What happened to the ground war?

October 27, 2001 4:40 PM

What happened to the ground war? Very scary alternate explaination of the aborted ground operation.
posted by electro (44 comments total)

This seems like a pretty believable scenario. I was quite surprised at how dismissive the US military was of the Taliban at first. I think that it may have been partly due to their low regard for the Russian military and partly because of their historic over-reliance on hi-tech toys. There certainly has been a distinct change of tone in the last couple of days from top military brass, so they do seem to be re-evaluating their earlier views.
posted by MrBaliHai at 5:19 PM on October 27, 2001

Yes, it appears that we have once again underestimated the cunning Afghans....I suppose we will start breaking out the Thomas Paine in the months to come; showing our brave perciverence. (This is truly a definate turning point)
posted by Kodel at 5:29 PM on October 27, 2001

I wish they'd stop calling it "intelligence."
Perhaps "arrogance", or better, "slapass guesswork."
posted by Hima Otsubusu at 5:58 PM on October 27, 2001

We're not going to win this war with sniping from the left about civilian casualties and equivocation about how Islam means peace. Islam is clearly infected with an evil intent that is no less than that which prompted earlier world wars.

War is Hell. Let's get on with it.
posted by Real9 at 6:15 PM on October 27, 2001

America's always been a bit dismissive of Russia's fighting abbility IMO. As for Afghanistan, Taliban with AK-47 is just as deadly and determined as VC/NVA with AK-47, and we know how that war ended. The Generals need to re-read their history books.
posted by spinifex at 6:25 PM on October 27, 2001

We're not going to win this war with arrogant 'hup' talk from the redneck right. This is a new kind of war, and we're not going to win it by being hypocrites about human rights and democracy. Operation Infinite Disaster is stirring up a lot of hatred towards the US, especially now that we're providing tacit support to the terrorism in Chechnya, financial aid towards terrorism in Columbia, or by keeping the notorious terrorist training camps at the school of the americas open for business.

In order to win this war, we need some kind of credibility in our foreign policy. If we're really against terrorism, we need to clean up our act at home. The sheeplike response of blind patriotism is understandable, right after the attacks, but c'mon guy -- it's time to wake up! We are creating potential terrorists in every nation on the receiving end of US sponsored terror.
posted by snakey at 6:43 PM on October 27, 2001

Ya know, hell is supposed to be the worst thing in the universe. Nothing is more horrible than hell. A civilized people should not want to perpetrate the worst thing imaginable by the human mind. Any option is preferable to that. Just a thought. I mean, it seems like you're for the war, Real9, so maybe you might find a better way to discuss your feelings on the war than to basically say that you want to put people through hell, because you can't think of any better solution.
posted by Doug at 6:44 PM on October 27, 2001

I doubt that we're hearing the full story from either the Pentagon or their detractors, so I take anything I read in the media these days with a large dose of salt. That said, I wouldn't be surprised if the intelligence the US is getting is "compromised" in many ways. We are paying the price for the CIA's lack of ground resources -- we've had to move quickly to establish sources in a country and a culture that is notoriously hard to infiltrate.
posted by mrmanley at 6:50 PM on October 27, 2001

Ya know, hell is supposed to be the worst thing in the universe. Nothing is more horrible than hell. A civilized people should not want to perpetrate the worst thing imaginable by the human mind. Any option is preferable to that. Just a thought.

At least he's not being a pussy about it.
posted by GriffX at 7:01 PM on October 27, 2001

I don't know what you're trying to imply by that. Is it an insult, or a joke?
posted by Doug at 7:08 PM on October 27, 2001

Two points:

Where is any reference in this story to actual facts? So Rumsfeld said he was surprised by Taliban toughness and from there the writer extrapolates that the Rangers beat a hasty retreat? What are the sources of info on this? Rumsfeld and Bush have been saying this is going to be a long war from day 1. They have both said, on many occasions, that we should not underestimate the Taliban and lots of other, don't get to cocky rhetoric. If you remember back to the Gulf War, the government claimed that the Iraqi Special Guard were the best fighting force in the world outside of the US and Russia. I seem to remember we completely overran them.

Special Forces work with indigenous forces. SF assists locals with training, strategy, and intelligence. Unofficially, they also fight side by side with the locals. Seeing as how the Northern Alliance is the best bet the US has of undertaking a significant land based attack, it would actually seem unusual if the US was not beefing up the SF involvement.

