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Afghanistan Is Like Nothing You've Ever Seen
DaHuNt writes: "A well written article about Afghan experiences by the Soviets... Food for thought... 'When Igor Lisinenko entered what he was told was an Afghan rebel base in 1982, he wasn't sure what to expect. It was, after all, his first assignment...'" Very good article. Too bad we aren't learning from the British and Soviet mistakes.
that the only option is a massive Desert Storm type of invasion? What I hear military people talking about is using special ops people for small targeted operations. At most we would have a division, the 82nd probably, sieze a small easily secured area to use as, in effect, a large firebase. Or possibly use the Northern Alliance areas. Anyone who thinks we are going to try and conquer Afghanistan is an idiot.
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The implications of a war on Afghanistan are, as this article raises, quite scary. Even if, in a sustained bombing campaign or a land war victory, we "win", what next?
Afghanistan will need a government to replace the Taliban... The Afghanis will doubtless harbor a deep hatred for Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and others who might aid us in such a war. This could easily lead to a much larger scope Middle East conflict.
It's just amazing to me how little perspective the average American has in situations like this (even our leaders), and how short and selective our memories are.
The Russians remind us that a war in Afghanistan is largely unwinnable by US standards. Our own history in Vietnam should clue us in as well. Will we never learn?
"Too bad we aren't learning from the British and Soviet mistakes."
How do we know that the United States military isn't learning from British and Soviet mistakes?
The British attempted to take Afghanistan over 100 years ago, and you can not compare an army before aviation, remote sensing and mechnization to a modern army.
Same goes for the Soviets. The Soviets were an army of conscripts and as Afghanistan, Iraq and Vietnam show you, a conscript army isn't the same as a volunteer army. Also, the Soviets hadn't fought since WW2 or 1959-60 against the Chinese, albeit in Bridgade sized clashes. And like the Americans in Vietnam, an army that rusty will have problems.
Micheal should look to the SAS's exploits in Iraq in '91 and the Desert Rats in '40-'41 for examples of what a small cadre of highly trained and motivated fighters can do againt increadable odds. Or even look at Blackhawk Down for an indication of what Rangers and Delta Force can accomplish in a poorly planned mission. I'm sure that all the lessons learned in Afghanistan in the 80s by Delta Force and CIA as well as those lessons learned in Iraq, Somalia, Bosnia and Sierra Leone by the Rangers, Delta, SAS, Force Recon and SEALs will be taken to heart.
Back when Desert Storm was still Desert Storm, all you heard were bags o' wind talking about how the United States Military was a paper tiger and couldn't invade Iraq because Iran couldn't invade Iraq in 8 years of fighting. Then when it turned into Desert Storm, they told us how many thousands of men would die because the M-1 used too much gas and was too complicated to use or because it was designed for Europe. Same thing is going on now, people are declaring the United States and United Kingdom beaten before they've had a chance to fire a shot back in anger. It's FUD.
All those soldiers are volunteers, give them a chance to prove themselves or be beaten.
This email has been making the rounds, and happened to meander my way:
Dear Colleagues,
As we reflect upon the tragic events of this week and an appropriate
"response," I thought you might like to see this letter from my college
roommate, Tamim Ansary, who grew up in Afghanistan. I think he offers an
interesting perspective on Bin Laden, the Taliban, and Afghanistan.
Toivo Kallas
Department of Biology & Microbiology
Date: Thu, 13 Sep 2001 10:14:27 -0700
Dear Friends,
Yesterday I heard a lot of talk about "bombing Afghanistan back to the
Stone Age." Ronn Owens, on KGO Talk Radio allowed that this would mean
killing innocent people, people who had nothing to do with this atrocity,
but "we're at war, we have to accept collateral damage," and he asked,
"What else can we do? What is your suggestion?" Minutes later I heard a
TV pundit discussing whether we "have the belly to do what must be done."
And I thought about these issues especially hard because I am from
Afghanistan, and even though I've lived here for 35 years I've never lost
track of what's been going on over there. So I want to share a few
thoughts with anyone who will listen.
I speak as one who hates the Taliban and Osama Bin Laden. There is no
doubt in my mind that these people were responsible for the atrocity in
New York. I fervently wish to see those monsters punished.
