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

To: Bilow who wrote (9591)	11/9/2001 11:52:55 PM
From: Selectric II	Respond to of 281500

I sure as hell hope you're right. Since these [s]uckers have no morals at all, I'm worried that they'll detonate a dirty bomb wherever they think it will do them good -- in Afghanistan along a supply link we might need, in Los Angeles, in Washington, or wherever. One almost has to laugh when trying to put their ridiculous "Jihad" rhetoric into context with their mass murder. No one could claim that God is so hateful, in any religion. The closest modern history comparison I can think of is to Adolf Hitler, who also sought "purity." Yes, "purity" is what OBL wants, worldwide. To him that means killing about three hundred million U.S. citizens, and he needs to do it to make his point.

To: Bilow who wrote (9591)	11/9/2001 11:57:03 PM
From: Bilow	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

Hi all; Re Taliban tactical doctrine... The Taliban mistake is to spend blood to hold territory that (a) can't be held, (b) doesn't need to be held, and (c) is extremely advantageous to the enemy. This is similar to the tactical mistakes that Hitler made on the Eastern Front during WW2. (Edit: Maybe it's no coincidence that Selectric II just mentioned Hitler in the preceding post.) That is, Hitler ordered his generals to defend all territory they occupied, instead of ordering them to defend the most militarily defensible territory. The Germans were doomed anyway, even without this tactical mistake, but it sure didn't help. The Taliban's mistake is similar. And since Iraq made the same mistake it's stunning that the Taliban could do it again. I guess the Taliban thought they were tougher than the Iraqis. Early in the war, the Pentagon noticed that the Afghanis were a bit slow on figuring out certain lessons from Iraq: Background Briefing on Afghanistan ... Q: During the Bosnia and Kosovo campaigns, we heard a lot about forces being secreted in neighborhoods for shelter. I haven't heard you speak much about that in this case. Does the Taliban not operate that way? A: I don't really want to get into deception and denial. I'll just say that the Taliban don't appear to have learned a lot from the Gulf War and the former Yugoslavia. They don't have any television, either. ... defenselink.mil I think that the US noticed that the Taliban weren't the world's best tactical geniuses, and deliberately kept the attacks on the Taliban front line near Kabul at low levels so that the Taliban would continue to send reinforcements into the line. The idea is to make the casualty rate low enough that the Taliban is encouraged to continually bleed their reserves into the front line. Then, when there's no reserves left, complete the job. People tend to get caught in situations where it starts out fairly easy, and then it just seems to get a little harder each day. The US started the air attacks at such a low level that the Northern Alliance complained that nothing was being done. I suspect this may have been a deliberate strategem to encourage the Taliban to believe that they could hold out. Then as time went on and more and more troops are killed or wounded there, it becomes more and more embarassing to admit that the initial reinforcement was stupid. Rather than militarily trapping the enemy, the effect is to psychologically trap him. The US got stuck in Vietnam in a similar manner, so it would certainly be a familiar strategem to US planners. The Taliban should have retreated into the cities and forced the US to fight house to house. Instead they set their soldiers up in a situation where they could be killed with little effort. The decision to reinforce the front lines is shown by the numerous published reports of all the foreign casualties on the line, especially the ones among green troops. What the Taliban did was to park themselves on a kill zone. They did the same thing in Mazar-i-Sharif, and the result is now clear. -- Carl

To: Bilow who wrote (9591)	11/10/2001 12:20:34 AM
From: tfrugal	Respond to of 281500

<<wondering if they'll freeze, die of starvation, run out of water, or surrender>> Add to that being executed for lack of the proper religious fervor, bombed into oblivion from above, or back stabbed by a side-switching comrade. They gotta wonder why God allowed this to happen, or why they ever listened to their leadership.