Doug, I think what he is saying is that war brings out the worst in people. We don't wish to inflict hell on other people unless those people wish to inflict it on us. For once, I would like to hear some of the anti-war pontificators actually propose a solution that isn't based on the premise of simply understanding and complying with the wants of Osama bin Laden. We can understand the "root causes" (which the anti-war crowd is wrong on but I'll leave that to another post) after we eliminate the real and immediate threat posed by bin Laden and the Taliban who is harboring him and giving him a base from which to launch further attacks.
posted by billman at 7:44 PM on October 27, 2001

Real9, that article is about Islamic fundamentalism, aka Islamism aka Islamofascism, not Islam. If we make the mistake of confusing the two, we find ourselves up against 1.1 billion people spread across the globe, rather than the people numbered in the low hundreds who have actually engineered the attacks against us. It is their fervent and ideological hope that we will be confused as you have been. Instead, if we keep our heads and our focus free of overgeneralization, prejudice, stereotype, and outright bigotry, we stand a chance of succeeding at excising the tumor without having the patient try to kill us.
posted by dhartung at 7:46 PM on October 27, 2001

Notice how the title said, "could have ended in disaster"? It's all conjecture at this point. If the mission had really ended tragically the Taliban would have announced it loud and clear and provided evidence of bodies or at least some wreckage (more that just a wheel from an unidentified craft). Personally, I think the delay is probably a political issue.
posted by JohnBigBoots at 7:58 PM on October 27, 2001

Where is any reference in this story to actual facts?


There's a helicopter missing its landing gear. That's a fact that neither side disputes. Everything else is just spin. What makes the Taliban spin more plausible to me is the fact that there's been no further ground action since then. Draw your own conclusion.

FWIW, I support the war. But let's not delude ourselves about what we're up against.
posted by electro at 9:40 PM on October 27, 2001

Very scary alternate explaination

What's scary about it?
posted by signal at 9:46 PM on October 27, 2001

I can just hear past and prospective terrorists in their cells: "We don't want to inflict hell on other people, but they want to inflict it on us...therefore our actions are justified. Death to America. God is great."

For once, I would like to hear both the terrorist and the American pro-war pontificator actually come up with a solution besides "Bomb 'em back to the stone age, son". That solution hasn't done a damned thing to make the world a safer place.
posted by fold_and_mutilate at 9:55 PM on October 27, 2001

What's scary about it?


Signal:

Do a google search for "Jimmy Carter".
posted by electro at 10:15 PM on October 27, 2001

Do a google search for "Jimmy Carter".
Ok..... Nope, still not scared. I guess I don't get it. Oh well.
posted by signal at 10:28 PM on October 27, 2001

"Bomb 'em back to the stone age, son". That solution hasn't done a damned thing to make the world a safer place.

Seems to me doing exactly that to Germany and Japan in WWII actually DID make the world a safer place.
posted by davidmsc at 10:39 PM on October 27, 2001

Where is any reference in this story to actual facts? So Rumsfeld said he was surprised by Taliban toughness and from there the writer extrapolates that the Rangers beat a hasty retreat?

Look at the article again. Are you saying that the "senior defence source" is lying in his factual account, which is given verbatim in the artice?

One senior defence source said of the Afghan operation: "The intelligence had been quite clear that the target near Kandahar was pretty easy to take out.

"But what the Rangers discovered was the Taliban force there fighting back quite hard. The enemy regrouped very well and their counterattack was such that the Rangers made a tactical withdrawal.

"That's when the Chinook got into difficulties and lost its undercarriage. Some of us are surprised that such senior US figures are surprised at the tenacity of the Afghans. They had been fighting for the last 20 years."

posted by Zurishaddai at 10:40 PM on October 27, 2001

davidmsc: The Marshall Plan made the world a safer place. You are correct *only* to the extent that winning the war *enabled* us to have a Marshall Plan. Contrast with North Korea, Vietnam, and Iraq.
posted by electro at 11:20 PM on October 27, 2001

electro I apologize if I came of as facetious, but I honestly don't understand what it is about this article that you find scary. Could somebody explain?
posted by signal at 12:46 AM on October 28, 2001

Zurishaddai, I'm saying that there is nothing in there about this almost becoming a tragedy. There is no real source just "senior defence sources" which means what? DoD? Army? It just sounds very vague and when combined with the writer's willingness to then make his/her own conclusions without citing any sort of supporting evidence means I don't take the article too seriously. And, in terms of the quote; well, great, the Rangers were surprised by how hard the Taliban fought back. So what? No casualties in action (other than the crash Pakistan) so they couldn't have been in too much trouble. And in order for the Taliban to regroup, that means that the Rangers had to have hit them first. So, they regroup and start fighting back and the Rangers do a tactical retreat. Sounds like a typical SOP. The entire mission was a textbook probing attack. See how the react. Get intel on what to expect in a bigger mission, etc. So, how this *almost* turn into bodies being dragged through the streets?
posted by billman at 1:14 AM on October 28, 2001

davidmsc: The Marshall Plan made the world a safer place. You are correct *only* to the extent that winning the war *enabled* us to have a Marshall Plan. Contrast with North Korea, Vietnam, and Iraq.

