If the goal here is to eliminate terrorism ‘root and branch’ as Powell has said, then it seems to me that the best thing for our purposes is to have the Taliban refuse to hand over Bin Laden.
That gives us the excuse to go after him AND roll up much of the network while we are in Afganistan. As a bonus we can remove the Taliban from power and (hopefully) install a properly elected government in it’s place.
But if they give him up what do we use as an excuse to go after the Taliban itself? It seems to me we shouldn’t even be asking for him, but rather go forward with the whole ‘make no distinction between terrorist and those who harbor them’ message.
The Taliban has given Bin Laden a place to live and train for years, and the fruit of that is now borne. We need to hold them accountable for past harboring and not just for future behaviour. We shoudn’t even be suggesting that if they play nice from here on out we might leave them in power.
Asking them to hand over Bin Laden suggests that we might be prepared to treat this as a law enforcement issue if they play nice. But that’s a mistake. Treating terror as a law enforcement issue puts initiative permanently in the hands of terrorists.
Thankfully, so far, the Taliban has been unhelpful, but what if they wise up? What if they sacrifice Bin Laden to protect the rest of the network? Should we be satisfied with just his head?
I say no. We have the perfect excuse to go to war against terrorism, we should make the most of it.
I have a hunch the US will insist on bin Laden and a whole laundry list of other guys, some of them in the Taliban gov’t. It ain’t like we only have one name.
According to Jane’s, cleaning bin Laden’s orgnaization, al-Qaeda, out Afghanistan will hardly even be a beginning to cleaning it up entirely.
We cannot be intending to declare war on every one of these countries in order to wipe out al-Qaeda. To the extent we can persuade them to hunt down and exterminate al-Qaeda themselves, or get them to cooperate with us, we clearly should do so.
The chances of getting Taliban cooperation look pretty bleak, I must admit, but we should attempt it. Even if we can’t get it, and end up going to war with Afghanistan, we should exploit divisions within the Taliban to get as many local allies on our side as possible. If we go in with the whole country united against us, it’s going to be nightmarish.
Being the hydra-headed Gemini that I am, I must confess that while one part of me has been lobbying for the most peaceful, least warlike solutions possible, I have zero respect for the Taliban and in fact I think they are pretty fucked up and would really have no problem seeing them crushed.
So one of my heads would probably cheer if we ended up chewing them up and spitting them out.
But I don’t think it could or would ever be that simple…go after bad guys, bad guys gotten, good guys take over, peace and prosperity ensue. It would be nice, tho.
Also, I must point out that just because Bin Laden or another terrorist group happens to be in a country, that doesn’t mean that country is harboring them. In the case of the Taliban, it seems pretty obvious that they are, but as for the list that Danimal presented… well… I doubt Jordan or Egypt are very happy to have al-Qaeda presence.
And I’m with Stoid… part of me wants to see as little collateral damage as possible, but another part of me knows that we must get rid of Bin Laden and his group, along with other dangerous terrorist factions.
I think a lot of this is going to come down to things like “Mr president of country X, we believe you have terrorists hiding in your country. We request you let our (US/UN) special forces in to deal with them. If not we will sever all trade relations with you, and so will Europe, Japan, etc. Sincerely, GW Bush.”
What’s going to be the test is what happens when:
Country X (Oh, say, Syria) says “we’ll get them ourselves” and we say “Sorry, we don’t trust you.”
Special forces fucks up (nobody’s perfect) and blows up an orphanage and/or takes casualties.
My guess is that people like France and China go behind our backs and thus undermine the trade embargo threat that underlies #1, and that the US people lose their taste for #2. Three years from now, this war ends up just like the war on poverty.
Let them hand over Osama bin Laden. There’s so many on the Christmas list that they will never be able to give them all up to us. It matters not one whit. Afghanistan screwed the pooch and now it’s time to pay the piper. They need to be crushed, plain and simple, preferably painfully.
Remember: The devil calls all the best tunes, and there’ll be the devil to pay.
im my opinion, having a finite list with a specific set of individuals is the wrong way to approach this. if we did, it gives the terrorists a “win-win” situation. i would bet that Asshola Bin Laden and a few others would gladly surrender-- thereby becoming martyrs, and furthering thier cause-- to prevent the wholescale destruction of thier race/culture/religion. i would propose a “blanket warrant” (along the lines of the Tonkon Resolution) that allowed NATO to go anywhere in the world and eliminate whoever was determined to be a threat at any givin time. just my opinion…