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

To: unclewest who wrote (8504)	11/2/2001 4:18:29 AM
From: jjkirk	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

Greetings! Unk, My first impulse was to reach into my bag of "Voltaire"isms and respond: "You may be right"....But, at the risk of proving the adage to the effect that: "He is succinct who knows his subject." The implication being that long answers....you get it! (Not to bore everyone, I am putting in detail for the civilians in the group...I'm not talkin' down to you, Unk.) I really enjoy a good discussion of something we both know a lot about. I hope it is within the scope of the thread and entertaining if not educational. Let me get this out of the way..."straight-leg infantry" is no term of disrespect in my book...only an indication of 2.5 mph infantry that fight and survive with a minimal of logistic support...they are rare indeed if not extinct. Also, this is not an internecine Marine vs Army discussion...my hometown is Lawton, OK, the home of Ft Sill...the whole town lives and breaths Army and Field Arty...May those caissons keep rollin' along...my younger son went thru boot camp there...many of my Lawton HS classmates are Army...I am a product of 33 years, Marine private to colonel, who profited much from my education at the Army Engineer Career Course at Ft Belvoir, the JFK Center for Special Warfare Counter-Guerrilla Operations Course at Ft Bragg, and a tank and automotive maintenance short course at Ft Knox...all this to say I have no bone to pick with you, Unk, and I have some appreciation for US Army organization, tactics and techniques, communications and equipment. As an Marine combat engineer, I supported what we, sometimes with pride, sometimes with tongue in cheek, referred to as "the glory of the Corps"...the infantry. Whether engineer or infantry, pilot or air controller, tanker or artilleryman, maintainer or medicine man, we were a team that won wars, but not without fully supporting the infantry...the whole purpose of everyone in the Corps is get that infantryman on the ground, keep him alive, and support and sustain him until he killed the enemy...This is no less true in the US Army. In the Corps, we train to make every Marine an infantryman, but that doesn't mean we are all equally proficient at closing with and killing the enemy. I have the greatest respect for the infantry, Army and Marine. There are special breeds, set aside for tasks requiring special courage, honor, strength and skill...paratroopers are among these special breeds, and I salute you for your service, Unk. I submit for your consideration...In our argument we are like two blind men describing an elephant...not to suggest that either of us is blind...only perhaps to the other's point of view...I am at the front of the elephant telling you that an elephant is like a hog, only with a bigger shout...while you are at the tail explaining that the elephant is slim like a snake, only with hair... Perchance that in explaining how an Army Brigade could swoop down in Afgani territory, you have the tactician's view of what should happen?...what others have done in the past?... what is doable if we only work hard enough?...what is necesssary if we are to get the job done?...All required and admirable qualities if we are to ever get our forces into position to close with and kill the enemy... I submit that I too am taken with the need for immediate action...unfortunately, I am a product of the military "up or out" syndrome...I could not stay a company commander forever...I tried...I had four of them...or, even a combat engineer battalion commander forever...I only had one...no, the Peter Principal lives and I was promoted up the line seeking that level to which my incompetence would become clear...In the furtherance of that goal, I was sent to many schools, taught how to determine the probable from the possible...I was posted to Marine Command Pacific in Hawaii, and Marine Corps Headquarters in Washington, and Marine Command Atlantic in Norfolk...all lofty places where we argued and planned what should be, if we were to keep our string of winnings in tact...and faced the reality of what our civilian handlers, the administration and the congress and the American people, would provide...As you know, Unk, we often got a snout and a snake when we needed the whole elephant. The upshot of all this paripatetic behavior? I became a, er,....no, not a tactician...no, not a Patton or a Puller...no, I was told that I had to deal in the realm of physical possibilities...of political realities...of geography and weather...of available supplies and equipment...of lead times...of 3 to 5 year procurement plans for ammunition and spare parts and airplanes and tanks and guns and butter and airlift and sealift and load plans and cycle times and how long it takes to fly in a helicopter 800 miles...about three lifetimes is the answer to that last one...about planning and sustaining the glory of the Corps with bullets, beans and bandaids once they are committed to God knows where...well, no Sir, Unclewest, I said, shuffling my feet...I became a, a, a logistician...