. In those two wars, fought for reasons unrelated to the safety of the United States, casualties had to be minimized for political purposes. This type of warfare reached its apogee in the misbegotten Kosovo War. Any casualties there would have significantly and quickly eroded Clinton's ability to prosecute that war. So they had to be avoided at all costs.
This war will be more like WWII or perhaps some of the early Indian wars -- national survival is in the balance, and a significant level of casualties will be bourne by the American people.
Operations like the ones against the Pentagon and WTC require years of planning, and lots of logistical support. They cannot be mounted unless their leaders have sanctuary in which to plan and train for them. We can take that away from them.
The Russians were trying to occupy Afghanistan. We do not need to occupy Afghanistan -- only make it impossible for armed groups to operate from there except furitively from caves with pre 20th-Century technology.
Again, do you have a better idea? Put up or shut up.
In addition, it is not meant at all to be a "blank" check. When any such group, or any such country is identified as having paticipated, abetted or harbored ... a declaration is made.
Im addition to this specific instance, which is the major catalyst (or maybe the straw that broke the camel's back ... a bridge too far) ... I personally believe we should take this opportunity to declare war against any major terrorist organization that has attacked us in the last several years where we have not brought them to justice, and include any of the nations that have harbored them ... but that's just me.
You have a gigantic disconnect between a terrorist attack in this country because of lax security and poor intelligence, and declaring "war" against unknown enemies 15,000 miles away.
This is because of your mistaken belief that Afghanistan, where people already do live in caves with "pre-20th century technology," provides the "logistical base" for this attack.
You appear quite unfamiliar with Afghanistan's recent history. It is not possible that Afghanistan was the "logistical base" for this attack. The country is already in ruins, it has almost no infrascruture, and it is cut off from the rest of the world because of the economic sanctions. People are already living in tents, mud huts, shacks, and caves because the country was bombed for ten years between 1979 and 1989.
You say the infrastructure needs money? All Taliban and Afghan accounts have been frozen ever since the economic sanctions took effect. It is impossible for whatever money was provided to have come from Afghanistan. The entire country is in financial lockdown. There is no way escaping this conculsion. The funds had to have come from some other place.
None of the hijackers who came to this country - from other Western countries like Canada and Germany had Afghan passports. I repeat, none of them. Why? Because the US has never recognized the Taliban as Afghan's government, and because the economic sanctions have virtually shut that country down.
What's the solution? First, the terrorist attacks took place here, so we defend this country here. This includes our Northern and Southern borders. Can't have it both ways. If you're at "war," you have to defend all your borders. We didn't.
Second, the attacks took place because of poor intelligence, because we have cut ourselves off from all these people and any pro-Western or moderates among them. We need to develop human intelligence, which can't take place at the same time we're making loud cries for a genocidal crusade like you can see on this very thread.
Third, the US needs to decide once and for all that it has no business in countries where we do not have the wholehearted support of nearly all the people, and we do not support countries which do not have the same standards of internal and external rule of law as we do.
Fourth, this was a criminal act. The people were not in any recognizable army, and they operated as individuals, getting onto the airplanes one at a time right past security. An unprecedented crime in the loss of life, but a crime nonetheless. Treat it as such. Timothy McVeigh killed 168 people. He only died once. That's sad but true. Some perpetrators are still on the loose, and I guarantee you many are not in Afghanistan and none of them have Afghan passports.
Fifth, embark on a crash program to develop synthetic fuels, preferably those like hydrogen which are virtually pollution-free. We are way too dependent on Middle East oil. The Middle East has always been a nasty place, and we are hostage to our need for cheap oil.
This is the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution and the "domino theory" all over again. This very declaration gives a "blank check" to go into the equivalents of Laos, Cambodia, and North Viet Nam. Who decides if someone's a "terrorist" or someone's "harboring?" Congress? The President? The CIA? The Joint Chiefs of Staff?
If you people truly believe that going half way around the world to attack unknown people who likely weren't even behind the attacks, is "national interest" then we have another Viet-Nam type "learning experience" ahead of us. And unpopular as it may be, I will go on record as saying it will not be won, either.
And the minute the US adopts mass murder instead of "winning hearts and minds" you are going to see a reaction among at least 20% of the world's population, which will likely grow to include most of the Third World, Islamic or not. Once America becomes unpopular, as it was during the Viet Nam era, expect reactions against US people and interests almost anywhere in the world, not just by Islamists.
We've gotten ourselves into this mess because we've (1) Not protected ourselves or developed the necessary human intelligence, and (2) Believed our own PR that we are the superpower who can impose its will anywhere in the world (except our Chinese "trading partners," that is). It's time to reevalutate this thinking and figure out the positive things America stands for, which are political and personal freedom, rule of law, and government by consent of the governed. Not just an arm-waving "fighting terrorism" which is a code word for race war.
If we believe we've been anointed to be some avenging angel, we will reap the whirlwind, I gurantee it. We need to prevent future attacks, but we're going to have to isolate the people who caused them, not give them more recruits.
redrock
- Ann Coulter [http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/ucac/20010912/cm/this_is_war_1.html]
How many FR readers consider this a reasonable stance?
Be ever vigilant and be prepared!
Molon Labe!!
Sorry, I heard the same "invincible forces" PR about the Iraqi army 10 years ago -- battle-hardened, used to fighting, fighting on their home turf, etc. Now it is fashionable to deride the U.S effort in Desert Storm as "inevitable" and easy. You, yourself do it.
I will repeat what I said. Both bin Laden and the Taliban put their pants on one leg at a time. We are better on-the-ground night fighters than any other nation -- including the Afghans. The Russians lacked a credible night capablity. That was a weakness. We own the night.
This is not a Vietnam-style war, despite superficial resemblences -- it is more like WWII Pacific-style. We can win in jungles -- we did it in Guadacanal and New Guinea. We can win in mountains. We did it in Korea and New Guinea. And the Japanese and North Koreans were every bit as formidable as the Afghans.
So far, all of your posts have been outlined what we cannot do. Yeah, this is going to be bloody and nasty, but we have 30,000 reasons to be willing to fight a bloody, nasty war. We did not have those reasons in Vietnam or even Desert Storm. The Russians did not have those reasons in Afghanistan in the 1970s or '80s. And what, really, is the alternative? Huddle helplessly in fear, waiting for the next strike?
I will repeat what I said in my last post -- either propose a workable alternative to my suggestions or stop wasting bandwidth.
(1) Defend our borders
(2) Develop human intelligence by having policies which extend hope to the region instead of writing them off
(3) Get out of countries where we don't have the wholehearted support of their people. Don't support countries which don't have the same rule of law as we do. Don't take sides in racial and territorial wars going back thousands of years.
(4) Treat this as a criminal act, just like McVeigh's actions were a criminal act. Find the individuals who did it. If you can't do that, there's no guarantee of preventing future acts so the next-best thing is to protect against them here.
(5) Develop synthetic fuels and get out of the Middle East unless we're wanted there.
Now you may not like those alternatives, but they are alternatives.
If you want to pursue a policy of revenge just to make yourself feel good, regardless of the consequences, you might as well start worshipping the same deity the suicide bombers claim as their own.
When the Soviet-Afghan war started, the Afghans were armed with Enfield .303's. By the end of the war, they all had AK-47's, RPG's and many even had the top-of-the-line AK-74's. They captured them. In ambushes. Then they used them against the people who brought them into the country.
I eagerly await more enlightenment.
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