That is the funniest thing I've read today. As if ending the Nazi terror and the Japanese Empire did not make the world a safer place. Good one.
posted by ljromanoff at 6:44 AM on October 28, 2001

It wouldn't have if nothing had been done to fill the vacuum, ljromanoff. Read up on the consequences of the treaty of Versailles after WWI.
posted by Summer at 7:08 AM on October 28, 2001

Blackhawk Down in Somalia with 16 dead was the most intense firefight the US had been in since Vietnam. As a result, Clinton pulled the entire campaign. The military saw the operation as a success and were deeply disturbed that 16 died for nothing. The most recent attack came very close to another Blackhawk Down and the military is worried of the consequences so they are going to send in the Brits. Past experience has shown America doesnt have the will to take casulties and the Taliban know it. This is a quote from the Taliban in regard to American warriors:

``It is true that their technology is more advanced than ours but as long as one Muslim Afghan is alive he will not surrender to America,''

``Their casualties will be higher than the Russians because Americans are people of (more) pleasure and comfort than the Russian people,''

pleasure and comfort = willingness to die .. most Taliban allready consider themselves dead. Its a powerfull warrior culture. The quotes read like Klingon.
posted by stbalbach at 7:40 AM on October 28, 2001

my god, do you people believe everything you read. Dhart. more then the low hundreds, i hate to say. but as usual, Dan is right. what david and lj said. (thank god for rationale) One could land, say 3 squads, one heavy weapons. this 30 could create HAVOC. but even the worst army will reinforce given time. objectives-casualties are watch words for this conflict.
posted by clavdivs at 7:55 AM on October 28, 2001

We are paying the price for the CIA's lack of ground resources -- we've had to move quickly to establish sources in a country and a culture that is notoriously hard to infiltrate.

Rubbish. We've been there for a long time.

(That's even if you don't count our long-time CIA source that turned on us).
posted by Mo Nickels at 8:28 AM on October 28, 2001

There's also this interesting piece covering the US sponsorship of dubious groups against Russia in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Very thorough.
posted by Mo Nickels at 8:31 AM on October 28, 2001

As if ending the Nazi terror and the Japanese Empire did not make the world a safer place.

Your capacity deliberately to miss the point never ceases to amaze me.

What won the peace wasn't simply the defeat of fascism and militarism, but the appropriation of its raw materials, finally severing by political compulsion the ties between industrialisation and militarisation. Both countries had undergone rapid industrialisation at the turn of the 20th century in order to serve the wishes of the ascendent military/political hierarchies. Which meant that even with a ravaged infrastructure, they had resources -- read: engineers and skilled factory workers -- that with the investment of the Marshall Plan could be redirected towards reconstruction.

Which is why davidmsc is also wrong to suggest that Germany or Japan were "bombed back into the stone age": as devastating as the final bombardments were, they weren't designed to wipe out the educated and the skilled, as was the case in Pol Pot's Cambodia. Of course, the capacity of Afghanistan to industrialise itself, no matter how much money it receives, has been more or less eradicated over the past 20 years. Although I suspect that there's plenty of experience of maintaining and reconditioning obsolete military hardware.

As for the current situation: I certainly have my suspicions over the photo-op barn-raid. But I also suspect that the geek-toys of war are proving counterproductive here.
posted by holgate at 8:34 AM on October 28, 2001

"as the final bombardments" conventional or nuclear? conventional? like Dresden, beautiful city-GONE. One does not bomb what is left of a countries infra. so dresden doesnt fit, an anomaly? Allocation of raw materials is all any of this "stuff" is about. Mao thought in 46' that "reactionaries" in the U.S. were preparing for an all out offensive militarily(interview with Ms. Strong) He called the Bomb, "a paper tiger". Not so. This paper tiger could burn paper cities. still, not the point. ending terror, even our ability to do so WAS the point. Bombing the hell out of brother number one was just us bombing commies. The KR used hatchets and plastic bags to save on bullets. few, if any bombs. The method is just the debate. It is why we kill, that seems the question. Geek-toys? This was said to Vncle about his B-17. These "geeks" had a staggering mortality rate. and you should hear what 15 year-old volkstrum backward-ass country fuck can do with a P-38 to an american flyer at point-blank range. none of it makes change for a sense. it never will.
posted by clavdivs at 10:09 AM on October 28, 2001

