Then we went in with a small mixed force and did everything they said we couldn't.
Next the experts told us how the people would never support us, that winter would be disastrous and how we were going to get bogged down in a long drawn out war like the Russians had...Vietnam all over again.
Same folks were spouting almost the same BS about going into Iraq. Iraq wasn't going to be like Afghanistan, Saddam was going to use his WMD's and thousands of our troops would die, etc.
Everyone last one of those generals, admirals, colonels and other experts were making their proclamations based on out-dated tactics and thinking. Just like the huge Army it was going to take in Afghanistan...and instead it took a few thousand troops, some on horseback.
We didn't have enough people in Afghanistan. We could have killed a lot more in Tora Bora if there had been a US BDE in country.
We had the airframes and time to deploy them Oct-Dec 2001
Rumsfeld nixed it
We fought a lot of those guys who got away in ANACONDA a few months later
We're still fighting them
And winning, a bit at a time
The ground troop stregnth in Afghanistan has gone up considerably since those halcyon days of "SOF won the war"
They did, but when the Northern Alliance troops stacked arms at Tora Bora and refused to press the attack there wasn't anything the SOF guys could do about it.
That's when we needed American troops.
There's twice as much infantry on the ground there now as there was during ANACONDA
Not a shining example of "War is different now"
Trust me, it isn't
I've oddly enough in my career worked for both Gen (then COL Clark) and Gen Zinni (CINCENT)
Clark I would not endorse. Everything Shelton said about him is true. He did not have a good reputation for taking care of his people.
Zinni, on the other hand, is perhaps the finest general officer I have served under. The people who malign his character here are fools
I wish he would not speak out, but as a current participant in OIF and a former participant in OEF I'm interested in his opinion. I know it's an informed and considered opinion.
I suspect he was split on the war 40/60.
I myself considered the strategy of it a 60/40 proposition. Worth doing on the whole, but a lot of short term down sides. We're winning over there, but the military is carrying the load and we're winning in spite of Rumsfeld and his policys not because of them
. I'll vote for Bush again, no choice at all there. But I'd feel a lot better if we got a new team at DOD
All the best
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