US unlikely to launch direct military attack

Hindustan Times ^ | 9/26/01 | AFP

[Rome2000]

US unlikely to launch direct military attack
AFP
Washington, September 26

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With its bombers and warships within striking distance of Afghanistan, the United States has begun to play down expectations of a major military campaign amid concerns about the impact on regional stability.

Instead, despite heated rhetoric after the September 11 terror attacks on New York and Washington, the US administration appears to have settled on the short-term goal of getting suspected terrorist mastermind Osama bin Laden and fomenting internal opposition to Afghanistan's Taliban rulers.

"It is, by its very nature, something that cannot be dealt with by some sort of massive attack or invasion," US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said. "It is a much more subtle, nuanced, difficult, shadowy set of problems."

President George W Bush raised prospects of us strike against Afghanistan in a speech to Congress last week that vowed that if Osama bin Laden and his associates were not handed over, the Taliban would "share in their fate."

But yesterday, Bush suggested Washington would look to Taliban opponents rather than conventional military intervention to accomplish that.

Removing the Taliban by military force would leave Washington saddled with the responsibility for a country devastated by two decades of war, and could have a destabilising impact on neighbouring Pakistan.

With Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi at his side, Bush stressed the importance of maintaining the stability of nuclear-armed Pakistan.

"Now, the mission is to root out terrorists, to find them and bring them to justice. Or, as I explained to the Prime Minister in western terms, to smoke them out of their caves, to get them running, so we can get them," Bush said.

"And the best way to do that and one way to do that is to ask for the cooperation of citizens within Afghanistan who may be tired of having the Taliban in place or tired of having Osama bin Laden, people from foreign soils, in their own land willing to finance this repressive government."

White House spokesman Ari Fleischer, however, said US aim was not "to replace one regime with another regime."

At the Pentagon, Rumsfeld likened the US strategy to a billiard game with balls careening all over the table.

"You don't know what'll do it, but the end result, we could hope, would be a situation where the Al Qaeda is heaved out and the people in Taliban who... harbour terrorists... lose, and lose seriously," he said.

Inside the country, the situation was a "very mixed picture" with divisions within the Taliban and disaffection among the Afghan population, many of them hungry or fleeing for the border to escape its harsh rule.

Rumsfeld has suggested that the Northern Alliance, a loose coalition of minority ethnic groups fighting the Taliban, could be "a lot of help" to the US but neither he nor other administration officials have said whether they will support them with arms or other supplies.

[a_witness]

I sincerely hope for the sake of the USA and our President that this article is a smokescreen designed to throw the enemy off balance.

I second that. Otherwise we may as well have Hillary Clinton as President. Just what does it take for an American President to actually go to war to defend American citizens ?

[AGAviator]

I sincerely hope for the sake of the USA and our President that this article is a smokescreen designed to throw the enemy off balance.

What you're seeing is the confusion caused by a lack of credible information, and a crash course in learning about an extremely turbulent region with the thought that American lives and political goals can be seriously harmed by the wrong steps.

There is not a single CIA case officer or US military officer who is familiar with the country, and there has not been since 1989 when the Soviets withdrew.

Bush gets what little information he has from foreign policy elites, who are a small clique which jets all over the world talking to fellow elitists in other countries. He's got a lot of learning to do, and he needs to make the right decisions.

[sinkspur]

Another week with closed borders and you'll have a million dead afghans. Who's in a rush? Let them eat each other.

Exactly. These mooks don't know what is going to happen.

A couple of weeks of living in abject fear wears on a body.

[Balding_Eagle]

I like your choice of names. If you are indeed a new member only since Sunday, welcome aboard!

[Dan Day]

There is not a single CIA case officer or US military officer who is familiar with the country, and there has not been since 1989 when the Soviets withdrew.

And you know this.... how?

[ASA Vet]

Then I think you'l like this

[Deb]

You know nothing.

[ConsistentLibertarian]

It's hard to go up from 90%. Those numbers are going to fall no matter what. The question is how far and how fast. You can win an election in a landslide with 60% of the popular vote. Heck, you can with with less than 50% if it's distributed well between states.

[Madame Dufarge]

Yes.

This is going to be a war with a new paradigm.

[AGAviator]

People in the US government have admitted this to reporters. There was a thread on it a couple days ago.

