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

To: Noel de Leon who wrote (124289)	2/3/2004 4:45:16 PM
From: Nadine Carroll	Respond to of 281500

Doesn't follow. OBL, to judge from his tapes, had firmly formed the opinion that America was soft - if you hit America hard, she would run. Look at Beirut, he said. Look at Somalia. Look at the USS Cole. Nowhere does he say that he expected a different response than the one he got after the Cole - a brief rain of cruise missiles, with no followup. Besides, in assymetrical warfare "overwhelming" also loses its meaning. The US can plainly overwhelm any other conventional army. It has the ability to win against insurgencies too, but it's much less certain an outcome - that's why opponents choose assymetrical warfare. If you can't bring your force to bear, it's not overwhelming, no matter what it is.