Re: Taliban troops - US invasion ?

Post #15,090 by dmarker2 10/25/01 8:26:22 AM Reply	Re: Taliban troops - US invasion ? "so long as the ultimate US strategy is to send in its own soldiers." I don't believe it is in current policy for US to occupy any part of Afghanistan. I believe they will accept invitaion of Nothern alliance to use northern city if captured, as a military staging point but I sincerely doubt that any US leader has stated as fact that US will invade & sieze control ?. For the other points - they make sense. Cheers Doug
Post #15,133 by kmself 10/25/01 4:00:55 PM Reply	Occupation Two facts: Air power has never won a war. It's tipped scales, but not been sufficient of itself. We don't have a ground base in Pakistan. The Uzbeks are one option, but the nation is landlocked. An Afghan base of operations is a likely necessity. A base of operations will require perimiter security. We will also eventually have to rebuild the country. Someone's going to have to be there for it. There will be ground troops. There will be an occupation. It need not be the entire nation, but it will exist. `-- Karsten M. Self [link\|mailto:kmself@ix.netcom.com\|kmself@ix.netcom.com] What part of "gestalt" don't you understand?`
Post #15,210 by wharris2 10/26/01 2:55:27 AM Reply	Re: Occupation * Air power has never won a war. It's tipped scales, but not been sufficient of itself. In another series of posts, I made the same statement and was disagreed with re: bosnia/Kosovo. I've read the glowing gushing reports about the effectiveness of the air campaign, and I seem to remember the results somewhat differently: Nobody was yielding anything until the mob showed up at Milosovich's door and "persuaded" him to step down. "Beware of bugs in the above code; I have only proved it correct, not tried it." -- Donald Knuth
Post #15,299 by kmself 10/26/01 3:52:30 PM Reply	Bosnia I can't pretend to know the situation there fully, but there was a mix of local resistance, and air power backed by credible threat of force in the event things got tremendously out of hand. I'd chalk it up to a "tipped the balance" situation. `-- Karsten M. Self [link\|mailto:kmself@ix.netcom.com\|kmself@ix.netcom.com] What part of "gestalt" don't you understand?`
Post #15,304 by Arkadiy 10/26/01 4:33:56 PM Reply	Kosovo When I mentioned Kosovo in the other thread, I did not say "Bosnia" at all. I don't know how the war in Bosnia played out. But in Kosovo, we bombed Miloshevich into submission. And no, Clinton declared from the start that there will not be any ground troups (and got pounded for that by military people - you don't remove a threat like that). And no, the "mod" at MIloshevich's door appeared a few months (or a year) later, way after he pulled from Kosovo. One of the reasons the mob formed was that defeat. Their current president, Costunitsa (sp?) like us even less than M, but he is elected and seems to be sane enough to deal with. That said, I have to agree that air compain is not likely to brinmg victory in Afghanistan. They are already way too low for bombing to matter much politically.
Post #15,649 by kmself 10/29/01 11:08:28 PM Reply	Occupation update: SF Chron, US to base ops in Afghanistan [link\|http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/news/archive/2001/10/29/national1623EST0664.DTL&type=printable\|Pentagon considering setting up a base inside Afghanistan for possible ground operations] ROBERT BURNS, AP Military Writer Monday, October 29, 2001 \ufffd2001 Associated Press (10-29) 14:57 PST WASHINGTON (AP) -- The United States is considering setting up a base inside Afghanistan from which commandos, and possibly conventional ground troops, would launch missions against Taliban and terrorist targets, defense officials said Monday. This option, which Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld hinted at in a Pentagon news conference, could indicate the U.S. military is planning more aggressive moves against the Taliban, the Islamic militia that rules most of Afghanistan and harbors Osama bin Laden. [...] Troops on the ground will likely be needed to capture or kill bin Laden and other leaders of his al-Qaida network, but past wars in Afghanistan -- notably the former Soviet Union's failure after 10 years of fighting -- have shown the high cost of a conventional large-scale ground invasion. Rumsfeld was asked about a USA Today report that said U.S. forces may soon establish a forward base in Afghanistan that would support 200 to 300 commandos. The newspaper, quoting an unidentified defense official, said the base might be in northern Afghanistan. "You're asking if we're considering doing something additional in various ways," Rumsfeld said. "Needless to say, that's our job -- to consider much different things, and we do." He said he had nothing to announce. A senior defense official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said U.S. planners were considering many possibilities, including the idea of a forward operating base in Afghanistan and other ways of using ground forces. If the base were in northern Afghanistan, it likely would be established at an existing air field to facilitate the movement of U.S. troops and supplies. Having the base would make commando raids somewhat less complex, but would provide Taliban and al-Qaida forces with a new U.S. target. Hundreds of U.S. soldiers likely would be needed to protect the base from attack. [...] `-- Karsten M. Self [link\|mailto:kmself@ix.netcom.com\|kmself@ix.netcom.com] What part of "gestalt" don't you understand?`

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