[iwar] [fc:Keeping.our.nerve]

From: Fred Cohen (fc@all.net)
Date: 2001-10-28 14:22:43


Return-Path: <sentto-279987-3558-1004307746-fc=all.net@returns.onelist.com>
Delivered-To: fc@all.net
Received: from 204.181.12.215 [204.181.12.215] by localhost with POP3 (fetchmail-5.7.4) for fc@localhost (single-drop); Sun, 28 Oct 2001 14:24:07 -0800 (PST)
Received: (qmail 29413 invoked by uid 510); 28 Oct 2001 22:21:46 -0000
Received: from n7.groups.yahoo.com (216.115.96.57) by 204.181.12.215 with SMTP; 28 Oct 2001 22:21:46 -0000
X-eGroups-Return: sentto-279987-3558-1004307746-fc=all.net@returns.onelist.com
Received: from [10.1.1.220] by n7.groups.yahoo.com with NNFMP; 28 Oct 2001 22:22:26 -0000
X-Sender: fc@red.all.net
X-Apparently-To: iwar@onelist.com
Received: (EGP: mail-8_0_0_1); 28 Oct 2001 22:22:25 -0000
Received: (qmail 3385 invoked from network); 28 Oct 2001 22:22:25 -0000
Received: from unknown (10.1.10.26) by 10.1.1.220 with QMQP; 28 Oct 2001 22:22:25 -0000
Received: from unknown (HELO red.all.net) (65.0.156.78) by mta1 with SMTP; 28 Oct 2001 22:22:25 -0000
Received: (from fc@localhost) by red.all.net (8.11.2/8.11.2) id f9SMMhc13195 for iwar@onelist.com; Sun, 28 Oct 2001 14:22:43 -0800
Message-Id: <200110282222.f9SMMhc13195@red.all.net>
To: iwar@onelist.com (Information Warfare Mailing List)
Organization: I'm not allowed to say
X-Mailer: don't even ask
X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.5 PL3]
From: Fred Cohen <fc@all.net>
X-Yahoo-Profile: fcallnet
Mailing-List: list iwar@yahoogroups.com; contact iwar-owner@yahoogroups.com
Delivered-To: mailing list iwar@yahoogroups.com
Precedence: bulk
List-Unsubscribe: <mailto:iwar-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com>
Date: Sun, 28 Oct 2001 14:22:43 -0800 (PST)
Reply-To: iwar@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [iwar] [fc:Keeping.our.nerve]
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit

Keeping our nerve 

The fog of war is in danger of enveloping the allied campaign against the Taliban 
regime and Osama Bin Laden. As Tony Blair said recently, we are entering "our most 
testing time". It is not so much the difficulty of defeating the Taliban, finding 
Bin Laden, keeping Muslim states on side, speaking with one voice and winning the 
propaganda war. These are all formidable tasks, but there is also another objective 
that is every bit as important. That is: being patient. Too many officials have sounded 
like the excitable Corporal Jones from Dad's Army shouting: "Don't panic, don't panic." 
There were so many conflicting statements coming out of London and Washington last 
week that anyone would be forgiven for thinking that the West was at sixes and sevens. 
No sooner had the British chief of the defence staff said the war could last anywhere 
between four and 50 years, than the defence secretary popped up to say the Taliban 
could collapse overnight. 

There are always phases in conflicts when everything and everyone seem to go wobbly. 
A democracy will always air its doubts out loud. Most recently it happened in the 
Falklands and the Gulf wars. Doomsayers claimed neither war was winnable. The taskforce 
en route to the Falklands seemed hopelessly under-armed and ill-equipped. Many can 
remember the warnings in 1990 that the Iraqis were the Prussians of the Middle East. 
Decades of peace interrupted by short-lived military campaigns, together with ever-shortening 
attention spans, have made us impatient for quick success. But war is not a push-button 
video game. There is a tendency to fear the worst and for waverers to undermine resolve. 
President Bush may tell the American people that they are "going to have to be patient, 
just like we are", but patience is a rare commodity in a soundbite democracy. 

That makes it vital for any administration to manage expectations. The western governments 
are trying to do that, but with mixed success. Friday's questions at a Pentagon briefing 
about the campaign becoming "bogged down" were the most pointed that American officials 
have so far faced and a sign of more to come. Air raids seem to have achieved some 
of their objectives, but the role of air power in Afghanistan is more limited than 
in Kosovo and the public is increasingly worried about civilian casualties. In the 
end, troops will have to go in and fight. Hence the choreographed raid last weekend 
to show that it could be done. The attack may have been good for western propaganda 
in the short term, but it seems to have created false expectations of early victory. 
It has done little to demoralise the Taliban. Soon afterwards the regime pulled off 
a coup by executing Abdul Haq, a leading opponent. It has now taken out its two most 
prominent opposition leaders and its rival, the Northern Alliance, appears every 
day to be more venal and bungling. 

At this time western leaders need to demonstrate that they have a clear-sighted 
strategy. It is no good for figures such as Donald Rumsfeld, the US secretary of 
defence, to ruminate one day about the fact that the allies might never capture Bin 
Laden, only to change his mind the next day. If Winston Churchill had listened to 
such vacillations he would have scrapped his rallying cry of "blood, sweat and tears" 
against the Nazis and offered an indeterminate period of uncertain endeavour instead. 

Any country, Britain and America included, will fight best when it honestly knows 
the odds it is up against, when it believes its cause is just and has confidence 
in its leaders. Mr Blair said yesterday that the British had a strong sense of right 
and wrong and that "moral fibre will defeat the fanaticism of these terrorists and 
their supporters". Mr Bush, who appears distracted by the anthrax attacks in the 
United States, needs to take that message on board and focus on the real enemy. The 
Taliban and Bin Laden must be beaten as quickly as possible. Once that has been achieved, 
other terrorist groups who plan atrocities against our cities need to be destroyed. 
The objective is simple. The hard bit will be achieving it.

------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ---------------------~-->
Pinpoint the right security solution for your company- Learn how to add 128- bit encryption and to authenticate your web site with VeriSign's FREE guide!
http://us.click.yahoo.com/yQix2C/33_CAA/yigFAA/kgFolB/TM
---------------------------------------------------------------------~->

------------------
http://all.net/ 

Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/ 



This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.2 : 2001-12-31 20:59:57 PST