Tuesday, July 12, 2005
Are We Sufficiently Ruthless in Afghanistan?
Wretchard has an intense post over at Belmont Club describing the action surrounding our 4 SEALS and their brave, lost rescuers in Afghanistan. The implication of US activity in the remote mountains of Afghanistan is that we are hot on the trail of a "high value target."
It is worth reflecting on the sacrifice made by these incredible young people on our behalf and asking whether we are being sufficiently ruthless in executing our search and destroy/capture missions in Afghanistan.
Let's compare Iraq and Afghanistan for a moment and making some observations. The war with the former Saddam government in Iraq is over. We won. Saddam is in jail. His hereditary heirs are dead. A new government has been voted into office reflecting the popular will of the Iraqi people. Remaining operations consist of capturing and killing regime holdouts and al qaeda terrorists. Political developments require a new constitution and the development of a standing Iraqi army. In my opinion, we hardly need more forces in Iraq. A larger US footprint merely provides more American targets at this point. Iraqi security need only be sufficient to allow for the maturation of the new Iraqi regime, not so sufficient as to escalate the American presence -- admittedly a difficult and debateable balance.
We have had less success in capturing and killing the leadership of the former Taliban regime (Omar), his partners and al qaeda leadership. But it feels as though we have been close on several occasions and have suffered from either poor intelligence or failed execution. It is fair to ask: are our numbers insufficient? Are we using sufficiently ruthless weaponry to target an area where we believe the enemy resides? Are we unfairly burdening our elite troups with high risk missions?
In a very different context, Harry Truman made a decision that to bring the Japanese enemy to its knees, he would use overwhelming weaponry to avoid much larger casualties associated with an invasion of the Japanese mianland to bring the War in the Pacific to a conclusion. Should we be more ruthless in seeking to kill the enemy in the mountains of Afghanistan?
Unfortunately, these tactical questions are interesting, but purely theoretical. We "on the outside" have insufficient information to form a meaningful judgment and have to trust our military and political leadership in their decisions. How good is our intelligence? Can we access the enemy in these remote locations from the air? Can our weaponry penetrate mountain lairs from a distance? Alternatively, do we need to consider adding to our troop numbers in an effort to overwhelm the enemy in these mountains? It feels as though we have been stymied in cleaning the Afghan Taliban and al qaeda house of its senior leadership -- and this is frustrating and tragic in terms of the loss of elite American troops and the lack of progress in capturing bin laden or zawahiri.
It is worth reflecting on the sacrifice made by these incredible young people on our behalf and asking whether we are being sufficiently ruthless in executing our search and destroy/capture missions in Afghanistan.
Let's compare Iraq and Afghanistan for a moment and making some observations. The war with the former Saddam government in Iraq is over. We won. Saddam is in jail. His hereditary heirs are dead. A new government has been voted into office reflecting the popular will of the Iraqi people. Remaining operations consist of capturing and killing regime holdouts and al qaeda terrorists. Political developments require a new constitution and the development of a standing Iraqi army. In my opinion, we hardly need more forces in Iraq. A larger US footprint merely provides more American targets at this point. Iraqi security need only be sufficient to allow for the maturation of the new Iraqi regime, not so sufficient as to escalate the American presence -- admittedly a difficult and debateable balance.
We have had less success in capturing and killing the leadership of the former Taliban regime (Omar), his partners and al qaeda leadership. But it feels as though we have been close on several occasions and have suffered from either poor intelligence or failed execution. It is fair to ask: are our numbers insufficient? Are we using sufficiently ruthless weaponry to target an area where we believe the enemy resides? Are we unfairly burdening our elite troups with high risk missions?
In a very different context, Harry Truman made a decision that to bring the Japanese enemy to its knees, he would use overwhelming weaponry to avoid much larger casualties associated with an invasion of the Japanese mianland to bring the War in the Pacific to a conclusion. Should we be more ruthless in seeking to kill the enemy in the mountains of Afghanistan?
Unfortunately, these tactical questions are interesting, but purely theoretical. We "on the outside" have insufficient information to form a meaningful judgment and have to trust our military and political leadership in their decisions. How good is our intelligence? Can we access the enemy in these remote locations from the air? Can our weaponry penetrate mountain lairs from a distance? Alternatively, do we need to consider adding to our troop numbers in an effort to overwhelm the enemy in these mountains? It feels as though we have been stymied in cleaning the Afghan Taliban and al qaeda house of its senior leadership -- and this is frustrating and tragic in terms of the loss of elite American troops and the lack of progress in capturing bin laden or zawahiri.
1 Comments:
By 
, at
Wed Jul 13, 03:47:00 PM:
There is another reason why we may not want to use a "ruthless" weapon along the lines of Truman: we do not merely want to kill bin Laden or Omar; we want to be able to confirm that we have killed them. After all, the myth that Hitler survived his bunker lived on for many years.
