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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group
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To: Brumar89 who wrote (57466)11/19/2002 1:16:41 AM
From: Dayuhan  Read Replies (1) of 281500
 
I wrote:

We should always remember, when discussing military response, the time-honored terrorist progression. The terrorists attack, expecting and intending to generate a military response. They then disperse their assets among a civilian population, ensuring that the military response will involve collateral damage. They then use that collateral damage to recruit more terrorists and to stir up world opinion against the attacking power. They repeat the process until the patience of the attacking power is worn down.

You wrote:

This line of reasoning could be used to support a policy of never retaliating against terror attacks. I'm sure that's not what you're supporting though.

It couldn’t be used that way very effectively. It is not meant to suggest that retaliation is inappropriate, only that we must plan our retaliation to serve our purposes and not those of our enemies. We know what our enemies want us to do. They want us to get angry and frustrated and lash out with massive force at a small mobile target concealed within a civilian population. This is retaliation that allows them to turn our own force back against us. We know this trap too well, there’s no reason to walk into it.

I think we were right to demand the Afghan government hand over the leadership of Al Qaida and use military force against them when they refused. Even though there was some unintentional collateral damage.

I agree. The terrorists broke a primary rule of guerilla warfare by congregating and taking open control of a vulnerable area. They presented us with a target of opportunity that could be attacked with very limited collateral damage and very limited opportunity for propaganda exploitation. We’d have been foolish not to take that one.

I did not, fairly obviously, oppose the Afghan operation, though I did think it important that US forces maintain the lowest possible profile during the occupation/reconstruction phase, which should be conducted as much as possible by allies.
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