The words below are from an 80 year old man whose intelligence and curiosity
about the world, combined with a life spent living in many different
countries, make his words worth reading. He spent several years working at a
job for which he had to make weekly flights over Afghanistan. (the questions
below are mine)
> Question: How would be the best way to defeat, say, the Taliban in
Afghanistan?
Answer: the unarmed general populace have no voice in the matter. The
Taliban has a near monopoly in weapons and supplies since the collapse of
the Russian economy. The Russians supported the once stronger Massood
group, but not well and not enough. So the Taliban forces will remain in
control until and if the Massood group is better supplied than the Taliban.
They have continued to fight a rear guard action for years, but have
gradually been forced back so they now control only five percent of the
country, i.e. the end closest to Russia. Massood, incidentally, was
assassinated a few days ago, according to his aide, by a Taliban agent. Too
bad, he was a charismatic type who was a competent tactician---you need that
for a military buildup and he will be difficult to replace. Don't know who
his successor will be---it is possible he will come from one of the smaller
groups with a reputation for competence.
There are mountain caves---more often a jumble of rock to serve the same
purpose. They are defensible against sporadic, unsustained attack by
similarly equipped foot soldiers. If, as they will be, the attackers are
more numerous, better equipped, better supplied, and with air cover, caves
become death traps. Escaping detection with modern sensor equipment and
night vision is nearly impossible in a barren rock environment or thin tree
cover. GPS coordinates will be quickly established to guide artillery and
laser-guided missiles. After the first few days of combat, lack of food,
lack of water and fatigue become important factors for defenders with
precarious or non-existent resupply. Scrambling about over precipitous
mountains takes an enormous toll of energy and constant attack saps morale.
Given a choice I would at present rather be among attackers than the
relatively immobile defenders of caves and rocks. And no one should forget
the climate becomes bitterly cold up in the mountains. Fires of any kind
attract the attention of infra-red sensors followed by live ammunition. The
heat radiated by a body will do the same thing at somewhat closer range. It
is easy to freeze to death in Afghanistan.
Supplies for defenders have to be carried in on foot at night, and unlike a
decade back, night provides little more concealment than midday sun.
Anything that can be seen can be targeted and destroyed. Attacking troops
will be supplied by air from the nearest forward supply dump. It is safe to
assume the defenders will have Kalashnikovs, light machine guns, mortars,
some light anti-aircraft missile launchers, no radar, and just in case, a
few anti-tank rockets. There will undoubtedly be a few tanks deployed
around staging areas, but not for purposes of attack in high reaches of
mountainous territory. There will be some loss of aircraft, probably
helicopters since jets cannot loiter over a target. Not many though, and
with their firepower they will exact a fearful toll on small groups in their
way.
U.S. forces have not encountered this type of fighting since WWII, but then
every army had mountain troops, though in areas with heavier precipitation,
travelled on skis. I was attached to a British unit at Myohaung, Burma,
comprised of British, West African and Gurkha troops who were attacking a
mountain which commanded north-south traffic along the coast and a large
river inland. I do not remember it having any natural caves, but it was
honeycombed by artificial ones constructed by the Japanese occupants.
I was supposed to be flying a Spitfire or Hurricane, but for what appeared
to be valid reasons chose a P-40---turned out to be a mistake. Anyway the
British had artillery, but not heavy enough to penetrate the caves. A lot
of troops were lost in a futile attempt to take the mountain, when the
Japanese emerged from the caves with machine guns and pursued retreating
attackers through the tall grass. That happened twice, the third time the
Gurkhas concealed themselves in the tall grass at midnight. About seven
A.M. when the process was repeated, the Japanese ran by the hidden Gurkhas
and all were chopped to bits by Gurkha kukris. It was then relatively
simple to burn out the remaining Japanese caves with napalm and pursue the
remnants of the Japanese invasion force down the coast toward Rangoon.
In a non-industrial society, civilians don't operate the machines to produce
weapons and munitions for front line troops, so civilian casualties I didn't
weep about in Germany or Japan won't occur in Afghanistan in munitions
factories, refineries etc.
There will be civilian casualties---the usual ones where they stumble into a
fire fight and possibly when used as a human shield, but they will not be
intentionally targeted---except by the Taliban whose religion has no such
inhibitions..
Given the wanton cruelty of the Taliban to their own people it is likely
they have alienated most of them. Those who can, flee to Pakistan at the
risk of death. For a variety of reasons, most cannot and are starving
because the 'Taliban takes what little food is available.
In Afghanistan there is little other than mountains. The
mountains do not distinguish between nationalities, they are equally hostile
to all. All things considered, I would rather fight in mountains than in
steaming tropical swamps.
> Question: Two years ago I heard a CIA report to Congress that warned of
such
>terrorist attacks as we saw on 9-11, and yet it seems that not much was
done about it. Why is this and
> should we expect something to be done now?
Answer: you have to spend real money to get real results. Only a few
days back the constant mantra was tax cut, tax cut, tax cut---i.e., the
taxes necessary to support inspection of passengers, luggage, air and ground
crews, aircraft---as well as taxes necessary to create a highly mobile,
quick-response force with new weapons. Also gone, blown off by Bush a month
or two back, was the Commission Report on what had to be done to meet
well-known terrorist threats---tax cut, tax cut, tax cut, shrink government,
shrink government, shrink a government of almost three hundred million
people to the size of Burkina Faso government, with the same level of
services. The cost of those tax cuts were known to anybody above a 70 I.Q.,
but people below that are unconscious.
> Question: No doubt small nuclear devices and/or biological weapons are
already in
> place in the US and other locations. I wonder why they decided to strike
the
> US at this particular time.
Answer: the attack on New York and Washington is the culmination of five
years of planning and preparation. There is an accumulation of a small
number of hot-eyed fanatics willing to commit hara-kiri. You have to use
them up before they spend too much time here and have second thoughts about
how nice it would be to live in circumstances previously unknown to them,
but which we regard as normal.
As a large-scale trial---you will remember there have been smaller ones, it
was necessary to test security---preferably with weapons already in place,
like aircraft full of fuel. Other attacks using biological weapons require
their importation or concoction in a makeshift laboratory. For these you
don't need kamikaze's---money would be sufficient incentive. Somewhere the
weaponry has to be tested before it is used. Tests of this nature have
recently been made in Iraq and the information was given to Bush by the CIA.
He ignored it.
Vaccines for Anthrax, Ebola, Bubonic Plague aren't in sufficient supply to
be useful. A belated order for Smallpox vaccine has been made, there is
practically none in hand. When the order is filled, it would only be enough
to protect one out of seven people. .
In WWII, German suicide squads came ashore in the U.S. to accomplish similar
sabotage---on the ground, airlines then did not exist. They were either
captured or gave themselves up---a prison camp in the U.S offered better
living conditions than did the front lines to German troops, and the
prisoners who worked for farmers in Wisconsin hated to leave..
Of course, the Germans were not religious fanatics and martyrdom is not a
German tradition or fate to be desired. Actually most Arabs feel the same
way---if someone wants to commit suicide attacking the U.S., that's
great---but it's not going to be me.
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Fri Oct 12 2001 - 14:40:51 MDT