Posted on 10/27/2001 1:21:26 PM PDT by mercy
I encourage you all to turn Zviadist in for abuse. It is only a disruptor at this point. Startin to sound like A+Bert.
Here is what JIMROB HIMSELF said to your last psycho rant:
4 Posted on 10/26/2001 11:58:03 PDT by Jim Robinson
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Perhaps you should report him to the authorities as well.
YES!! I agree 100%. The little-known story is that Spetznaz were *winning* the war, until we sent Afghans Stingers.
You are right, mercy is right, and the crowd saying this-is-different or have-patience or trust-the-guys-in-charge are not right. The flaw in the current operation is obvious and simple, so it deserves to be noted: We cannot win if we dont have a major presence in Afghanistan, either by proxy (alliance with natice Afghan forces) or by ourselves (and this means tens of thousands of US troops). The reasons this is so is by now obvious: First, we have poor intelligence on the ground, and we are not getting any better at it as long as we stay at 10,000 feet; we have 0% chance of getting Bin Laden without close intel. Second, the Taliban forces are not heavy forces, they are men with rifles, held together by their enthicity and ideology; bombs dont change that. These men are "bomb resistent" and will have to be killed or captured, and since they are living in the cities and hiding with civilians, unless we bomb cities or capture cities, this will not happen.
The idea that this has to take years is bunk. We won the Gulf War in 6 weeks; not a matter of geography (although that helped) it was a matter of force disposition and creating conditions for victory. The conditions for victory over Taliban are a lot simpler than assumed. saddam had half a million troops, Taliban has only 45,000, and these forces have almost no heavy armor/mobility so they can easily be taken on. Since most are on front lines, few are holding down cities. We don't need to control the country - we only need to control (or have friends control) the major cities and towns, so that organized resistent Government can be replaced. The rest will follow. With a comination of a large presense to hold down a fortified in-country position and special ops to go anywhere to defeat opposition, we will win. A proposed scenario:
1. Bomb all Taliban positions. Coordinate with NA to take Mose-Sharif and Kabul. Bomb the heck out of all forces found, especially in countryside. This will cause forces to dig in, and drive them into cities. At the same time, seal the Paki border that is resupplying their ammo and oil.
2. Drop in 15,000-20,000 troops in Kandahar area. Can do the same in the north if we want but may not be necessary if the NA forces can do the job alone. Surrounding cities and leaving no escape for forces by capturing it and killing or detaining any hostile forces. Find a "friend" to rule the city. There are 5 major cities to take: Kabul, Herat, Kandahar, Jalalabad, and Mose-e-Sharif. How long would it take us to capture Kandahar, if we dropped in 20,000 forces? A few days to a few weeks, depending on how aggressive we want to go in to sweep the city clean. The faster the better.
3. With cities taken, the Taliban has the mountains and countryside. No problem. In fact, if we do it right, our bombing will drive Taliban forces *into* the cities where surround and capure can take them. In other words, airpower and urban warfare are complementary and together could take out most of Taliban armed forces. It leaves us ready to set up a new Govt.
4. With a fortified base near Kandahar and Kabul (Bagram), use spec ops and air power to go after forces hiding out. If any Taliban want to take on our regular Army forces at our fortified bases, no problem - they need target practice.
5. They will probably try unconventional means, eg terrorism to go after us. No problem. been there, done that. Bin Laden is the Taliban, so we are back to finding cave hideouts. With in-country presence, we are not tied to any external diplomacy, just the diplomacy of finding Afghan friends who will help us find and kill terrorists. I think million-dollar bribes are a much better deal than Billions in foreign aid to Pakistan.
6. In the meantime, teach the Afghans how horrible the terrorists really are and how backwards their beliefs, religion, and political views are. Make the country come to hate the Taliban and Bin Laden as much as we do through our humanitarian acts, education, support for moderate/rational govt leaders, propaganda etc. That will be the best and Final Victory in the country.
So mercy, Shermy, I think you are right.
We are in the 21st day of a military response that we've been told over and over and over again ad nauseam will take a long time, that will require patience.
Maybe it's time Americans learned patience...whether we like it or not...
-penny
Sure, max. For starters the enemy is spread throughout the world, some of them living within our borders, and they are using methods of warfare never used before.
We are also forced to seek the support of countries who are against terrorism, but who also don't like us, and hate each other, causing a more complex political situation than has previously existed.
And....we are dealing with an enemy that has absolutely no ground rules other than hatred.
That's just for starters. It's a different kind of war. It's not that hard to see that, is it?
We need to kill these people in the hundreds of thousands to give them something to think about for the next fifty years until another creep like OBL crawls out of the wood work.
To field a force big enough to take them out on the battle field, where they are heavily fortified, will call for re-implementing the draft, which will turn off 50% of our citizens.
Even my own daughter told me today that if we get into a war and they tried to draft her two sons, she would take them to Canada to avoid the draft. When I told her I would personally drive to Canada and bring them home, she hung up on me.
It's my belief that we will never again be able to draft our young men to fight in a war.
That being the case we need a president with the balls of a Harry Truman, who would use nuclear weapons.
You're kidding, right??? I'd have guessed you to be around 13.
A very interesting thread altogether.
I'll write the intros and you all do the heavy lifting. Works for me.
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