I think we would do whatever it takes to keep allies of the Taliban and Al-Qaeda from getting a hold of Pakistan’s nukes and production facilities.
Support of American people ain’t going away any time soon.
Given what happened to start this thing off, and what we can reasonably expect from the enemy in the future, if left unchecked.
Can’t think of anything offhand. Probably nothing. But public support is based on public perception, not specific promises.
I don’t think public support will collapse in one shot. First some muted criticism from fringe groups, then louder and louder criticism, from more and more mainstream groups.
From the AP: Some U.S. Muslim Leaders Call for an End to Bombing in Afghanistan
Public Support for U.S.-Led Military Action Against Afghanistan Falling but Still High (This refers to the British public).
I’m not saying that this will definitely be a problem. Only that it is something that has to be a concern (as I’m sure policy makers are well aware).
I would be absolutely shocked if that happened. Well, hopefully we’ll never have to find out.
First of all, I don’t think public attitudes are changing, other than amongst the chattering classes in Washington and in the media.
But if they are, some of the blame can be put squarely at the feet of the media. When are they going to learn that their country is at war? You know, in WWII, the media got on board and helped publicize Allied victories and downplay the losses. And if a member of the media stumbled across a military secret that might harm a military operation, he would keep it quiet, and inform the military of the leak and help them control it.
Now, we’ve got idiots like Loren Jenkins of NPR saying that if he found out the exact date and place of a U.S. surprise attack he would publish it because the people have a ‘right to know’. And we have members of the media cajoling and browbeating government and military officials into inadvertently revealing sensitive information, which they then publish immediately, and to hell with how many soldiers get killed as a result.
At some point, the media had better learn that with freedom comes responsibility. They act like spoiled children, with the grade-school notion that anything that is legal to say is right to say.
I have no reason to believe that they changing in the US as of yet. But the seeds are there.
Some. But it is also true that people in Western countries are probably more averse to suffering and imposing suffering than are poeple in other countries. Which puts them at a disadvantage in prolonged wars. The fact that in the immediate aftermath of a savage attack on this country people are ready to take on the world does not mean that this same eagerness will still be there as the time drags on.
Is this true? I think such a person should be shot (if he actually does it, of course. Otherwise just arrest him). Could you link me up with somewhere that the guy is quoted as saying this?
Another link (from CNN): U.S., Britain dispute Afghan campaign critics
The questions are not just coming from Washington desk philosophers - there is a lot of wondering going on in Europe and, quite vocally, in Middle East/Central Asia.
And, while some are beginning to scratch their heads, the American public is solidly behind the current strategy. In fact, I think the administration has done a good job in trying to keep the “nuke 'em crowd” under control.
I also think that the administration needs to “seize the day” and focus Americans attention on the concrete. Prior to 9/11 the administration has been good at “Seize the day” by defining the news issue of the week/day. They have been loosing the momentum with the anthrax story which has illustrated the need for 1] facts, 2] risk and 3] what you can do to keep safe (including the details and whys/wherefores ie: use soap, scrub and bubble while counting to 20, rinse well). Details are wonderful for people who know that there are specific answers to solve any problem.
The administration has not seized the day with the actual Taliban war: repeated bombing does not respond well with the fact that the country was portrayed as being in the 13th century, hurt civilians, bombed out Red Cross food warehouses, Northern Alliance complaints, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia etal saying the bombing needs to stop…
There was lots of talk about what Americans could do to help after the collapse of the WTC/pentagon: give blood, send money, volunteer. I think the admin should shift gears to supporting the war effort and helping rebuild a democratic Afghanistan after the Taliban are kicked out.
Sorry, just telling the American public to get on with living the American dream, but be terrorist-vigilant is not enough.
Yes, the bombing alone will not erase the Taliban. Yes, it takes time to set up logistics etc. Look at the successful invasion of Europe to fight fascism - everyone knew it was going to happen; folks didn’t know when or exactly where.
the point to be made is that our society is free and open; we tend to discuss issues seemingly to death with 24 hour cable tv news. It’s been a while since Bush has spoken to us in a speech. It’s time he did so again. Keep us focus on the real story - ending international terrorism by getting rid of terrorists and the countries that support them.