(whimper, sniff...) A WHAT!, he roared...You are NOT a TACTICIAN?!...nuh', no Sir...I'm not a tactician...I don't know HOW it happened , Sir...I WAS one when I was younger...I had a flat stomach and ran 6 miles every day before sunup and 9 miles at noon and walked 3 miles both ways uphill through hip-deep snow to school...I was a good tactician... (Like the narrator at a golf match, the moderator quietly breathes...) The unitiated among us may question what, pray tell, is this LOGISTICIAN and how and why should he be able to even sit in the same room, let alone speak in the presence of a TACTICIAN ??? Unk and all who are still awake... For an answer to that question, I will close with someone more succinct than I...jj LOGISTICIANS "Logisticians are a sad, embittered race of men, very much in demand in war, who sink resentfully into obscurity in peace. They deal only with the facts but must work for men who merchant in theories. They emerge in war because war is very much fact. They disappear in peace because, in peace, war is mostly theory. The people who merchant in theories, who employ logisticians in war and ignore them in peace, are Generals. Logisticians hate Generals. "Generals are a happily blessed race who radiate confidence and power. They feed on ambrosia and drink only nectar. In peace they stride confidently and can invade a world simply by sweeping their hands grandly over a map pointing their fingers decisively up terrain corridors, blocking defiles and obstacles with the sides of their hands. In war they must stride more slowly because each General has a logistician riding on his back --- and he knows that at any moment, the logistician may lean forward and whisper, "No, you can’t do that." Generals fear logisticians in war, and in peace, Generals try to forget logisticians." "Romping along besides Generals are strategists and tacticians. Logisticians despise strategists and tacticians. Strategists and tacticians do not know about logisticians until they grow up to be generals --- which they usually do." "Sometimes a logistician gets to be a general. In such a case, he must associate with Generals whom he hates. He has a retinue of strategists and tacticians whom he despises. And on his back is a logistician whom he fears. This is why logisticians who get stars also get ulcers and cannot eat their ambrosia." Lt. Gen. W.W. Vaughan USA (Before the 29th Annual Convention of the American Logistical Assn.)

To: unclewest who wrote (8504)	11/26/2001 12:04:38 AM
From: jjkirk	Respond to of 281500

Marines have landed! U.S. Troops Land in Kandahar BANGI, Afghanistan (AP) - In a decisive move to strike at the last Taliban stronghold, hundreds of U.S. Marines landed by helicopter early Monday near the southern Afghan city of Kandahar, a senior U.S. official said. As many as 1,000 troops could be on the ground there within days. The deployment of the first large U.S. ground expeditionary force comes a day after the Taliban's last northern garrison, Kunduz, fell to troops of the northern alliance, and a bloody, chaotic jailhouse uprising by some of the foreign fighters captured in that siege. Sending in the Marines marks a perilous new phase of a conflict that until now has been focused on U.S. airstrikes backing up the opposition northern alliance, plus limited ground missions by several hundred American special forces fanned out in small units across Afghanistan. Kandahar, the Taliban's home base and spiritual home, has come under fierce bombardment since the conflict began Oct. 7, and the Taliban have vowed to fight to the death rather than abandon the city. In the last three weeks, they have lost their grip on three-quarters of Afghanistan, plus the capital, Kabul. Most of the top Taliban leadership is believed to be holed up in and around the city. Efforts by tribal leaders over the past 10 days to negotiate a handover of the city failed to yield results. Abdul Jabbar, an anti-Taliban Afghan tribal official in Pakistan, said his colleagues in Kandahar confirmed that U.S. troops were on the ground there. The Marines, numbering in the ``low hundreds,'' were to be followed by several hundred more from Navy ships in the Arabian Sea, the U.S. official said in Washington, on condition of anonymity. The Marines landed by helicopter southwest of Kandahar, the official said. The fall of Kunduz, which came two days before talks were to begin in Germany on forming a broad-based government, leaves the Islamic militia with only a small share of Afghanistan still under its control, mostly around Kandahar. Thousands of Taliban troops as well as Arab, Chechen, Pakistani and other foreign fighters linked to Osama bin Laden had been holed up in Kunduz, which the alliance said fell almost