The reality is that Delta Force and British SAS commandos infiltrated Afghanistan within days of Sept. 11th
-a selection from The Associated Press
Sunday, Oct. 7, 2001; 2:08 p.m. EDT
<<THE SHOOTING has begun. We've seen little, and heard a lot of words since the attacks of Sept. 11, and some commentators have suggested that there have been no American strikes until this past Sunday because President Bush hasn't really known what to do next, against an invisible, perhaps omnipotent enemy.
But listening to the news every hour can be deceptive. In a real military campaign, much of the time, words are issued to mask action. The reality is that Delta Force and British SAS commandos infiltrated Afghanistan within days of Sept. 11 to pinpoint the air strikes that have just begun. The purpose is not to destroy aspirin factories, but to "take out the enemy’s eyes and ears" in preparation for a ground attack. U.S. Army Rangers and 10th Mountain Division troops are ringing the country preparing to roust detachments of Taliban troops from their tunnels.
No doubt the Talibans and their Arab mercenaries are tough. On the other hand, to make Ranger, you have to run a 5:30 mile carrying a 60-lb. pack on your back, followed immediately by a second mile at a 5:50 pace — and be one of the first 50 men to finish the race. Those who qualify get a year's pressure-cooker instruction in weapons, tactics, and hand-to-hand fighting, if they last.
Mountain Division troops can do all that on skis, and live outdoors in any weather for two weeks (or more) without re-supply.
Technology will probably be more important to this conflict than we can now imagine. Satellites and Northern Alliance scouts have probably been mapping the movements of individual donkeys. In short, the experiences of the British and the Soviets in this country may or may not be relevant. This will be an American war.
I'm reminded of the closing of John Keegan's brilliant book Warpaths—Travels of a Military Historian in North America:
There is, I have said, an American mystery, the nature of which I only begin to perceive. If I were obliged to define it, I would say it is the ethos—masculine, pervasive, unrelenting—of work as an end in itself. War is a form of work, and America makes war, however reluctantly, however unwillingly, in a particularly workmanlike way.
Once they have been forced to take up the task of war, Keegan observes, "Americans shoulder the burden with intimidating purpose."
Meanwhile, Osama bin Laden, the Yuppie murderer and drug dealer, seems to have lost a little of his swagger. Trapped in a darkened Afghanistan of his own making, he is no longer declaring that the Americans will not dare come after him, and that the descendants of the Crusaders are soft and impotent. Instead, he is calling on Muslims around the world to come to his assistance. Please. Now....>> |
