| Username |
Post |
| anepalikt |
Posted
on 24-Sep-01 11:35 PM
Okay here is something that was passed to me. Thought some folks mgiht find it interesting.
--------------------------------
From: Dr. Tony Kern, Lt Col, USAF (Ret)
Recently, I was asked to look at the recent events through the lens of
military history. I have joined the cast of thousands who have written an
"open letter to Americans."
Dear friends and fellow Americans 14 September 2001
Like everyone else in this great country, I am reeling from last week's
attack on our sovereignty. But unlike some, I am not reeling from surprise.
As a career soldier and a student and teacher of military history, I have a
different perspective and I think you should hear it. This war will be won
or lost by the American citizens, not diplomats, politicians or soldiers.
Let me briefly explain.
In spite of what the media, and even our own government is telling us, this
act was not committed by a group of mentally deranged fanatics. To dismiss
them as such would be among the gravest of mistakes. This attack was
committed by a ferocious, intelligent and dedicated adversary. Don't take
this the wrong way. I don't admire these men and I deplore their tactics,
but I respect their capabilities. The many parallels that have been made
with the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor are apropos. Not only because it
was a brilliant sneak attack against a complacent America, but also because
we may well be pulling our new adversaries out of caves 30 years after we
think this war is over, just like my father's generation had to do with the
formidable Japanese in the years following WW II. These men hate the United
States with all of their being, and we must not underestimate the power of
their moral commitment. Napoleon, perhaps the world's greatest combination
of soldier and statesman, stated "the moral is to the physical as three is
to one." Patton thought the Frenchman underestimated its importance and said
moral conviction was five times more important in battle than physical
strength. Our enemies are willing - better said anxious -- to give their
lives for their cause.
How committed are we America? And for how long?
|
| anepalikt |
Posted
on 24-Sep-01 11:39 PM
In addition to demonstrating great moral conviction, the recent attack
demonstrated a mastery of some of the basic fundamentals of warfare taught
to most military officers worldwide, namely simplicity, security and
surprise. When I first heard rumors that some of these men may have been
trained at our own Air War College, it made perfect sense to me. This was
not a random act of violence, and we can expect the same sort of military
competence to be displayed in the battle to come.
This war will escalate, with a good portion of it happening right here in
the good ol' U.S. of A.
These men will not go easily into the night. They do not fear us. We must
not fear them. In spite of our overwhelming conventional strength as the
world's only "superpower" (a truly silly term), we are the underdog in this
fight. As you listen to the carefully scripted rhetoric designed to prepare
us for the march for war, please realize that America is not equipped or
seriously trained for the battle ahead. To be certain, our soldiers are much
better than the enemy, and we have some excellent "counter-terrorist"
organizations, but they are mostly trained for hostage rescues, airfield
seizures, or the occasional "body snatch," (which may come in handy). We
will be fighting a war of annihilation, because if their early efforts are
any indication, our enemy is ready and willing to die to the last man.
Eradicating the enemy will be costly and time consuming. They have already
deployed their forces in as many as 20 countries, and are likely living the
lives of everyday citizens.
Simply put, our soldiers will be tasked with a search and destroy mission on
multiple foreign landscapes, and the public must be patient and supportive
until the strategy and tactics can be worked out. For the most part, our
military is still in the process of redefining itself and presided over by
men and women who grew up with - and were promoted because they excelled
in - Cold War doctrine, strategy and tactics. This will not be linear
warfare; there will be no clear "centers of gravity" to strike with high
technology weapons. Our vast technological edge will certainly be helpful,
but it will not be decisive. Perhaps the perfect metaphor for the coming
battle was introduced by the terrorists themselves aboard the hijacked
aircraft -- this will be a knife fight, and it will be won or lost by the
ingenuity and will of citizens and soldiers, not by software or smart bombs.
We must also be patient with our military leaders.
Unlike Americans who are eager to put this messy time behind us, our
adversaries have time on their side, and they will use it. They plan to
fight a battle of attrition, hoping to drag the battle out until the
American public loses its will to fight. This might be difficult to believe
in this euphoric time of flag waving and patriotism, but it is generally
acknowledged that America lacks the stomach for a long fight. We need only
look as far back as Vietnam, when North Vietnamese General Vo Nguyen Giap
(also a military history teacher) defeated the United States of America
without ever winning a major tactical battle. American soldiers who marched
to war cheered on by flag waving Americans in 1965 were reviled and spat
upon less than three years later when they returned. Although we hope that
Usama Bin Laden is no Giap, he is certain to understand and employ the
concept. We can expect not only large doses of pain like the recent attacks,
but! also less audacious "sand in the gears" tactics, ranging from livestock
infestations to attacks at water supplies and power distribution facilities.
These attacks are designed to hit us in our "comfort zone" forcing the
average American to "pay more and play less" and eventually eroding our
resolve. But it can only work if we let it. It is clear to me that the will
of the American citizenry - you and I - is the center of gravity the enemy
has targeted. It will be the fulcrum upon which victory or defeat will turn.
He believes us to be soft, impatient, and self-centered. He may be right,
but if so, we must change. The Prussian general Carl von Clausewitz, (the
most often quoted and least read military theorist in history), says that
there is a "remarkable trinity of war" that is composed of the (1) will of
the people, (2) the political leadership of the government, and (3) the
chance and probability that plays out on the field of battle, in that order.
