1. It has been reported that terrorist operatives exist in almost 60 countries;
2. The enemy is elusive and therefore difficult to fight, especially in light of our weak human intel;
3. Bush & Co. have repeatedly stated that we will target Al Queda initially and then proceed to the next;
4. Bush & Co. have also stated that behind scenes victories can't be publicized due to covert necessity;
5. This NEW type of warfare is being fought on many fronts, some not militarily;
6. Since Afganistan is land-locked we need the surrounding nations' support to execute our plans; Unfortunately, this means considering the *sensitivities* and political concerns of those nations (much to our dismay);
7. Since you nor I don't receive Top Secret cabinet level briefings, there is no way that we know what's actually going on. Neither does much of the media;
8. Be patient. We'll be at this for years...but we WILL prevail.
We need tens of thousands of personnel in the training pipeline, but have only a few hundred.
We need to make all airline personnel aware of their pending transition to military status as members of the U.S. armed forces material air transport command.
We need all recent aircraft manufacturing employees from the last two decades, to report into their last such place of employment, as a reserve pool of skilled workers.
And that's not all.
Also skipping, for now, the list of ground and sea support logistics requirements which Bush is letting languish as he continues to try and run the Clinton Administration Part III.
It will eventually go one way or the other, of course thousands of needless deaths will occour between here and there. These Arabs must be forced to choose sides completely right now. Or be destroyed with the terrorists. Enough talk, one side of the fence or the other.
For several years before 2000 Rumsfeld was a lobbyist for the star wars industrial interests. Whether he is a true believer or not, it doesn't matter. To get to the pork, raising taxes was not an option, so the plan was to take it from other areas--regular and armoured troops, maybe some closings come into this calculation. Some here may no like this view, but I suggest you reread what Gen. Eisenhower said on the topic of the interrelationship between defense and industry.
IMHO what we need in this war that will take “years” is a large army and more spec ops. We need more intelligence investments too. Afghanistan can't be pacified by pinprick attacks from carriers hundreds of miles away and one or two thousand spec op troops in Uzbekistan. I read stories how Soviet Spec Ops basically won their Afghan War until we introduced stingers and other weapons. The implication was that since the Taleban have no such backing, we can win by spec ops. I don’t believe this wholly. Spetznaz (sp?) worked out of heavily militarized in-country areas. Namely, areas controlled by a regular army.
We need land control to win this war. Bite our lip, but I think we some sort of UN credit, in name at least, to pull this off. Create the new King Zahir govt. Have it declared the legitimate govt of Alghanistan by the UN. There are many countries that are up for this. Then we come in as "peacekeepers," like we did in Korea.
I also note that half of the Taliban army is foreign mercenaries. They are the worst fanatics. And they have no place to go. I think they will fight to the end. Some bombs won’t scare them, bombing and death is part of their mentality. They have no Afghan families, no place to live. A great defect in American propaganda is the failure to keep hammering this home: that Afghanistan is essentially under foreign occupation. I hope that some of the less-than-expected defections of the native Taleban has something to do with threats against them by the Afghan-Arabs, Chechens, etc., which I have read reports about earlier. If so, at some point many of them might go neutral, if not “defect.”
My bet is that we try to take Northern Afghanistan first. Want the spec ops to surprise them? How about jump right into the middle of Mazar and fight outward, leaving the T-ban in the countryside. Then jump into the Panshir Valley with the Brits, Maybe also the Turks, for a move on Kabul. This would involve general army forces to control territory. Calling Gen. Schwartzkopf!
As for other wars, I believe our involvement in Phillipines is starting.
1)Go volunteer for the frontline;
2)Up your dose. What you are taking is not working.
You may be but not the rest of us
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
Sorry. But W. is not showing ANY smarts in this matter.
He should have aligned himself with the Israelis against ALL terrorists from Day One.
By now, the Palis would be history, and we could be fighting (not dropping food) in earnest in Afghanistan.
Bush NEEDS our prayers.
The best way, would be for them to separate themselves from civilians, and at the same time, identify themselves as the enemy. How to achieve this?
Getting them to attack us, at a fortified air field would do it. But how to get them to attack us. They would need supreme confidence in themselves, as well as their fanaticism, to commit to a frontal assault. A few victories, a feeling of momentum, support flowing in from Pakistani Taliban, US support for their self inflated image, a belief in their own propaganda, would help.
Is Gen. Franks setting them up for a crushing defeat like the defeat the Vietnamese suffered at Khe Sanh(another fortified air field).
Schwartzkopf had his left flanking attack, something you'd expect from a calvalry officer. Khe Sanh was an artillery battle, and Franks is an artillery officer.
The Taliban did spend 10 years as guerrillas, but have been fighting conventionally for the last 13 years. They are a poorly armed, poorly trained, though experienced light infantry force. How are they going to fight? Will they first try to fight conventionally? And only run into their caves, after their defeated in a conventional battle. Which should we encourage?
I hope we are setting them up for a big fall. But like you, I'm worried that Franks isn't up to the job, and his plan relies on air power to break the fanatical Taliban's will. Air power alone, has never won a war, and it won't win this one. And I say this as an Air Force Veteran, we can capture the high ground, but we are just a supporting service, for the war winning heros on the ground. Our ground pounders need to get stuck in.
"Let's Roll"
What we do "over there" won't matter unless we rip out the terrorist support nets on the homefront root and branch, stepping on many "moderate" toes.