Re: Afghanistani Warfare.

[Erik Sandelin <esand@xxxxxxxxxx>]

I think this is the first time I've ever posted to this list, so I hope I'll be
forgiven for continuing this topic drift...

I don't think this is a no-win scenario for us (the USA), but I do think we have
a very fine line to walk. I think we need to build an air-tight case against
whoever perpetrated this act, and against whoever may have
harbored/aided/abetted said perpetartor, before we retaliate, so we know we're
hitting the right people. As nice as it would be to rid the world of any (and
all) terrorists, if we hit the wrong group we're only inviting more attacks.

I think the retaliation the public should see should be against the nation(s)
that harbored the terrorists. These would be the airstrikes and cruise missile
attacks, and they should be aimed only at military targets. I would even go so
far as to warn the targeted nation that these attacks were coming (only in
general terms - no specifics given so that said nation could try to save their
military) so that they have time to remove civilians from the area.

The retaliation against the perpetrators themselves should never be seen by
public eyes until well after they were over. These would our "shadow war"
attacks - the insertions of SEAL teams, Delta squadrons, Green Beret A-teams,
etc..., aimed at capturing and/or assassinating the terrorists.

In fact, I think spec-ops units should be the only ground units involved in our
retaliation. I see no point in trying to "invade" Afghanistan, Palestine, or
whatever nation may be involed. Such a scenario (especially the Afghani one),
has too much risk of becoming VietNam, Pt II, in my opinion. Massive air, naval,
and cruise missile bombing is enough to get our point across to harboring
nations, and sugical covert ops are enough to give terrorists pause before they
think about this sort of thing again.

Just my $.02,
Erik Sandelin

"Stephen R. Wilcoxon" wrote:

> >        I know we WON'T do this, but seriously, percentage scale....what do
> > you guys and gals think the world reaction would be if we nuked the SOB??
> >        I think 80% would be with us...
>
> I think it would be more like 50% -- too many people/countries are
> horrified at the mere thought of a nuke.
>
> Anybody else think it looks like we're in a lose-lose situation?  If we
> don't do enough, we're "weak" and get hit by more terrorists.  If we do
> enough, other groups "see, they are the aggressor" and we get hit by more
> terrorists.  The only solution (not much of one) I can see is to react so
> strongly no country or group would consider harboring any terrorists that
> attack the US.  As an example (the only one I could come up with that I
> think has any chance (of course, I'm not a military/political strategist)),
> cruise missiles with tactical nukes against every camp of every terrorist
> group that has attacked the US).  One of the problems being that some of
> the "camps" are in the middle of cities (specifically so that we can't
> bomb them).
>
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