The difference between 1919 and 1946, clav: Versailles knocked off Germany's diseased head -- the Kaiser and the junkers -- but then beat up the body with the appropriation of the industrial heartlands to pay the reparations bills. So there was never the chance to be strong through peace. Dresden? Hiroshima? Nagasaki? (Coventry?) All awful, horrendous. But not systematic demolition of the capacity to rebuild; no cultural revolutions.

As for war-toys? Though this sounds flippant, I wish it didn't: having a kitchen full of appliances doesn't make you any better at poaching an egg.
posted by holgate at 11:07 AM on October 28, 2001

As if ending the Nazi terror and the Japanese Empire did not make the world a safer place.

Your capacity deliberately to miss the point never ceases to amaze me.

You seem pretty damn good at it, too.

What won the peace wasn't simply the defeat of fascism and militarism, but the appropriation of its raw materials

The appropriation of Axis raw materials redirected into non-militaristic purposes with the actual conflict that provided said opportunity to do so rendered only a forethought is a completely backwards perspective on the Second World War. Saying so is not a dismissal of the Marshall Plan, it is putting the relevant acts into a more accurate perspective.
posted by ljromanoff at 3:08 PM on October 28, 2001

"'Bomb 'em back to the stone age' , son". -this, this is at the contention post?...sounds like LBJ. perhaps a movie...'Nixon'?
Well if that statement, (which is american rhetoric, texas peacock if you will) is not that literal sir. It is that bombing was intended to strike terror-Coventry(good example).Dresden(your basic URBAN population).penemundee(your reichgeek bunker) Stettin (oil), these are pure infra- baby. what of the Japanese. The madness towards the end, just before Ardennes, and after was zany. uncle saw, SAW a buzz bomb. saw berlin ablaze in august of 44'. was bombed by the brits, twice AND CHEERED THERE SORRY ARSES;) got the shit kicked out of them by hitlerjugend for that; cheering your(yours nick) comrades to rain death upon them.(mine nick). The blitz of 39-40 was terror, a shift in tactics, some rather skeptical historians argue that Churchill hoped for a diversion from the luftwaffe hitting the bases. etal. (i dont buy it, the evil little artist shifted tactics((starting in 1939)) to try and weaken British resolve so he could invade by 1940.) So? terror back. but the combatants in the second world war wore uniforms. and ya know what, my uncles brother went to the antarctic. his cabin mate was a luftwaffe major(an ace in fact) the two got on. u.s. navy captain retired and luftwaffe major. see...equality(in rank also if im not mistaken). these boys earned historical retribution and reconciliation. In this case, I see no such mercy. sir. (lets talk about BP if ya want to talk turkey) and please dont attempt to apologize for attempted humor.(which i encourage) as the Cambodians say "nothing is forgiven". good night from the the middle of the mit.
posted by clavdivs at 8:14 PM on October 28, 2001

puts the the 5 lb add-on to ten-gallon hat "what lj said"
posted by clavdivs at 8:16 PM on October 28, 2001

clavdivs what are you smoking, and could I get some?
posted by signal at 8:57 PM on October 28, 2001

Saying so is not a dismissal of the Marshall Plan, it is putting the relevant acts into a more accurate perspective.

Wrong again: but as Christopher Hitchens notes, history and libertarianism never mix well. The argument was as follows: what made the world a "safer place": the bombing of Germany and Japan "into the stone age" (a premise with which I disagree, in any case) or the Marshall Plan? Let's take the most obvious point of comparison: the Great War, in which Germany suffered a similar level of damage to its economy and population, but was hit with the Treaty of Versailles. Now, most historians will say that it was the Versailles settlement which created the conditions for economic collapse and national resentment that in turn fed the rise of fascism. The "actual conflict" didn't make the world more or less safe, but what it bequeathed certainly did. Which is precisely why the constitutional settlement and then the Marshall Plan were instigated, in order to finish the job properly (wars aren't won until long after the final shot); in fact, if you're arguing strict temporality here, the founding work for reconstruction of Germany among the Allied powers was in place well before the saturation bombing of Dresden and Tokyo, acts which may have actually lengthened the war in Europe by restoring a long-suppressed sense of German solidarity in resistance. (A point made this evening by an elderly German bureau chief; the Germans on the home front in Dresden were hardly less resolute than the citizens of London or Coventry. What else could they do?)

