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Politics : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Walkingshadow who wrote (202140)	11/12/2001 10:40:10 PM
From: greenspirit	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 769670

res-In other words, the Northern Alliance will never accomplish what we want to accomplish in Afghanistan. The only thing that will accomplish that is American ground troops. Lots of them, likely 100,000 or more. Walkingshadow, I disagree strongly. And I believe you will regret having said this. Further, I believe you seriously underestimate the effectiveness of our special forces capability combined with our precision bombs. The assault from the skies will now be unrelenting. Something the Taliban have never seen before. To compare the 10 year Taliban/Northern Alliance ground war with our disciplined, sophisticated multifaceted approach is like comparing apples to oranges. We will be hitting them with special operations strikes, with propaganda from the air and radio waves, with surgical bombs, with carpet bombs, and with bombs that penetrate deep in the earth. Another Aircraft carrier is now on the way fully loaded. And the assault from the sky in the future, will continue to be limited to smaller and smaller Taliban strongholds, and be unrelenting. The Taliban aren't surpermen, and it will take 'superman' to stand ground against what is coming their way.

To: Walkingshadow who wrote (202140)	11/12/2001 10:45:02 PM
From: Thomas A Watson	Respond to of 769670

From what you provided as reference. It's clear that the so called Northern Alliance is hardly a force actively engaged in fighting a civil way for decades. It's a bunch of loosely coupled groups that fights among itself as much as with anyone else. So this ineffective force reduced to small and remote regions of Afghanistan is no in control of 1/2 of the country. The Taliban is a house of cards and I expect the from all quarters those who reject them will rise up and finish them off. It may or may not include those of the Northern Alliance in the last parts of the south. But the Taliban is finished and I don't think anything but special ops is needed. And binnie will be more and more at risk as more of Afghanistan becomes hostile to the Taliban. In fact the Taliban may be the ones who turn him over or just kill him. He is the one who brought on this world of hurt and radical support is just that and based on no reason can flip in an instant. from the latimes..... When the forces that now constitute the Northern Alliance ruled the country in the early 1990s, "Afghanistan was in a state of virtual disintegration," writes Pakistani journalist Ahmed Rashid in his compelling book "Taliban." "The country was divided into warlord fiefdoms and all the warlords had fought, switched sides and fought again in a bewildering array of alliances, betrayals and bloodshed." The Taliban exerted more effective control after they swept into power in 1996. But even they were never able to dislodge the Northern Alliance--the remnants of the old government--from the northern strongholds where they controlled from 10% to 15% of the country (more by their estimation). When the U.S. intervened last month, the two sides had been stalemated for years, neither able to roll back the other latimes.com tom watson tosiwmee

To: Walkingshadow who wrote (202140)	11/13/2001 11:52:50 AM
From: Srexley	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 769670

"demonstrated that the Northern Alliance was actually capable of successfully carrying out an offensive with American help" But you said the bombing emboldened the Taliban and made them braver. Since we have helped the Taliban iyo, how could we have helped them? "A toe-to-toe battle in the Taliban strongholds of the south with no sympathy from the Pushtuns or anyone else in the region [in fact, these are probably more likely to side with the Taliban] is not likely to go so smoothly" Pessimistic view imo. What was your view of the difficulty they would have taking the north? Did you have pessimistic views on that, or did you know it would be so easy? "In other words, the Northern Alliance will never accomplish what we want to accomplish in Afghanistan. The only thing that will accomplish that is American ground troops. Lots of them, likely 100,000 or more" You are completely full of crap here. Same crap the news has been saying up until now, and it is bothersome. Sounds like you want us to lose. Wish there was a way to bet on this so I could take some of your money instead of just having to read your pessimistic views on our mission and our chances of success.