Michael Wiik wrote:
>
> In Vietnam, there was a fairly open press and we saw lots of disturbing
> pictures of bodies, screaming naked children, napalm, etc. In the Gulf
> War, the press was under a great deal of control, and we saw lots of
> pictures of precision guided weapons hitting bunkers and aqueducts and
> stuff.
>
> So perhaps we should stop trying to answer the dorky, loser questions --
> like how to win a worldwide war against terrorism or protect the U.S.
> from further attacks -- and discuss the really tough question facing the
> military-infotainment complex today: namely how to produce the war to
> get the best ratings.
>
> Somehow I doubt showing million dollar missiles slamming into tents is
> gonna do it. After a few press conferences with Powell or whoever
> running videos and saying: "Here's the terrorist jeep. Now you see the
> missile coming in, and there's the direct hit on the jeep", people are
> gonna get tired of that. And they have to show something or uppity
> members of the press may decide to try and do their own stories. Like
> more and more interviews with tearful relatives of the WTC victims.
Fortunately, we have the Northern Alliance to help out on the ground.
They've been on the defensive primarily because the Taliban has gotten
control of more abandoned soviet equipment: more fighter planes, more
tanks, etc. Both sides are reduced primarily to infantry tactics,
though. The Northern Alliance controls more of the mountainous Hindu
Kush areas in the northeast and central regions, as well as an area in
the southwest region.
Establishing an alliance with the Northern Alliance, and air dropping in
significant amounts of supplies, weapons, and ammo, as well as giving
them additional heavy weaponry would go a long way to quickly gaining a
foothold in the country.
I think strikes on the Taliban's remaining military assets: it's Sukhoi
fighters, Tu-54 and 55 tanks, etc would also help tip the tactical
balance. Bringing in US special forces units to work with the NA on the
ground, providing the NA infantry with better night vision equipment,
and possibly body armor, etc would also help out.
> One choice is showing blown-up buildings. Unfortunately I'm sure the
> sign-making industries in terrorist-supporting countries are busy
> churning out 'Baby Milk Plant', 'Orphanage', 'Children's Hospital', and
> 'Pharmaceutical Factory' signs by the boatload and distributing them
> around the countryside, for quick placement at bombed sites before the
> media arrives. This might also be an opportunity for countries with a
> high infant and child mortality rate to make some extra bucks by
> preserving and stocking up on corpses to scatter around bombed sites
> along with the signs.
>
> I suppose they could show bodies again. They don't even need to be real,
> just shovel some sand in a body bag and lay'em out in neat rows.
> Captured weapons caches are another possibility, and again there's
> plenty of file footage available. Maybe a gov't buy-back program for
> AK47s would be useful here.
I thought of something like this, but more along the lines of a bounty
on Taliban: $100 US for each rifle and Taliban head brought in.
Producing fake bodies is not needed, the real thing is all to prevalent
already in that country.
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Fri Oct 12 2001 - 14:40:54 MDT