What do you suggest we do?
First, we need to stop pretending that there is any immediate, dramatic military move that will achieve our goal. There isn't. If we have to blow up a bunch of military and political targets in Afghanistan just to satisfy public opinion, so be it. We should not pretend that this will solve the problem. It won't.
I don't see invasion as a reasonable option.
We need to focus less on leaders. They are replaceable. Bin Laden has been holed up in Afghanistan. His people roam freely. They move money around the world. They rent cars, set up safe houses. They recruit, train, and deploy. The people who commit suicide are not the leaders. The people doing the real dirty work are still out there, and I'm willing to bet that most of them - the operational leaders, the ones whose names we have not heard on TV - are not in Afghanistan, or for that matter in the Middle East.
We should make a grand show of submission. Loudly pressure Israel to withdraw. Pull high-profile units back from the middle east. Pretend bafflement. Make them think that they are safe, even if it drives our own citizens nuts.
At the same time, piece together the puzzle until we know exactly who is involved, at every level. This is not a job for an army, a navy, or an air force. It will require a combination of detective work, intelligence work, and very private but very ruthless diplomacy, the kind that forces other countries to provide information even when they don't want to. We need to know who the key backers are, in Afghanistan, in Pakistan, in other countries. Who is providing the money, who is knowingly moving it. Who is cooperating, within our borders, within those of our allies, within those of our enemies. Who is providing or organizing the training, the logistic support. There is a system here, a web, and we need to discover where its branches lie, and where it is woven. I'm willing to bet that while the titular leader may be hiding out in Afghanistan, a great deal of the weaving is going on elsewhere. They need communications, they need to travel unobserved, they need to move money. These things are not easy to do in or from Afghanistan, or similar countries.
When we have the whole picture, we move. It could conceivably take months. But when we move, we should move with all the surprise we can muster and with utmost ruthlessness.
We should kill them. Every one of them, if possible. At the same time, or as close to it as can possibly be managed. The cruise missile in the living room, the bullet in the head, the car bomb. Every method we can bring to bear. Use it all, all at once.
We will kill innocents, but we will kill a whole lot fewer of them than we would with most of the other methods being suggested.
The irony is that we may not get the most obvious targets. A Saddam Hussein, an Osama bin Laden, may be unreachable: they know they are targets, and they are under the deepest of cover and protection. If we can roll up and eliminate every contact they have outside their caves, though, they will be left impotent, and we will have accomplished our objective.
Can we do a perfect job of this? Realistically, no. But If we even do a good job, we can win this war, or at least win the upper hand. |
