O'Connor:The Senior Conservative

War by Proxy

By Dick O'Connor


 



November 8, 2001 (Web Today--)Have our generals fallen for the liberal agenda that a war with our soldiers at risk is not politically correct?  We are bombing from great heights and using guided missals and 'smart' bombs in a theater of war where there is no enemy air force and with limited anti aircraft fire so that our personnel will not suffer casualties?  Isn't that neat?  An even larger question is is that type of engagement working against a zealous foe?

Why don't the Taliban give up?  Don't they know that they are facing the world's only superpower?  They should have surrendered three weeks ago after the first week of 'surgical' strikes.  Who is being taught a lesson, the United States or the Taliban?

We now are told about the 'Daisy Cutter', a 15000 pound bomb that is shoved out of the back end of a cargo plane.  Logic will tell you immediately that such a bomb would necessarily be very inaccurate just due to the fact that it is shoved our of the backramp of a cargo plane instead of being aimed through a bomb sight.  Further adding to the inaccuracy is the fact that it floats down on a parachute, swinging as a pendulum does until a nose probe touches down, exploding the bomb.  The idea is not to find a needle in a haystack, but to blow up the entire haystack.  I t remains to be seen in barren Afghanistan, how many haystacks we can find.  There is little comfort to be derived from this great 'advance' in munitions.

The final insult to our intelligence is the desperate attempt to get someone else to fight our battles.  We are training the Northern Alliance intensely to fight the Taliban for us.  The training is not going well.These rag-tag soldiers are expected to root out the Taliban from their caves, and, outnumbered 3 to1, to take territory which we do not consider risking troops for.  The victor in any engagement is the one left standing on the battlefield, the occupant of the disputed territory.  We have some Special Forces troops on the ground, but they are advisors to the Northern Alliance and are not engaged in active combat with the Taliban.

Where are the Eisenhowers, Mountbattens, Rommels, Montgomerys, Pattons, Grants and Lees of yesteryear?  Where is Norm Schwartskopf?  Where are the men who knew that battles were not fought surgically or antiseptically?  We have only 'General' Rumsfeld, and other politically correct generals who follow his lead in lock step,  assuring us that we are destroying the Taliban.  Sure we are!  We haven't taken one acre of ground.  We are the subjects of marketing and public relations.  How do you win a war with marketing and public relations?

So what do we do now?  Order a large supply of body bags and send in the Magnificent Grunts?  We must remember that the Soviet Union sent in their Magnificent Grunts 10 years ago, and was forced to retreat.  How about pulling out and declaring a victory?  The public relations personnel at the Pentagon could probably 'spin' the story very well but would we accept it?  How about closing our borders and sending all Muslims back to the Middle East?  We could become an isolationist nation, denouncing free trade and open borders.  That would be just what bin Laden wants.  No World Trade Organization, no more globalization.

Or we could fall back 10 yards and punt.  Just don't tell us we are winning the war, and that the 'daisy cutter' bomb is a major advance in weaponry.
 
 

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