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Subject: whos winning
tommy atkins    10/30/2001 3:03:30 AM
hard to say right now,ask again in a month or two
 
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[email protected]    RE:whos winning   10/30/2001 7:33:13 PM
Yeah, too soon to say. I have no clue what Osama bin Laden's strategy is, hence no clue if it's going well or badly. The Americans seem to be getting ready for anything in general and nothing in particular. Since Osama bin Laden wins by default, I'd give the early form points to him. But the guy who starts the fight is always on top at first. The Americans haven't even worn the shine off the new ball yet.
 
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[email protected]    RE:whos winning   11/15/2001 7:20:16 AM
Osama bin Laden won the toss and elected to bat. After a few overs to loosen up, BUFFY shot out the Taliban openers, and the middle order is fumbling. I still have no idea what Osama bin Laden's plan was, but it wasn't panic and disintegration, so now he has to find a new plan. I'm a happy little camper at this point.
 
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tommy atkins    RE:whos winning   11/18/2001 12:55:02 PM
Pretty obvious at this point. Theyre getting their arse booted through their teeth. Each day that goes by they are showed to be more & more a bunch of feckless goons.
 
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[email protected]    RE:whos winning   12/22/2001 9:54:06 PM
Although I can't say Usama (or UBL as he is known by the Pentagon) is winning, the U.S. military is commiting a fundamental mistake in allowing the Northern Alliance to do most of it's fighting. The soldiers of the Northern Alliance are allowing the Taliban prisoners to escape and they are making flawed surrender negotiations. In my opinion, that violates the most fundamental rule of the art of war, which is to occupy your enemies space. If we allow others to do the fighting for us, we will always lose control of "containment" because of fear of casualties. Fear of casualties is no way to fight a war. I am not implying that they, casaulties, should not be taken into account but I am suggesting that perhaps we have become to squeamish about them. I feel that the U.S. really got lucky becuase so many Afghans wanted the demise of the Taliban. However, if UBL has indeed escaped, he is free to re-group with others who may indeed be more sympathetic. You can be certain he is studying us as well. I pray Special Ops nails the scumbag.
 
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[email protected]    RE:whos winning   12/24/2001 2:46:47 PM
Opinions vary on the most fundamental law of war. Did we achieve the objective? There was a change of government. A bunch of terrorists died. These are things we wanted. Did we exhibit mobility and a high tempo of operations? We were pretty light-footed, we were able to sustain force where it was not easy to do so, and by not arousing too much hostility we kept to a minimum the diplomatic friction in moving our forces later in the war. By getting a job done (not "the" job, but "a" useful job) we seem to a have persuaded a lot of true believers that for the time being sullen malice is a safer bet than active hostility. And by doing things quick and dirty we can move on to the next lot of terrorists hopefully before they learn and make major adjustments in how they do things. And for Sun Tzu's famous moral influence, we did not act like a mob of bloody wahoos. Bonus. And we are making it clear that changing sides to us as the Russians did is a profitable idea. What's not to like? Well, Osama Bin Laden continuing to breathe, but his day will come, we didn't make the best of our opportunity to woo India, but the terrorist scored a goal for us by attacking the Indian parliament, a lot of bad guys got away, the Northern Alliance and the general situation in Afghanistan is still ugly, Pakistan is a huge problem, and there are alliance problems on the way. But perfect neatness is not characteristic of war. At Christmas 2001, we are up, the terrorists are set back, and we have plenty to celebrate. So celebrate. :D
 
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pfd    RE:whos winning   12/25/2001 3:23:10 PM
The sad thing is that a handfull of individuals can drain so much life and treasure. OK, the US is doing ok, most Afghans have at least hope for the future. My deepest fear is that India and Pakistan finally come to an open clash of arms due to the current events both in Kashmir and the horrible attack on the Indian parliment. The term 'whose winning' would become a dirty joke with no punchline. As a nasty aside-as reported here on this page, Ethiopia seems to want a US led clean-up of Somalia and lots of folks seem to want a replay of the Gulf War. I hope for inactivity on all fronts. Looks like a lot of people see opportunity knocking at the expense of the US treasury and Gene-pool. Is there anyone left on the planet that believes in self-help?
 