I don’t fault the media for what they’ve been reporting in Afghanistan, but I think they have been irresponsible in not providing better perspective to the public; not more greatly emphasizing that they are only being allowed to show and report what the Taliban wants shown and reported.
The net result makes it appear as though all we are doing is haphazardly bombing civilian targets. That has happened in a couple of cases, and it is very very regrettable. But we don’t get to see what else we are doing.
John McCain is saying the U.S. needs to have ground troops in Afghanistan, a base from which to stage military operations. Not 20 special forces people. Hundreds, maybe thousands, of troops. I think that may be coming. And all the hand-wringing that’s apparent now will intensify.
We’ve certainly had it lucky for the past several decades, but a downside to that is, people seem to have lost perspective. It’s like they don’t recall World War II lasting years. (I’m surprised at the extent of this I am seeing in England, incidentally, of all places. They, or at least their parents and grandparents, lived through WW II.)
I am concerned when I hear Rumsfeld say we don’t have a template for fighting this kind of war, and we’re doing it on the fly. That sounds vaguely Vietnamish.
And I kind of cringed when I saw the Pentagon’s call for the public to send in ideas for winning the war. This is a new kind of war, and maybe expanding the pool of brainstormers is a good idea. But it doesn’t exactly instill confidence.
Our enemy is not stupid. Their strategy is no doubt to dig in, hold out, and try to win a war of attrition. They’ve done it before.
And they almost surely are aware of how domestic and international support will wane the longer it takes, the more civilians or U.S. soldiers are killed, and the fewer successes are evident.
And the longer it takes, and the more the U.S. struggles, the more it will fire up the radical Muslims that are already itching to come into Afghanistan and join in the jihad against The Great Satan.
All that said, screw public opinion. And, to a lesser extent, screw international opinion.
Never forget what was done to the U.S. on September 11. The organization that did it is still out there. It’s planning to take similar actions. The Taliban, one of the most evil and oppressive governments in modern history, is harboring those that were behind the Sept. 11 attacks. So our primary focus should never be on anything other than protecting the security of the U.S. and its allies, and doing whatever is necessary to accomplish it.
There was a fascinating MSNBC report on our first encounter with Osama bin Laden - in Somalia, where more than 30 U.S. soldiers died after an operation went to hell on them.
Two points those soldiers made in interviews for that show really resonated with me.
One soldier was talking about as the soldiers were surrounded on all sides around their crashed helicopter, Somalians were firing on them with rifles raised under the arm of women in front of them. So they didn’t fire back.
This is how al-Qaeda fights. So forgive me if I don’t get as weepy as that gal from the U.N. in Afghanistan would like, as she goes on television seemingly daily as a mouthpiece for the Taliban to talk about the bad things a stray U.S. bomb did that day.
The other thing from that MSNBC show: All of these Army Rangers were professing what you’d expect from them. They weren’t critical of U.S. policy. They remained gung-ho. They said, “You just give us the orders, we’ll trust you know what you’re doing, and we’ll get the job done.”
But the one criticism one of those Rangers offered - and you could just hear the frustration in his voice - was (paraphrasing), “Don’t send me on a mission anywhere where you are not prepared for the possibility that I might die.”
But, Sam, isn’t this what capitalism and the free market is all about? Don’t the media conglomerates have a fiduciary responsibility to their stockholders to go for the highest viewership (and resulting revenues) possible? And, hey, if a few lives are sacrificed in the process, it’s sort of like layoffs, right?
More seriously though, is there any evidence that the media has actually compromised anything in this war or are they just convenient scapegoats? Some would argue that the media is already being too much of lapdogs and should perhaps be a little more aggressive (e.g., in regards to their acceptance of the White House request regarding the broadcast of messages from OBL). A more serious example during the Gulf War was the media’s uncritical acceptance of claims of the Patriot Missiles’ effectiveness.
