Originally posted by monsieurjohn
i'm joining the air force as soon as i graduate. that much is sure - i'm in rotc now. as i watch the news, there is little doubt in my mind that at some point i'll be directly involved with what is going on now, even though my graduation isn't until 2005. because of the rotc program i'm in, i frequently talk to high-ranking air force officers who do know what is going on. and although they can't tell me any more than they can tell the media, they know their military strategy, they know the facts, they know the choices that have been made, and they are in support of U.S. actions and have a firm conviction that we are going about this the right way. i'm inclined, frankly, to trust them. they know better than i can speculate.
We'll see. I agree that what they plan to do is the right thing, but it is taking too long. Bush hoped he'd have Kabul, Kandahar, Herat, and another centre in American hands three weeks before the Afghan winter began. That's not going to happen now because it's been such a slow moving campaign. So unless the ground forces REALLY get a move on in the next couple of weeks, we won't be seeing any action until next April. By that time, who knows where Bin Laden will be, who knows whether Musharraf will still be in power in Pakistan, and who knows whether Putin will still be in power in Russia. Time is of the essence.
Originally posted by monsieurjohn
if there were an enemy lined up to fight us, then sure, we could send in everything we've got, dispatch the enemy in thirteen hours, and come home. but this war is *totally* unlike every war we've ever fought because we have a hazy objective and an invisible enemy. as such, we can't fight it like any other wars we've ever fought. the élite special forces are trained for situations like this, and they are teh ones best suited to carry out the operations. if we start using the shotgun approach and sending in massive numbers of soldiers, nothing will be accomplished beyond what the special forces can accomplish except for collateral damage and loss of life, both of our men and of the afghan people.
There is an enemy lined up to fight us. With that first raid on Afghani soil, the Taliban saw the special forces coming, and the U.S. military got a rude shock when they took quite a few casualties. The Taliban, as a regime, are so close to Al Qaeda they have to go. The only way to do that is with a ground operation. The special forces might have a little bit of luck, but finding Bin Laden is doubtful, as even now they have no idea where he is, but, as happened with that first raid, sending small numbers of special forces against all the Taliban has just isn't working. A full-blown assault on the four largest cities, as planned, would most probably work, if it's not too late. The Taliban isn't an innocent regime sitting by while the big bad U.S. goes in against them. The Taliban IS the enemy, as much as Bin Laden is. Hell, the leader of the Taliban and Bin Laden are as we speak, in hiding together.
Originally posted by monsieurjohn
one more thing... as horrible as it is, there is no "once and for all" - even if we destroyed bin laden, the entire taliban, every terrorist training camp, and wiped afghanistan off the face of the earth, there are still terrorists, and tehre are still followers of bin laden somewhere, and an entire new era or terror has been born and there will be no end to it. our ways of life can never be the same, and we have to live with the fact that no matter what kind of fighting we do, the world will never be the way we knew it a month and a half ago.
Not quite. You'll always have your fanatics, but that's all they'll be. Fanatics. Think of how popular Jerry Falwell is when he comes out with mad statements like after September 11. They won't have the backing of the regimes, and without support from the Afghani and Iraqi governments, September 11, nor the anthrax attacks, could have gone ahead.
Originally posted by KNSinatra
Let's not start materializing personal attacks out of statements intended as contributions to a political dialogue.
That wasn't a personal attack, and you know it. I simply said that Hermie would like to think I'm stupid. That says nothing about Hermie. That's simply defending myself.
Originally posted by Banshee Laughter
Whoever it was that said President Bush doesn't have the balls to stick it out over popular opinion... yikes! He hasn't even been president for a full year yet! What is giving you that opinion? We have no idea how he will react, but I'm betting that he WILL stick with it til the end. He doesn't strike me as the type of person who would pull out over re-election/popularity polls. Besides, American's (or the majority of them) are fully behind this war.
For now, he will. But if he doesn't move fast, he's going to have to wait until April. A lot can change in six months. Will support be so high then? I'd be very surprised. And if the American people don't back him, I'd be even more surprised if he did what was right, and finished the job.
Originally posted by Banshee Laughter
I have to agree with the people here who say let's take our time about it. Sure, emotionally I'd like to see us storm in there. But then again, it's not ME over there and it's not YOU over there. Those of us here in our safe homes have to take more of an intellectual -vs- emotional look into the situation. The troops we do send in are not nameless faces... they are the sons and daughters, fathers, mothers, brothers and sisters of other Americans. Their lives should not be casually tossed away in order to achieve immediate gratification.
Excuse me for being harsh, but what is the purpose of an army if it won't fight? In Kosovo and such places, they had an excuse. But this time America was attacked. If you have loved ones in the army, you need to accept that they're going to be called off to war one day.
Originally posted by Banshee Laughter
I'm wondering if it is a radical group within the US that is doing it to speed up the war on Afghanistan... or if it is indeed another terrorist attack. What do you think?
It's an interesting theory, but one that's basically impossible. Only in rare labs in Russia, Iraq and the U.S. can be used to make anthrax. It's very difficult to make, and that this attack was able to take place is a result of the Hussein regime's support of Bin Laden, or the more unlikely possibility, that it may have come from dissidents within Russia, after the breakdown of the Soviet Union.
Originally posted by Banshee Laughter
So... why not hit us with smallpox or some type of ebola strain? Weird... there's something weird about this that I don't think we've figured out yet.
Smallpox is basically dead. There's two laboratories on Earth which still contain samples of it, one in Russia, one in the U.S. It would be pretty much impossible for terrorists to get their hands on these. I don't know much about ebola, but it must be harder to produce than anthrax, or they'd have tried it instead, I'm sure.
Originally posted by Diesel Dan
Simple... fear.
While not really presenting the threat of massive deaths, what the anthrax attacks have accomplished is that they've injected a sense of fear and paranoia into the American psyche.
While more subtle, the lasting effects of a fear attack can be far more profound.
I agree.
Originally posted by Banshee Laughter
Aren't smallpox samples fairly easy to get?
As I mentioned above, no. They'd be very, very difficult to get their hands on.
Originally posted by Banshee Laughter
Ack! I'm jabbering. Sorry about that!
Nah, not at all.
It's good to have you back.
