Should we continue our attacks on Afghanistan during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan?
Why not?
The concept of fair play has no place when the future of entire countries is at stake.
This would be an excellent opprotunity to set up a base and position our troops for a ground assault.
Yes, I think we should continue whatever it is that we’re doing regardless of Ramadan. I mean, I don’t think we should bomb just because it’s Ramadan, but to continue with our military operation as we would at any other time.
My first reason for this is one of rightous indignation. While Tuesday is not a Holy Day in America, it is certainly Don’t Use An Airplane to Attack An Office Building Day. This was ignored by our attackers. FYI, every day is Don’t Use An Airplane to Attack An Office Building Day.
Also, Ramadan is a long time. I might feel differently if it were a single Holy Day. The duration of Ramadan would give the Taliban that much additional time to plan and execute whatever it is that they are going to do next. This just doesn’t strike me as sound strategy. I know this discriminates against a religion that happens to have a long period of Holy observance as opposed to a single day. I wouldn’t even be that keen on halting a military operation on a single day based on my indignation about Tuesday as described above, but I realize that is an emotional response and that intellectually, a single day of possible Taliban plotting has a lower liklihood of producing positive results for them than the entire month of Ramadan.
I don’t see any discrimination here. It isn’t as if we’re singling them out for attack simply because of their religion. Our plans for attack shouldn’t have anything to do with their religious holidays one way or the other. Heck, George Washinton launched a fairly important attack one Christmas Eve. It isn’t as though holidays are always respected during war.
I know some people might think we should cease attacks on Ramadan to appease our Muslim allies. But at some point we are going to have to go through with plans that may prove unpopular with them.
Marc
Who gives a rip if this is an Islamic Holy day?
We are not fighting Muslims. Yes, many people would like to paint the situation in such colors, but we are not, repeat, not, fighting Muslim people. For that matter, we are not attacking anyone and we are not purposefully trying to start a war against another country.
What we are doing is pursuing (psuedo-religious) criminals that sponsored a vicious attack against noncombatants on our own soil. Ramadan has absolutely nothing to do with the current situation except for those who are attempting to misdirect global attention away from the sheer magnitude of these atrocities and are instead trying to invest outright murder with some sort of sham sacred significance.
Alternative viewpoint:
While Muslims have never refrained from war during Ramadan (Mohammed engaged in battle during Ramadan and at least one of the Arab-Israeli wars was launched by the Arabs during Ramadan), Bush and Co. have been going out of their way to surrender the propaganda war in Islamic countries to the Taleban and bin Laden.
Given that,
- Mazar-e Sharif has now been taken from the Taleban,
- as a result of which the Taleban have abandoned their positions on the Uzbekistan border,
- meaning that we can now establish staging areas within Afghanistan reducing (not eliminating) the provocation of establishing staging areas in Pakistan or a neighboring country,
and - it is unlikely that we will be able to actually bring the campaign to a close before winter, anyway,
therefore,
- calling a halt to strategic bombing could be a good propaganda tool for us among the weakly aligned Islamic nations
(while reserving the right to engage in tactical strikes to defend gains made by the Northern Alliance: we announce that we will hold off if the Taleban holds off, then any time we are about to strike them, we call a simultaneous press conference to “explain” the exact troop movement or hostile action in which the Taleban is engaging in violation of Ramadan).
I’ve been of two minds on this for some time.
On one hand, Ramadan has never been a time for ceasing to make war. On the other hand, there are political costs to doing so, because of the character of Ramadan. It is not entirely hypocrisy – the sense of pan-Islamic solidarity runs high during Ramadan. A lot of emotional appeal.
By the way, we are already doing lots of things our allied Muslim nations don’t like. You’re conscious of it as it doesn’t get much hearing here for the obvious reasons, but resentment is running high. Given rising tension and violence in Pakistan, simply saying that “they” have to lump it ain’t necessarily a good long-range strategy. Certainly someone is going to give a rip if outright civil strife breaks out in Pakistan or if the Muslim Central Asians get cold feet about large scale bombing by the Mesihiin during Ramadan. Do the gains from a mere month a bombing a country already quite low on high-value, easy-strike-from-high-altitudes targets outweigh the expected political losses?