So your entire premise is unfounded: you misrepresent my earlier point, and in doing so misrepresent the chronology of the Second World War. It's only a "backwards perspective" if you don't appreciate what happened in the first half of 1945. In fact, the manner in which its final months were conducted and concluded on the part of FDR and Churchill ensured that Germany remained a viable nation. Had the eastward movement of Allied infantry matched the destructive vengeance of the westward push to Berlin, the period between Yalta and Potsdam might have brought a very different settlement. And should you still regard the "ending of the Nazi terror" to be the "relevant act" in determining a region's later safety, I can only hope that the contrasting fates of West and East Germany speak for themselves. After all, Stalin played a large enough part in ending the Nazi terror, and didn't he make the world feel that bit safer?

As for Afghanistan: it's arguable that the ground war is already in effect, but that the US isn't a part of it. The capture and execution of Abdul Haq points out the disparity between the defenceless Taliban as bombed from 30,000 feet, and their command on the ground: he called for help, and by the time a couple of planes were sent, he was long dead, creating a massive power vacuum in the Pashtun opposition movement. It's as if there are two distinct and ongoing conflicts, fought in the same space, only one of which is a recognisible war; it's the failure to integrate the two which raises such questions as to both the means and the end. If the US attacks were meant to make it possible for old hands such as Abdul Haq to rally resistance against the Taliban, then they're failing; in fact, there are lines at the Pakistan borders of people wishing to join that fight -- the real war -- on the Taliban side.
posted by holgate at 9:30 PM on October 28, 2001

history and libertarianism never mix well.

Oh really? Your socialist "values" are chlorine bleach to history's ammonia.

It's only a "backwards perspective" if you don't appreciate what happened in the first half of 1945.

The point you seem to continue to miss is that is exactly what electro is doing by stating that "The Marshall Plan made the world a safer place. You are correct *only* to the extent that winning the war *enabled* us to have a Marshall Plan." The Marshall Plan (and the "MacArthur Plan" in Japan) was a component of victory over the Axis, certainly. However, the Marshall Plan alone did not make the world a safer place (as is suggested by electro), and was certainly the minority component compared to the destruction of Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany.

The contrasting fates of East and West Germany are not illustrative of the success of the Marshall Plan, nor is it a dismissal of the value of the liberation from Nazi tyranny as replacing totalitarian National Socialism with totalitarian Communism is no liberation at all. Had the Marshall Plan poured millions of dollars into the region controlled by Stalin those nations' failures would not have been averted, instead they would have remilitarized much quicker. In fact, the contrasting fates of East and West Germany, North and South Korea, Taiwan and China, etc. illustrate that the effective way to insure more international peace and safety is through the dismanting of statist regimes, whether through military means or more indirect applications of force.
posted by ljromanoff at 7:24 AM on October 29, 2001

hell holgate, you might as well give Speer the credit for saving what was left of the infra. this contention is about winning the peace? well fine, the Marshall plan was successful. but bombing did the trick. The nazis had Tiger II's coming out by the buckets. but no personnel (qualified) to run them. At some point bombing infra(1945 on) made little sense. this is evident. the resolve to fight was evident by Ardennes. Haq was marked from day one. I'm surprised he went in.
posted by clavdivs at 7:32 AM on October 29, 2001

Bad HTML! Bad!
posted by holgate at 8:17 AM on October 29, 2001

Let me spell this out once more

Gee, could you Nick? I appreciate that so much.

Turning it into an either-or question of whether or not the defeat of fascism brought world safety is your own straw man

No, it was electro's - that's the point. It is clear enough from his comment (in its context and on its own) that he had boiled the issue down to a merely binary one, which is what I was disputing.
posted by ljromanoff at 8:57 AM on October 29, 2001

For once, I would like to hear both the terrorist and the American pro-war pontificator actually come up with a solution besides "Bomb 'em back to the stone age, son". That solution hasn't done a damned thing to make the world a safer place.

Well, absolute destruction of one's enemies has been a favored security tactic of nation-states for milliennia, and it's proven very effective. Just ask Carthage.
posted by mikewas at 8:36 PM on October 29, 2001

Sure, and after Carthage Rome enjoyed centuries of peace and prosperity.
posted by rodii at 8:38 PM on October 29, 2001