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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: FaultLine who wrote (1540)	9/27/2001 2:30:16 PM
From: E	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

Thanks, FaultL. Here is a piece that might interest you from the FT of Sept 26. Title, "How the west should fight its war." COMMENT & ANALYSIS: How the west should fight its war: The US must establish specific military and law enforcement objectives to preserve a united front against terror: Financial Times; Sep 26, 2001 By JAMES RUBIN The Bush administration has now successfully established a global coalition against terrorism. The larger challenge ahead will be to sustain that coalition as military action begins in Afghanistan, especially if overthrowing the Taliban becomes America's political objective. The administration is right in its decision to present evidence that the bin Laden organisation was indeed responsible for the September 11 attacks. That presentation should be done publicly, perhaps through the United Nations, as well as in private discussions with key governments where critical intelligence information can be shared. It is not reasonable to expect US intelligence to prove that a direct order was issued by the Al-Qaeda leadership in Afghanistan. Rather, the goal should be to provide a compelling case - using data from all sources that can be safely declassified - that the hijackers were linked to the bin Laden organisation and received training and funding from their operatives. The next step is to establish concrete military and law enforcement objectives. On the law enforcement side, the US should expect all countries where bin Laden agents are located, or affiliated groups such as Egyptian Islamic Jihad operate, to take immediate steps - or allow the US to take steps - to destroy those cells. Achieving this goal will require unprecedented co-operation from countries in Europe, the Middle East and Asia. Failure to co-operate should be seen as a hostile act with severe consequences. The initial military objective for the US-led response should be the destruction of all known bin Laden bases of operation inside Afghanistan. There are dozens of such targets, including training camps, barracks, recruiting centres and weapons depots. These targets should be struck first from the air and then backed up by special forces on the ground. The larger political objective should be to overthrow the Taliban regime. Here, the goal must be prevention not retribution. We must prevent Afghanistan from ever again providing a base for global terror. If successful, this step will also serve as a powerful deterrent against any other government allowing international terror to operate from its soil. Terrorism aside, the Taliban has done great damage to the people of Afghanistan and its demise would be seen as liberation by most Afghans. The oppressive regime has permitted outside forces to jeopardise the security and independence of the Afghan people. Even before the September 11 attacks, the Taliban had undertaken one of the most brutal campaigns against human rights in the world, defying other Muslim governments and the rest of the world in the process. The US and its coalition partners should be prepared to destroy a series of targets that have helped the Taliban hold power. That means striking garrisons, equipment, weapons dumps, transport pools and its small air force. Such strikes would demoralise the Taliban and embolden the Northern Alliance now fighting them. In addition to the Northern Alliance, it is crucial to work with other opposition groups, some of whom may be in exile. There is substantial evidence that many of the Pashtun tribe in the south, where the Taliban now reigns, would quickly change sides if they could. Pashtun leaders must be quickly identified to join the fight. We cannot expect the resulting government to be perfect, but we can expect that it will never again allow its territory to be used to train terrorists or as a safe haven for the leaders of international terrorist organisations. Whether through an interim UN administration, a group of tribal leaders, or even the establishment of an all-party government under the auspices of exiled King Zahir Shah, it is hard to imagine the resulting leadership causing more damage to world order than the current one. To help this broader coalition to succeed, the US should be prepared to arm and train local fighters as well as to use its aircraft in support of their cause. And this time, the US and its allies must stay the course after the formation of a new government in order to help it provide basic goods and services for its people. If this course is taken, the Bush administration will surely heed the lessons of the Soviet failure in Afghanistan. It should not seek to occupy the country but limit its ground activities to special forces operations directed at the Taliban and bin Laden, while leaving the battle on the ground to the Afghans themselves. And, unlike during the Soviet occupation where Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and the CIA were providing critical military supplies to the resistance, the Taliban will have no outside support. To ensure that the Taliban remains an outcast of the Muslim world - as it now is - the coalition must take enormous care to minimise civilian casualties. Moreover, it should establish safe areas for the hundreds of thousand of refugees who may flee and for displaced persons inside Afghanistan that may be at risk. This is vital if Washington is to make clear to the Afghan people that they are not the enemy. To bolster this point, the world must take unprecedented steps to provide basic humanitarian supplies to those innocent Afghans caught up in the legitimate effort to liberate their country from Taliban rule. This humanitarian task could be accomplished in a co-ordinated effort by several countries - particularly Muslim countries - not wanting to participate in direct military action. The longer-term struggle against global terror will be an even more complicated affair. There will be differing viewpoints around the world as to what we should demand from previous state sponsors of international terror not yet connected to the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, such as Iraq, Iran, and Syria. Maintaining a coalition will depend on fine distinctions between domestic terrorist groups whose tactics we condemn and terrorist groups with international reach that we must fight to destroy. The more united we are in our response against the bin Laden organisation and its sponsors in Afghanistan, the easier it will be to deal with the longer-term struggle in the years ahead. globalarchive.ft.com