A decision to stop, or perhaps scale back bombing, should run along an analysis of gains and losses by doing so. Certainly some greater care is called for. Perhaps a reduction to tactical support strikes in support and defence of the Northern Alliance – let the Taleban be the ones who make aggression in Ramadan, for example. Taking advantage of the time period to distribute aid (as well as reinforce in theatre capacity) might help gain a little baraka. Distribution of aid to the poor & needy is a key feature of ramadan, ostentatious efforts to aid liberated areas, well-publicized and of course real enough not to be easily dismissed could go a long way.
Certainly, of course, no bombing should occur at the end of Ramadan, which is particularly holy. No bombing except to the extent that the Taleban attempt to exploit the situation.
I see Tom beat me to essentially the same analysis.
I cannot recall where I read it, but going through some news articles, I stumbled across one that indicated during a war not too many years back, the Muslim aggressors had no problem in attacking their enemies during their enemies holy days. So, whyinthehell should we have to respect their stinking holy day?
In the last 20 years, most of the wars in the world have been in countries where the majority of the population and the government is MOSLEM! These folks are becoming real pain in the asses towards everyone else! It seems that they expect everyone to respect their holy days and religion while ignoring everyone else’s respective religions, since, <sarcasm> naturally, there is no true religion but theirs.<sarcasm>
It’s WAR! If the Muslims aren’t killing off each other, they’re trying to kill off their neighbors and they like to call for a holy war at the drop of a turban. Ramadan happens? So what? Bomb them even harder.
So, OK9372, your position is that we should do everything we can to piss off those Egyptians, Saudis, Syrians, Jordanians, Yemenites, and Pakistanis, etc. who don’t (yet) hate us simply because you have a confused notion of who is fighting whom throughout the world? This despite the fact that once Afghanistan has been freed of the Taleban, we will then need to search out the other cells of Al-Qaeda in Egypt, Saud Arabia, Syria, Jordan, Yemen, and Pakistan, etc., preferrably with the assistance of the people that you are so eager to offend?
Why not step back a bit and consider what the US is trying to do here?
A)We’re trying to wipe out one or more terrorist networks.
b)We’re trying to avoid having MORE of these networks spring up like ragweed in the future.
What we’re emphatically NOT trying to do is:
A) Kill as many Moslems/Afghans/Arabs as possible.
B) Show that the US is the biggest kid on the block. Hell, they KNOW that, it’s part of the problem.
Now, what strategy would YOU recommend as having the best chance of success?
Testy.
Umm, whilst stopping the bombing might be a nice idea in theory as regards gaining the upper hand in the propaganda war, it will most certainly be a bad idea in practise. You don’t honestly think the Taliban or Al Quaida (sp?) are going to spend this time praying and fasting? They’re going to spend it regrouping and undoing all of the work we’ve been doing for the past month.
In short we would be trying to win the propaganda war (which has been a pitiful shambles already) at the expense of winning the actual war.
Also, just out of interest how far do you think stopping the bombing will actually go in winning the propaganda war? AS soon as it’s over we’re gonna start bombing and killing again so we’ll be right back to square one again.
You are of course right that the Talib will be regrouping and generally getting ready for round 2. On the other hand, it may also give some of the less comitted Talib time to consider changing sides. I can’t see it causing us to lose the war.
As Collounsbury and Tomndeb pointed out, Ramadan is a time to give to charity, particularly food, and we could get some serious brownie points with the rest of the Islamic folks by doing this. Notice I say “COULD” as I have very little faith that the US government would realize the opportunity or take advantage of it in an organized way.
Testy.
How far do you think stopping the bombing will actually go in losing the fighting war? I’m not sure I’m on board with the idea that the Taliban can re-group and re-coup their losses in a month. It seems unlikely, really, assuming we continue to provide support to the domestic resistance.
At any rate, I think Collounsbury and tomndeb’s proposed compromise solution is a reasonable one. Let the Northern Alliance consolidate their gains in the north and, now that they have a superior supply route ( this is assuming they can hold on at Mazar-e-Sharif ), build their strength. Make limited tactical strikes as necessary to support this retrenchment and prevent serious counter-offensives.