without a fight. Pro-Taliban fighters including foreigners fled Sunday toward the town of Chardara, to the west, with alliance troops in pursuit, alliance acting foreign minister, Abdullah, said by satellite telephone from the north of Afghanistan. While some chose to make a run for it, thousands of others surrendered by the thousands as northern alliance troops moved in. Under a pact negotiated earlier between the alliance and the Taliban, Afghan Taliban fighters were guaranteed safe passage out of the city but the foreigners were to be arrested pending investigation into possible ties to bin Laden. Outside the city of Mazar-e-Sharif, 100 miles to the west, hundreds of foreigners who had been captured earlier in the Kunduz area staged a violent uprising at their prison fortress, triggering a fierce daylong battle with northern alliance guards. U.S. aircraft helped quash the insurrection. Hundreds of foreign Taliban prisoners were killed, U.S. and alliance officials said. A U.S. special forces soldier inside the Qalai Janghi fortress was taped by a German television crew saying an American may have died. But Pentagon officials in Washington later said all U.S. troops were accounted for and none had died. A U.S. government official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said later in Washington that a CIA operative was wounded in the uprising. Dave Culler, a spokesman for the U.S. Central Command, which oversees the war in Afghanistan, suggested that the uprising was in effect a suicide mission. At least one foreign fighter had killed himself Saturday while surrendering, witnesses said - giving himself up, then setting off a hand grenade when an alliance officer approached. The fighters had smuggled weapons under their tunics into the Qalai Janghi fortress and tried to fight their way out, Pentagon spokesman Lt. Col. Dan Stoneking said. The Pentagon estimated that fighters numbered 300; the northern alliance had said previously there were 700 prisoners in the facility. Yahsaw, a spokesman for northern alliance commander Mohammed Mohaqik, said the prisoners broke down doors, seized weapons and ammunition, and fought a pitched battle with guards that lasted some seven hours. An Associated Press reporter entering the city Sunday evening heard explosions coming from the direction of the fortress. Stoneking, the Pentagon spokesman, confirmed that U.S. airstrikes had helped Gen. Rashid Dostum's forces regain control of the prison. Dostum brought in about 500 troops to quash the unrest, he said. International organizations had voiced worry over the prospect of atrocities involving captured fighters. Earlier this month, the United Nations reported the apparent reprisal killings of at least 100 captured Taliban fighters in Mazar-e-Sharif. Pakistan had appealed without success for some guarantee of protection for any of its nationals captured when Kunduz fell. The United States had strongly opposed any deal that would have allowed the foreigners to leave Afghanistan. As a surrender accord for Kunduz was being brokered last week, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said he hoped the foreign fighters would be killed or captured, not allowed to go free. The head of the northern alliance, former president Burhanuddin Rabbani, said earlier Sunday there would be no slaughter of foreign troops. ``We will discuss their fate as far as international law is concerned ... They should have no concern for their safety,'' he told journalists in Kabul. The capture of Kunduz was reported hours after alliance troops gained a small foothold inside the besieged city, then overran a town on its eastern flank. Near the town of Khanabad, about 10 miles east of Kunduz, alliance troops spread across ridgetops held by the Taliban a day earlier and fanned out across fields to check mud buildings for enemy fighters. Later, the alliance announced the fall of the city itself. In other developments: In Herat, northern alliance commander Mohammed Zaer Azimi said Taliban leaders were discussing the possibility of Kandahar's surrender, but offered no details. He also said alliance forces were preparing for a major attack on Helmand, another Taliban stronghold in the south. But it is unclear whether the alliance has enough men and heavy weapons to press an offensive in the south. Representatives of three key Afghan groups left for Germany on Sunday to attend a U.N.-sponsored meeting aimed at forming a broad-based government in war-torn Afghanistan. One delegate, Syed Hamid Gailani, expressed doubts the conference would succeed because the factions are not sending their top leaders. An Islamic militant leader from Uzbekistan who was a key ally of Osama bin Laden was killed in northern Afghanistan, an anti-Taliban general said Sunday. Juma Namangani, 32, was fatally injured during fighting for the northern city of Mazar-e-Sharif, where the Taliban were routed on Nov. 9, according to Gen. Daoud Khan.