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Politics : America Under Siege: The End of Innocence -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: George Papadopoulos who wrote (878)	9/12/2001 10:06:59 PM
From: Qone0	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 27666

FYI, Northern Alliance is dead, they got Massoud on Sunday. They posed as TV crew interviewing him and they blew themselves up taking Massoud with them. Northern Alliance without Massoud is like the local Boy Scouts. A devastating military attack will likely not harm them. I am assuming you mean a bombing attack, they will likely pass their time in bunkers in the mountains. It will surely be devastating but it will hit the already bombed out infrastructure there after years of civil war. I think they are hoping for such action because they believe it will unleash the holy war they always wanted to fight, who knows, they are quite wackos! Ground invasion will take a very long time to prepare and it may become another Vietnam since they 'll be doing what they are good at, guerilla attacks from the mountains...So, difficult call. Huh? Let me get this right. The northern alliance leader is killed and they become local boy scouts. However the taliban and bin Laden are a force that can not be defeated. LMAO. you are living in your own dream world. If the U.S. sets out to get bin laden they will get him. So using your logic bin ladens group will be local boy scouts after that happens?

To: George Papadopoulos who wrote (878)	9/12/2001 10:27:07 PM
From: Mark L.	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 27666

Thank you for your well-considered response to my points. I am hardly an expert on Afghanistan, but it did not appear to me that the attack around Kabul that I saw on CNN was the work of Boy Scouts, as you suggested. Even if you're right, and the Northern Alliance is not capable of helping us unseat the Taliban, I still think an ultimatum would be a wise decision. And, no, I wasn't suggesting a ground war. But I think a simple statement would be effective: something like "If the Taliban government does not comply with our request, it would be foolish for any Afghani to remain in a city with a population over 10,000 or to be anywhere near a military installation." This would be de-stabilizing for as long as we were willing to enforce it. This is intended to be a novel form of a blockade; I think it would ultimately prove effective. And it would certainly be a hell of a deterrent to other regimes which harbor terrorists. Yes, the Afghanis could take to the hills, but how long would a whole country want to do that? Incidentally I agree with you about a long-term commitment to fighting terrorism. We're not even sure that Bin Laden was responsible for the World Trade Center. But we do know that he was responsible for Kenya, and that the Taliban regime ignored our extradition requests for years. By declaring a war on terrorism, we would be holding the Taliban regime responsible for their years of complicity. And we'd be giving them an opportunity to back up their new words with actions (by turning over Bin Laden). I bear no ill will toward Afghanis or even toward the Taliban as long as they realize that there is a new world reality and that the timetable for complying with our previous extradition requests is now down to a few days.