I don’t see the Taliban’s strength growing under this scenario. At best they’ll hold fast. More likely, the less-reliable fighters will drift away as the Taliban fails to rack up significant victories ( and, perhaps, the U.S. and others supply the NA and other opposition forces with the cash to buy them off ). They’re certainly already as dug in as they’re ever likely to be.
And really the pay-off in propaganda, not just in the Muslim world as a whole, but among wavering southern tribes in Afghanistan that could be potential allies, might be quite significant.
Of course, going by GWB’s statements on this subject to date, this is all a moot point.
- Tamerlane
Or what Testy said 
. ( I really should start reading more carefully 
).
- Tamerlane
I agree with tom and C here almost down to the letter.
We don’t really care what some people think of us: that is why we are bombing them, eh? However, Nation A dropping bombs on Nation B isn’t an event that is observed only by nation A and Nation B. Warfare has never, ever been that isolated and I see no hint that it ever would, or could, be.
As such, though we don’t respect the people we are at war with (else we wouldn’t be dropping bombs) we do respect and would hope to garner implicit approval if not direct support from other countries. As such, limiting if not stopping the bombing would serve us as well if it is something that might put others on edge. Though there may certainly be times that one must say, “Well, damnit, we’re gonna bomb and that is all there is to it” I am not certain this is such a time.
Let me amplify on why fuck em and bomb em is not a good measure here.
The problem which one actually cares about is al-Qaeda. All the Taleban are, well, are a bunch of backward-ass hillbillies who took over a country. Reprehensible but no different than if for some bizarre reason Appalachia took over the USA.
Their destruction doesn’t achieve much more the marginal value of destroying al-Qaeda’s most obvious bases.
It does not do one whit of good in regards to al-Qaeda in other countries --perhaps a whit of good, but only one insofar as I don’t think these people are intimidated by the USA per se.
If our enemy was limited, for all practical purposes, to a country, to a nation, then all out makes sense. Your target if there. Take it out.
But it is not. Al-Qaeda is diffuse. It is used to operating clandestinly. And to have a hope of combatting it elsewhere, we need the at least reluctant cooperation of Egypt, of Yemen, of Algeria.
Taking a fuck you attitude gains us what? Perhaps the mask of cooperation while in fact key elements of power in place like Yemen decide, hey if the Americans want to play fuck you, well we can do that too. Clandestinly.
It raises our costs.
Well, I don’t feel like fully developing these ideas, however I think there is enough here to suggest all those folks who think this is WW-II part II or a conventional war need to stop watching action movies and watch something more relevant. Again, to get a sense of the operation I can only think of la Bataille d’Alger. (Why a movie rec all the time? Cause I’m fairly certain it’s more useful than citing some Froggy books)
In any case, I believe Tom and I have outlined a scenario not of ‘stopping’ per se, but of putting the propaganda ball in the other court.
Coll: baraka?
Literally, blessing.
As used in some popular usage and somewhat ironically in political speech, “good karma.” Except without the goodness part. Example, the late King Hassan II of Morocco was said to have baraka. Why? Cause everyone felt he had to be such a mean motherfucker, widely hated and feared, and still get away with traipsing around the country.
(Oversimplification here, lots of other stuff going on but I hope that conveys the term.)
On the other hand:
[list=A]
- The terrorists have already shown the “fuck 'em, we will do what we want” attitude (with their attacks on 9/11 and previously), and bombing on Ramadan isn’t going to change that, and
- If we stop bombing during Ramadan as a PR move, we are showing as clearly as possible that we will respond to propaganda, encouraging the Taliban and those who support them to step up the pressure, and
- We are making the Viet Nam mistake. Military actions should be undertaken to achieve military goals. The purpose of bombing is to kill people and break things, not send messages. If a military objective remains to be achieved thru bombing, bombing it will have to be. [/list=A]
Dropping food packets on one part of the country while bombing another hasn’t bought us any brownie points in the eyes of the world, and acting as if the Taliban were legitimate Muslims isn’t going to either.
Ramadan sayeed, camel f***ers.
Regards,
Shodan