But the Taliban and Ben Laden are not Afghanistan. They're not even the
government of Afghanistan. The Taliban are a cult of ignorant psychotics
who captured Afghanistan in 1997 and have been holding the country in
bondage ever since. Bin Laden is a political criminal with a master
plan. When you think Taliban, think Nazis. When you think Bin Laden,
think Hitler. And when you think "the people of Afghanistan" think "the
Jews in the concentration camps." It's not only that the Afghan people
had nothing to do with this atrocity. They were the first victims of the
perpetrators. They would love for someone to eliminate the Taliban and
clear out the rats nest of international thugs holed up in their country.
I guarantee it.
Some say, if that's the case, why don't the Afghans rise up and overthrow
the Taliban themselves? The answer is, they're starved, exhausted,
damaged, and incapacitated. A few years ago, the United Nations
estimated that there are 500,000 disabled orphans in Afghanistan--a
country with no economy, no food. Millions of Afghans are widows of the
approximately two million men killed during the war with the
Soviets. And the Taliban has been executing these women for being women
and have buried some of their opponents alive in mass graves. The soil
of Afghanistan is littered with land mines and almost all the farms have
been destroyed . The Afghan people have tried to overthrow the Taliban.
They haven't been able to.
We come now to the question of bombing Afghanistan back to the Stone Age.
Trouble with that scheme is, it's already been done. The Soviets took
care of it . Make the Afghans suffer? They're already suffering. Level
their houses? Done. Turn their schools into piles of rubble?
Done. Eradicate their hospitals? Done. Destroy their
infrastructure? There is no infrastructure. Cut them off from medicine
and health care? Too late. Someone already did all that.
New bombs would only land in the rubble of earlier bombs. Would they at
least get the Taliban? Not likely. In today's Afghanistan, only the
Taliban eat, only they have the means to move around. They'd slip away
and hide. (They have already, I hear.) Maybe the bombs would get some of
those disabled orphans, they don't move too fast, they don't even have
wheelchairs. But flying over Kabul and dropping bombs wouldn't really be
a strike against the criminals who did this horrific thing. Actually it
would be making common cause with the Taliban--by raping once again the
people they've been raping all this time
So what else can be done, then? Let me now speak with true fear and
trembling. The only way to get Bin Laden is to go in there with ground
troops. I think that when people speak of "having the belly to do what
needs to be done" many of them are thinking in terms of having the belly
to kill as many as needed. They are thinking about overcoming moral
qualms about killing innocent people. But it's the belly to die not kill
that's actually on the table. Americans will die in a land war to get
Bin Laden. And not just because some Americans would die fighting their
way through Afghanistan to Bin Laden's hideout. It's much bigger than
that, folks. To get any troops to Afghanistan, we'd have to go through
Pakistan. Would they let us? Not likely. The conquest of Pakistan would
have to be first. Will other Muslim nations just stand by? You see where
I'm going. The invasion approach is a flirtation with global war between
Islam and the West.
And that is Bin Laden's program. That's exactly what he wants and why he
did this thing. Read his speeches and statements. It's all right
there. AT the moment, of course, "Islam" as such does not exist. There
are Muslims and there are Muslim countries, but no such political entity
as Islam. Bin Laden believes that if he can get a war started, he can
constitute this entity and he'd be running it. He really believes Islam
would beat the west. It might seem ridiculous, but he figures if he can
polarize the world into Islam and the West, he's got a billion
soldiers. If the West wreaks a holocaust in Muslim lands, that's a
billion people with nothing left to lose, even better from Bin Laden's
point of view. He's probably wrong about winning, in the end the west
would probably overcome--whatever that would mean in such a war; but the
war would last for years and millions would die, not just theirs but
ours. Who has the belly for that? Bin Laden yes, but anyone else?
I don't have a solution. But I do believe that suffering and poverty are
the soil in which terrorism grows. Bin Laden and his cohorts want to bait
us into creating more such soil, so they and their kind can flourish. We
can't let him do that. That's my humble opinion.
Tamim Ansary
I would far, far, prefer Indian culture to American, and that has nothing to do with economics.
Then move; it really is that simple.