DH,
More on the life and times of Usama be Caveman. Note that experts are confident that laser-guided, ultra-high tech smart bombs (batteries sold separately) are expected to precisely target and send him and his entire entourage of 2,000 to 20,000 to meet their gangs of virgins (in vaporized form) with surgical precision at the push of a button at our leisure any time we wish, completely destroying his entire cave networks in Tora Bora, outside Kandahar, Oruzgun, and elsewhere simultaneously, yet without disturbing the delicate pristine moon-like Afghan ecology (note, rock/dirt huggers) and endangered animal (i.e., Talibean) habitats.
I can hardly wait.
cnn.com
Larry Goodson: The tunnels of Afghanistan
November 27, 2001 Posted: 5:07 PM EST (2207 GMT)
Larry Goodson
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(CNN) -- Larry Goodson is a professor of international studies at Bentley College in Waltham, Massachusetts, and author of "Afghanistan's Endless War," a book about the 20-plus years of conflict that have ravaged the country. Goodson spoke Tuesday with CNN anchor Bill Hemmer on the search for suspected terrorist leader Osama bin Laden.
HEMMER: We're going to start in the south in Kandahar. We know there's an extensive network there. As we move to the north and to the east, we are going come into the area known as Tora Bora, which is about 35 miles outside of Jalalabad. We also know there's an extensive network there as well.
The irony here, professor, is that the United States, through the CIA, helped build a lot of the cave networks -- and now it's the U.S. military that indeed may try and destroy these.
GOODSON: Well, that's true. A number of these cave complexes, such as the big one at Jawar, were built during the Soviet phase of the Afghan war in the 1980s with the help of U.S. and the Pakistani intelligence services. Also, you've got caves that are kind of constructed out of the Afghan underground aqueduct system, known as the "carduz" or the "canat" system, that has been in place there for some centuries -- a mechanism whereby water is transported underground so that it doesn't evaporate. And a lot of those, especially in the Kandahar area, have been turned into hiding places and cave complexes as well.
HEMMER: The Soviets said that some of the caves were built with "the finest in NATO engineering." Based on what you know about the U.S. military, does the U.S. military have the arsenal to destroy the most extensive and elaborate networks?
GOODSON: Not from the air. A lot of the caves are hidden in sort of very narrow valleys, in places where even smart bombs can't be easily directed. And even if they are, they would only hit at or right around the tunnel entrance. Many of these carry on for hundreds of feet underground, and there's a lot of hidden rooms and so on.
So, what the Soviets had to do was basically explode devices within the caves or within the tunnel complexes, and then send in special operations units to see what was inside. And I suspect that we'll see that sort of operation.
In fact, I think we've already had those sorts of operations under way, although not in the headlines, not in the camera's glare, by special operations units on the ground in Afghanistan.
HEMMER: You said Osama bin Laden may have brought in construction engineers from Saudi Arabia ... who helped build some of the latest caves that we're seeing right now. Given that fact and given that reality, how extensive is U.S. military's knowledge of the various underground networks?
GOODSON: Well, he definitely brought in construction equipment and construction engineers to help him build his above-the-ground complex or complexes, especially in the Jalalabad area. I was merely speculating that perhaps they also assisted in the underground work as well.
I think our knowledge is fairly extensive about the type of caves, and also about certain of the complexes that we helped to build. But no one really knows all of the caves in Afghanistan. This is, probably with the exception maybe of Nepal, the most rugged country in the world. And the mountains there are pockmarked with cave and tunnel complexes.
For example, there has a lot of discussion about bin Laden hiding in the Tora Bora complex near Jalalabad. I have thought for a long time that he would more likely be hiding in Oruzgan or the rugged area to the northeast of Kandahar, still in Taliban-controlled territory but extremely remote.
HEMMER: Why do you believe that?
GOODSON: He has complexes there he has used in the past, when we wanted to target him for past attacks such as the embassy attacks in east Africa, or the attack on the USS Cole in Yemen. He's gone there before, and it's extremely remote. It's less well known and harder to find than the complexes around Jalalabad, where most of the people in Jalalabad are fully aware of these complexes and where they are.
HEMMER: It's my understanding that from some of these cave networks, Osama bin Laden could operate completely underground, moving from network to network, without ever going above ground. Is that true?
GOODSON: Absolutely -- especially those constructed out of the aqueduct system I talked about earlier, since that is meant to be a sort of underground river designed to move water from one place to another. These go on for thousands and thousands of feet. So it would be quite possible.
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Oh, just one other thing botherin' me here..... Usama be Caveman gotta degree in civil engineering, gotta 'bout a billion dollars, and comes from a wealthy Saudi construction family....... and he seems to not be exactly terrified of death:
ireland.com
You don't suppose he might have been spending some of the last 12 years he's been in Moonville busily building more extensive and heavily reinforced and fortified underground cave networks, do you? Dude's got a talent for patient, persistent planning, remember? Likes to take years to meticulously plan things. Wonder what he started planning 3 or 4 or 5 years ago that might be approaching fruition right about now?
Jes' wonderin'.......
T |