[McGavin999]

This is starting to be fun. Everyone is guessing.....everyone! The media can't figure it out, our enemies can't figure it out, our friends can't figure it out. When "it" happens, whatever "it" is, it's going to be a surprise and it's going to be BIG!

[ASA Vet]

A couple of weeks of living in abject fear wears on a body

True, but I really don't care if they have fear or not, I just want them dead.

[SunStar]

When the right thing coincides so completely with political self-interest, why would they do the wrong thing?

He won't do the wrong thing. Look at what his father did to Iraq, and they invaded another Arab nation, not us.

Also, remember Blair's statement yesterday? It sounded like the last demand to the Taliban to meet the five demands Bush layed out.

IMHO, The war will start soon, and we will all be very proud of our President and our nation. Sit tight. It's coming.

[CaptSkip]

This is BS. I currently have six nations outlined on my world map, that I consider to be at risk of being close to WAY beyond third world status...more like STONE-AGE...two in Africa...four in the Middle-East...Afgan is a given.

What are your choices of real estate to be dumping?

[mystery-ak]

This is a covert war....Im sure we are there now.
The adminstration has stated this time and again...we will know nothing(as it should be)
Pray for our brave military.

[BigOrra]

There's no one to fight against. No one who doesn't also have nukes.

Clinton would have had some heads rolling by now.

Not that it's a good thing, but the nuclear missiles Pakistan does have can't go far enough to hit Europe or the United States. They're the least stable and at last count were at least saying the right things. And there's no more certain way to get your country turned to radioactive grit than to hurl a missile at anybody else, since other countries that have them wouldn't likely give another chance to fire one off before lobbing a couple dozen of their own.

Clinton rolled numerous heads when he was in office, but it didn't seem to do a damn thing to stop civil unrest in the countries attacked and except for Slobodan Milosevic, every leader he attacked while in office is still in power. Those couple of missiles he lobbed into the middle of nowhere to hit the terrorist camps were nothing more than a day at the office for people who have been at war for 20+ years. If shooting off some Cruise missiles and then walking away is how you get results, why is bin Laden still out running around from cave to cave? Yep, that Billybob Clinton sure was effective in stopping the proliferation of terrorism in its tracks. And as for the remainder of your attacks on Bush, can you think of anything else that could have been said? On the anniversary of the embassy bombings, Clinton said, "We have increased pressure on the Taliban in Afghanistan to deliver suspects in the embassy bombings." (source) That sounds a whole lot different than what Bush said, eh? And when exactly was it that Hillbilly Clinton made all those Taleban heads roll?

[SunStar]

Bush is an idiot, does he even know what Email is? Too busy off boozing and avoiding his committment to the national guard. Too stupid not to have the foresight that this standstill was the logical conclusion of all his warmongering bravado. And now the world laughs at us.

You're the idiot, and we will all be laughing at you when the war begins.

Clinton would have had some heads rolling by now.

Yeah, heads of people working to produce aspirin for a Saudi company... Clinton flew by the seat of his pants. And, he neglected to fulfill his promise to the American people that he would bring Usama bin Laden to justice. Our country had a wild, reckless hack at the wheel for the last eight years. That's the true legacy of your hero, Bill Clinton.

Bush doesn't understand the concept of the individual. He doesn't understand human psychology.

Uh huh... You should really lay off the bong, buddy.

[mathurine]

I suppose what will happen will be along these lines: the US-led coalition forces with substantial moral support from the former soviet republics will in fact both bomb and invade Afghanistan seizing some airfields and supporting small ground forces with incredibly massive firepower the likes of which, when focussed with better fire control systems than most can imagine, will prevail. This will not really be be a massive campaign, but the upshot will be punishing to bin Laden's supporters in encampments there-- most of whom are not Arabs in any case, which may slighltly mitigate the reaction in the Middle East. The effect of it won't be sufficiently cataclysmic to end all terrorism forever mounted in the name of Islamic extremism, but it is going to put a lot of those fellows in the ground permanently and set the movement back some several years. The Taliban is toast. They have no more chance of coming out of this as a viable movement than a fart in a whirlwind. They do not have popular support in Afghanistant in the first place, are too big for their baggy britches in the second, and simply have decided to put their pitiful presence up against the entire modern world on the supposition that God is on their side. He, she or it probably is not, otherwise worship would be ridiculous.

[Rome2000]

Obviously these guys haven't got the message to run for the hills.

Haven't seen this since Carter.

I hope they pay a bigger price than the Iranians did.