I don’t know where you get your news but I have almost always heard claims of civilian causalties made by the Taliban accompanied by a note that these claims could not be independently verified. And on that occasion when reporters were taken to a town that was bombed, it was repeated noted that they were being shown what the Taliban wanted them to see. (My impression is that such caveats in fact appear much less when the media reports facts given to them by the Pentagon.)
And, I don’t think that there is an impression that we are “haphazardly bombing civilian targets.” What I do get is an impression that, despite Pentagon bravado with talk of laser guided bombs and all that, they are less able to avoid inadvertently killing civilians than they like to claim.
izzy: I couldn’t find the original comment, but in searching I found another article referencing it: http://www.nationalreview.com/comment/comment-robbins102901.shtml
A quick comment:
I’m trying to write something to give Zenster a reply in re his last request to me but I wanted to insert myself here just quickly:
Let us not forget that Afghanistan and ObL are 1 part of the equation. Going all out for one part, to the detriment of other parts may not be a great idea. I strongly advise looking at this in a global perspective of costs and benefits. McCain, I believe, is wrong in the presumption that we need massive troop. Hundreds of thousands of troops in Afghanistan is making a Vietnam mistake again. It’s a case of fighting the **wrong ** war. The proverbial last war.
Not because of the causaulties, but because it may not achieve the goals and in fact damage real goals. Fetishizing the mediatized target --ObL-- to the expense of others equally if not more dangerous is to buy into the idiocy of the media at present. And I do feel they have an action movie understanding of this war.
Well, I have written a rather long essay on this. Just need to revise and think further and then share.
In any case, I for one am extremely encouraged by Rumsfeld. He may be making those who think this is a replay of WWII or Gulf War uncomfortable. But I like the man and I like the approach so far, although I have come to suspect starting the bombing so soon before we had developed proper on-the-ground capacity, and that includes intelligence seperate from what is likely impossibly compromised Paki sources and so close to Ramadan was somewhat of a miscalculation. Somewhat.
Pausing/reducing(*) for Ramadan might be a good tactical and strategic move, giving us cover to up capacity of Afghan allies, develop(**) Afghan allies, appear reasonable and placate opinion in countries where instability may threaten our capacity to fight al-Qaeda, which is not just Afghanistan --as Rumsfeld has taken great pains to emphasize.
(*: e.g. ceasing bombing except to protect NA from Taleban movements.)
(**: read, buy)
Well, in any case, never thought my being able to follow al-Jazeerah would be quite so… relevant. I rather wish it was less relevant.
Otherwise, I find myself in agreement with Sam in re the NPR fellow – if he said what is attributed. I hope for a better source than National Review. If said that, well that is damned close to treason in my book. And it is 100% idiocy.
Finally, in re Pakistani intervention per waterj2. I’ll offer this opinion. Visible US military intervention to support Moucharraf is losing. Likely not intervening is losing worse – sometimes limiting your downside is all you can do and lord knows Paki nuclear capacity is a major downside-- but I have no doubt such an event would be a disaster. Better to avoid. I gave me thoughts in re the concept of major troop presence in the area in another thread, stand by it in re Paki instability.
(Also see http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/nation/columns/dotmil/A3233-2001Oct28.html ) which was quite interesting.
I saw several reports that Rumsfeld was furious at the media for reporting on last week’s special operations raid into Afghanistan while it was still in progress (it is mentioned in the NR link that Sam provided).
Guin:
For all intents and purposes, they already have (over a month ago, when they voted to authorize the use of force in response to 9/11). In this thread: http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=87597 – there was some good info, particularly from VarlosZ.
While I think that the Administration deserves a certain benefit of the doubt on their handling of the war, it would help a great deal if we had some inkling of what their (overall) plan is.