Every American citizen was in the crosshairs of last Tuesday's attack, not
just those that were unfortunate enough to be in the World Trade Center or
Pentagon. The will of the American people will decide this war. If we are to
win, it will be because we have what it takes to persevere through a few
more hits, learn from our mistakes, improvise, and adapt. If we can do that,
we will eventually prevail.
Everyone I've talked to in the past few days has shared a common
frustration, saying in one form or another "I just wish I could do
something!" You are already doing it. Just keep faith in America, and
continue to support your President and military, and the outcome is certain.
If we fail to do so, the outcome is equally certain.
God Bless America
Dr. Tony Kern, Lt Col, USAF (Ret)
Former Director of Military History, USAF Academy
|
| anepalikt |
Posted
on 24-Sep-01 11:42 PM
Maybe some of you all have seen this... written by an Afgan who now lives in the Bay area. This article and Kern's peice make an interesting read together? no, what do you think? Ground troops anyone? Heard Nepal offered air and landspace to the States? What woudl US ground troops in South Asia mean for Nepal?
* * * *
I've been hearing a lot of talk about "bombing Afghanistan back to the Stone
Age." Ronn Owens, on KGO Talk Radio today, allowed that this would mean
killing innocent people, people who had nothing to do with this atrocity,
but "we're at war, we have to accept collateral damage. What else can we
do?" Minutes later I heard some TV pundit discussing whether we "have the
belly to do what must be done."
And I thought about the issues being raised especially hard because I am
from Afghanistan, and even though I've lived here for 35 years I've never
lost track of what's going on there. So I want to tell anyone who will
listen how it all looks from where I'm standing.
I speak as one who hates the Taliban and Osama Bin Laden. There is no doubt
in my mind that these people were responsible for the atrocity in New York.
I agree that something must be done about those monsters.
But the Taliban and Ben Laden are not Afghanistan. They're not even the
government of Afghanistan. The Taliban are a cult of ignorant psychotics
who took over Afghanistan in 1997. Bin Laden is a political criminal with a
plan. When you think Taliban, think Nazis. When you think Bin Laden,think
Hitler. And when you think "the people of Afghanistan" think "the Jews in
the concentration camps."
It's not only that the Afghan people had nothing to do with this atrocity.
They were the first victims of the perpetrators. They would exult if someone
would come in there, take out the Taliban and clear out the rats nest of
international thugs holed up in their country.
Some say, why don't the Afghans rise up and overthrow the Taliban? The
answer is, they're starved, exhausted, hurt, incapacitated, suffering. A
few years ago, the United Nations estimated that there are 500,000 disabled
orphans in Afghanistan--a country with no economy, no food. There are
millions of widows. And the Taliban has been burying these widows alive in
mass graves. The soil is littered with land mines, the farms were all
destroyed by the Soviets. These are a few of the reasons why the Afghan
people have not overthrown the Taliban.
We come now to the question of bombing Afghanistan back to the Stone
Age.Trouble is, that's been done. The Soviets took care of it already. Make
the Afghans suffer? They're already suffering. Level their houses? Done.
Turn their schools into piles of rubble? Done. Eradicate their hospitals?
Done. Destroy their infrastructure? Cut them off from medicine and health
care? Too late. Someone already did all that.
New bombs would only stir the rubble of earlier bombs. Would they at least
get the Taliban? Not likely. In today's Afghanistan, only the Taliban eat,
only they have the means to move around. They'd slip away and hide. Maybe
the bombs would get some of those disabled orphans, they don't move too
fast, they don't even have wheelchairs. But flying over Kabul and dropping
bombs wouldn't really be a strike against the criminals who did this
horrific thing. Actually it would only be making common cause with the
Taliban--by raping once again the people they've been raping all this time
So what else is there? What can be done, then? Let me now speak with true
fear and trembling. The only way to get Bin Laden is to go in there with
ground troops. When people speak of "having the belly to do what needs to be
done" they're thinking in terms of having the belly to kill as many as
needed. Having the belly to overcome
any moral qualms about killing innocent people. Let's pull our heads out of
the sand. What's actually on the table is Americans dying. And not just
because some Americans would die fighting their way through Afghanistan to
Bin Laden's hideout. It's much bigger than that folks. Because to get any
troops to Afghanistan, we'd have to go through Pakistan. Would they let us?
Not likely. The conquest of Pakistan would have to be first. Will other
Muslim nations just stand by? You see where I'm going. We're flirting with a
world war between Islam and the West.
And guess what: that's Bin Laden's program. That's exactly what he wants.
That's why he did this. Read his speeches and statements. It's all right
there. He really believes Islam would beat the west. It might seem
ridiculous, but he figures if he can polarize the world into Islam and the
West, he's got a billion soldiers. If the west wreaks a holocaust in those
lands, that's a billion people with nothing left to lose, that's even better
from Bin Laden's point of view. He's probably wrong, in the end the West
would win, whatever that would mean, but the war would last for years and
millions would die, not just theirs but ours. Who has the belly for that?
Bin Laden does. Anyone else?
Tamim Ansary
|
