Is there any hope that the northern alliance can pin down a large number of Taliban troops IN THE OPEN? This would be grat for our C130 gunships-we could then mow them down enmasse. It seems that all denails aside, we are cooperating quite closely with the northern alliance. This is a much better option that sending in large numbers of ground troops. I am optimistic, after all, we have probably destroyed most of the Taliban’s fuel supplies, so moving their troops around is going to be almost impossible.
Just a couple of thoughts from my admitted position of ignorance.
I have incredible respect for the ability of our special forces. I believe they have at least the equivalent fighting ability of anyone on earth. Moreover, when you ad to their physical and mental ability and training, technology and support, they become all the more formidable.
Yes, they will incur some losses. And overthrow of the Taliban will not be quick. I believe it is a mistake to think you can fight a war and achieve all of your objectives quickly with zero casualties. But the kill ratio will be sufficiently high to justify their efforts.
What I hope we do not do, is fight a guerilla army with conventional forces. I believe our special forces should be the primary weapons in this confrontation. Of course, they would be supported by conventional forces to seize and hold bases of operation.
I believe we should supply and support the NA as best will help accomplish our objectives. But, we should be very wary of allowing a stuation to develp where these guys come out in charge of the country in the end. They aren’t exactly the good guys either.
The US and British forces seem to be doing what I expected, more or less, with an interesting twist.
One way to enhance the capability of your elite forces is to keep their visibility to the enemy low while making the evidence of their presence high. One of the primary complaints of the American soldier in Vietnam was that they very rarely caught sight of the Viet Cong irregular troops they were fighting. Being an “invisible adversary” goes a long way toward reducing your enemy’s morale.
Same goes here, except some bright person realized that there’s nothing wrong with releasing video footage that confirms their presence, along with pre-fabricated “calling card” posters. Nice touch.
I think it’s extremely likely that sooner or later a large Taliban or Al-Qaeda unit is going to get caught out in the open at night under the guns of elite forces. That’s when the message is going to really be sent home.
There are additional, (and in some cases, much more distasteful) methods to announce your presence without being seen. One touchy-feely twist on the old Afghani practice of not taking prisoners would be to quietly collect all the Taliban and Al-Quaeda wounded and evacuate them along with the elite forces. Thus the enemy finds only a battlefield strewn with their own dead with nobody to tell them what happened. There is also the possibility, however small, that the wounded could provide useful information.
The Taliban’s shrill cries of “the Americans are afraid to fight us” will become more and more hollow as their soldiers continue to discover their own dead and begin to notice even more of their own have gone missing. And if we do it right, their soldiers will never, ever, have a fair chance to shoot back. That’s war on our terms.