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What Kind of War
In 1916, rebel general Poncho Villa and some of his men rode
out of Mexico and into the United States. He killed some people, did a little
pillaging and went back to Mexico. Outraged Americans demanded some action, so
the U.S. Army went into Mexico to catch Villa. They came in on foot, on
horseback, on trucks and in airplanes. After many months of scouring northern
Mexico, the troops returned to the United States empty handed. In 2001, the U.S.
Army plans on going into Afghanistan to hunt down Osama Bin Laden. Afghanistan
is about the size of Texas, and about the same number of people. And no oil.
Afghanistan and northern Mexico have one thing in common, both have plenty of
places to hide. But Afghanistan holds other dangers. The Afghans are
much more antagonistic towards foreign invaders. For over three thousand years,
Afghanistan has been an unruly area that was more likely to conquer it's
neighbors than be conquered. Hundreds of hostile tribes and clans live in
isolated mountain valleys. Violent feuds are common, and every few generations
an exceptional leader unites many of the tribes and makes war on neighboring
areas. These conquests rarely last long, and all that is left is fear of Afghans
and great reluctance to invade Afghanistan. The Afghans are proud of their
fearsome reputation and each generation is eager to reaffirm how tough and
ferocious Afghans are. Even the cities are full of people who trace their
origins to a tribe up in the mountains. Naturally, Afghanistan is ungovernable.
Afghanistan's borders are guarded more by the neighbors fear of the Afghans than
by anything else. But all of this comes at a cost. Afghanistan is the poorest
nation in Asia, and has the shortest life spans (44 years). Language also
divides the nation. Pushtuns speakers are the most powerful, but comprise only
about 40 percent of the population and live in the eastern half. About half the
Afghans speak a dialect of Iranian and live in the west. A quarter of the
population is Tajik, and live in the north on the Tajikistan border. There are
Pushtun tribes in Pakistan to the east. To conquer Afghanistan you have to
defeat hundreds of tribes and clans. There are two ways to do this. The Mongols
came through and killed everyone who got in their way. Soon the survivors
concluded that the Mongols were not so bad after all and surrendered. The more
common method is to make deals and take advantage of tribal feuds. Use the "two
handed" approach. Bullets in one hand and gold in the other. Even the Russians
realized that some tribes could be bought off. So how do you fight in
Afghanistan? Mostly, you don't. Offer each tribe or city bullets or gold. Or,
considering the three years of drought Afghanistan has suffered recently, offer
bullets or bread. But you can't go in as an aid mission. Your bullets have to be
credible, and just making an awesome display of weapons is not enough. The
troops will need Pushtun and Dari speakers. There aren't many of those in the
U.S. armed forces, but there are several hundred thousand in America (legally
and otherwise.) Perhaps a call for volunteers is in order, to become contract
employees for the duration of the Afghan operation. Payment could be made in
cash and green cards. Hey, it works for the French Foreign
Legion. Capturing the capital, Kabul, doesn’t work, as the Russians
discovered in the 1980s. Unlike the Russians, Americans won’t be in there to
conquer, just to capture terrorists and destroy terrorist training camps and
equipment. Finding and destroying the camps will be easy. Getting the terrorists
will be a lot more difficult. Bin Laden and his lads are sort of folk heroes to
many Afghans. If the bad guys dress like the locals and are hidden by them, how
to you find the terrorists? America has invested billions into
satellites and electronic gadgets capable of finding stuff. But none of this
gear can locate a Bin Laden associate in a cave or barn, unless the terrorist is
using a cell phone. But the Bin Laden people are taught all about cell phones
and American detection equipment. So you might capture some of the dumb or
forgetful terrorists. But you really want the smart ones, especially Bin Laden
and his close associates. These guys will be constantly on the move. OK, offer
money, a lot of money, for anyone who will tip off our troops about where Bin
Laden is. You’ll have to throw in some green cards, because anyone known as the
guy who ratted on Bin Laden would have a very short life expectancy. Most
of all, you must not enrage the Afghans. They will not fight you head to head.
They will fade into the hills and snipe at your supply trucks. And there will be
a lot of supply trucks. Each soldier will require at least a hundred pounds of
supply a day. Without those trucks the troops have no food, water, ammunition or
batteries for all their gadgets. If it sounds like Vietnam, it is. But worse.
Vietnam had a nearby coast wherever you were, with several major ports and lots
of rivers. Afghanistan has none of this. You either truck it in or fly it in.
Moreover, American troops and supplies have to move past two million Afghan
refugees in Pakistan. This population contains thousands of armed Taliban
supporters and Bin Laden admirers. The war will only appear very quick
of we get lucky, spot Bin Laden early on and grab him with helicopters carrying
full of commandoes. But that will be far less than a major for victory, for the
Bin Laden organization is thousands of well educated and highly motivated
terrorists scattered throughout the Moslem world, Europe and North America. In
retrospect, the hunt for Poncho Villa was easy.
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