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[email protected]    RE:whos winning   12/25/2001 4:45:33 PM
"Is there anyone left on the planet that believes in self-help?" Did we (Australia) put our guys on the ground in East Timor, and ask you only to supply vital moral and diplomatic support? (Which you did in spades. Heartfelt thanks.) Or ask Uncle Sammy to send Americans to clean up >our< problem? Take your time answering. :) I thought your other comments were reasonable. But whatever frustrations we feel, at this point the bad guys are feeling a while lot more, so I stick to my opinion that we should keep going hard and fast while we are winning. Don't wait for the lights to change against us. This is not over till the terrorist network is killed worldwide.
 
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bsl    RE:whos winning   12/25/2001 6:52:59 PM
"U.S.military is commiting a fundamental mistake in allowing the Northern Alliance to do most of it's fighting. The soldiers of the Northern Alliance are allowing the Taliban prisoners to escape and they are making flawed surrender negotiations. In my opinion, that violates the most fundamental rule of the art of war, which is to occupy your enemies space." While I agree that there are liabilities to this sort of strategy, the fact is that a more conventional war was not clearly possible. Given the lack of direct access to Afghanistan and the limitations on what access we have been able to achieve through neighboring countries, it is not at all clear that we were capable of sustaining a field army in Afghanistan. How was it to get there, how was it to be supplied, and how were we to safeguard our lines of communications? This are threshhold questions which have to be answered before we ever get to the additional ones, such as whether such a deployment would not, in itself, have created new enemies, both in Afghanistan and Pakistan. I'm inclined to interpret our choice of approach as less a continuation of the unfortunate line of policy designed to minimize our casualties as a rational response to an unusually difficult strategic equation for the reasons just cited. We haven't had problems stemming specifically from "fear of casualties" **based on our proxy strategy**, as far as I can see. We've had forward air controllers present all over Afghanistan, with real time communications with the shooters. What problems we've had about targeting have seemed to be based on the same general confusion about what we're seeing which would have been present had we an army of a million on the ground. We ARE having problems with people allowed to escape, both Taliban and Al Qaeda, which result from our strategy. We seem to be dealing with some of them. However, the more important consideration is whether we simply give up and go home, or, as we seem to be, continue to pursue them. The next step may involve Pakistan. What happens remains to be seen. "U.S. really got lucky becuase so many Afghans wanted the demise of the Taliban." NO! The nascent and active opposition to the Taliban wasn't a random element. It was an essential part of the strategic environment. The strategy chosen took full account of this strategic environment and was molded to achieve our ends taking full advantage of this. I think you're exactly wrong about this point. Whatever else may turn out to be true, this specific campaign is going to be studied as a paradigm of strategic thinking. One of the very best examples in American military history of molding a campaign to a specific set of circumstances in the most efficient, economical way. OTOH, as I've already written in other notes, I agree that OBL, personally, is a key goal of our war and he must not only be killed or captured, but SHOWN to have been killed or captured or we will not have a complete victory.
 
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bsl    RE:whos winning   12/25/2001 7:03:34 PM
David, 1)Changing the Afghan government was never a primary war aim. It was always a thing considered necessary to allow us to pith Al Qaeda, which WAS a primary goal. If we were to overthrough the Taliban, but Al Qaeda continued and regrouped, we would have lost. If, OTOH, we were to destroy Al Qaeda and kill most of it's leadership, but had left the Taliban in control in Afghanistan, then we would pretty well have won. The caveat would be whether we believed the Taliban would support creation of a *new* Al Qaeda. But, in either case, the Taliban was a secondary goal. 2)I strongly agree about the salutory effect of a victory to the thinking of people in the region. 3)Before the events of 9-11, America was ALREADY on the road towards a strategic realignment away from Pakistan and towards India. I think we're still on that road. HOWEVER, I disagree about there having been a real opportunity to switch to the fast lane on this. To the extent that we were seen to be doing so, we would have made Pakistani cooperation more difficult. I'm not sure there's a one-to-one relationship involved, but if this isn't nearly a zero sum game, then I don't know what else is. And, since we NEEDED Pakistani cooperation to operate in Afghanistan, our short term war aims more or less precluded any simultaneous move towards India. I STILL think we're on a long term move towards India. I just think we're trying to hush this up as long as we need substantial Pakistani support. And, I think this is the OTHER reason we're especially nervous about an imminent Indian-Pakistani war. We'd far rather it wait for us to be clear of the region before it starts.
 
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pfd    RE:whos winning   12/26/2001 8:42:05 AM
to David Blue-you sort of got me there. Heat of the moment.
 
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