I happen to agree with McCain that we need substantial numbers of ground troops in Afghanistan in order to succeed against either the Taliban or bin Laden - troops numbering in the tens of thousands, at least.
When Bush began the air war, I assumed it was aimed at clearing the way for a ground presence. Since the Taliban is much less well-armed than Iraq was in January 1990, I assumed that (a) a much shorter air campaign was presumably needed, (b) that the commencement of the air war meant that we were ready to move the troops in within weeks, and © that we expected to be able to accomplish some military objectives on the ground before winter settled in. I figured that if we didn’t plan on sending in a major troop deployment before winter, then we’d hold off on the air war until nearly spring.
Now I really don’t understand WTF we’re doing over there, because I can’t believe we can do this with air raids and Special Ops alone, and there seems to be little point in air attacks at this stage of the game: they’re just rallying the opposition, and making them confident of their ability to deal with whatever we throw at them.
I’d be a lot more sanguine if I knew we had a game plan that made some sort of underlying sense, regardless of short-term setbacks. (Nor do the inevitable civilian deaths cause me to question our strategy.) Chances are the Administration does have a decent plan, but another Administration felt it had a good plan for winning in Vietnam, too. So you see where my uneasiness comes from.
Milo, do you have a cite for this? I must admit it slipped by me - and I find it as jarring as you apparently did. It’s the last thing I would have expected.
Jshore: I don’t think the media should be giving the government a pass on oversight - they should be able to print articles criticial of the direction of the war, or critical of certain bills passing Congress, etc.
Where the freedom of the press stops in wartime is in giving away operational details of military actions, or engaging in attacks at the military or the situation that will have a serious effect on morale.
For example, in WWII there were German and Japanese agents like Lord Haw-Haw and Tokyo Rose that would broadcast things like, “Soldiers, your wives are cheating on you at home.”
Nowadays, some idiot editor in the U.S. is likely to commission a story on unfaithfulness of spouses at home, and print it in the middle of a war. It’s manufactured ‘news’, and damages the ability of the U.S. to fight.
I certainly wouldn’t censor the media, but I WILL remember who acted irresponsibly and do my capitalist duty to not patronize them. And I might let their sponsors know just what I think of their sponsorship of what amounts to enemy propaganda.
If you want another example of irresponsible reporting, read this: http://portal.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2001/10/29/war129.xml&sSheet=/news/2001/10/29/ixhome.html
As Glenn Reynolds said, If this is true, why in hell are they printing it? And if it’s false, why in hell are they printing it?
And what makes you think that I believe that ‘anything goes’ in capitalism? Companies do stupid things all the time, and I vote with my dollars to support those companies that act the way I think a responsible company should. That’s one of the things I like about capitalism - it’s very democratic in the sense that you get to ‘vote’ many times a day. I heartily support organized boycotts of companies that violate people’s ideals, and other legal means to force companies to be responsible. The media should be no different. And yet today they treat the 1st amendment like it’s some kind of universal ‘pass’ against excessive behaviour.
From the AP: Networks push Pentagon for more war access
RTFirefly:
Here you go, straight from the DoD.
Maureen Dowd also wrote a column about it in the Oct. 29 New York Times, but damned if I know how to find stuff there.
Another thought re: the length of the campaign. I heard someone suggest that the war going into winter actually works to the U.S.'s advantage, as our advanced thermal-imaging technology will be made even more effective.
Gonna get pretty cold in those caves without campfires. And we’ve got stuff that can differentiate between body heat and the ground, even in non-winter situations.
Anyone have a cite for US officials saying there were mass defections from the Taliban? I’ve only heard such claims from the Northern Alliance, who are a less-than-reliable source.
Sam,
I for the most part agree with your take on dealing with the media and with corporations. And I agree that “voting with your dollars” can be democratic in one sense. Of course, there is another sense in which it is very undemocratic…namely, that it is one dollar one vote rather than one person one vote.
Try The New Republic: Let It Snow
(Wumpus, see the quote from Peter Jennings in my previous post. I don’t have any direct quotes).