[iwar] [fc:This.war.is.different.and.must.be.won]

From: Fred Cohen (fc@all.net)
Date: 2001-10-30 17:46:02


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Date: Tue, 30 Oct 2001 17:46:02 -0800 (PST)
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Subject: [iwar] [fc:This.war.is.different.and.must.be.won]
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                          Charles Krauthammer
                          October 30, 2001
                This war is different and must be won
WASHINGTON--The war is not going well. The Taliban have not yielded
ground. Not a single important Taliban leader has been killed,
captured or has defected. On the contrary. The Taliban have captured
and executed our great Pashtun hope, Abdul Haq. The Joint Chiefs
express surprise at the tenacity of the enemy.
The war is not going well and it is time to say why. It has been
fought with half-measures. It has been fought with an eye on the
wishes of our ``coalition partners.'' It has been fought to assuage
the Arab ``street.'' It has been fought to satisfy the diplomats
rather than the generals.
Thirty years ago in Vietnam, we fought a war finely calibrated to win
``hearts and minds.'' Bomb today, pause tomorrow. That strategy met
with nothing but pain and defeat. One of the products of that war was
Colin Powell. He and his generation vowed that never again would
American lives be sacrificed, their missions compromised, their
objectives distorted to satisfy purely political objectives.
And yet for three weeks in Afghanistan we held back from massively
bombing the Taliban front lines facing the Northern Alliance. Why?
Because Pakistan does not like the Northern Alliance. So we calibrate
the war to produce a precise ethnic balance, satisfying our various
allies, for a post-Taliban Afghanistan.
But you don't get to post-Taliban until you've defeated the Taliban.
And you don't defeat the Taliban with antiseptic attacks on fixed
installations and pinpoint raids on front-line positions. You do it by
scaring the living hell out of the enemy, producing in him the
rational calculation that you're going to win and he'd better change
sides.
The president repeatedly emphasizes that this is not a war against
civilians. We are expending enormous effort on dropping food. The
Pentagon feels obliged to respond to every Taliban claim of civilian
casualties--diverting reconnaissance and other resources to
investigating stories that are often entirely fabricated.
Why have we turned this into an operation for the liberation of
Afghanistan? Afghanistan will be liberated if we succeed. But that is
not why we are there. We are there to avenge 5,000 murdered Americans
and to protect the rest by killing those preparing to murder again.
That defines our mission: destroying al Qaeda and the Taliban. What
comes after will be an interesting problem. But it comes after. To
restrain our military now in order to placate the diplomats is a
tragic reprise of Vietnam.
The error began in the very naming of the mission. It started out as
Infinite Justice. But we could not have that, we were told, because it
might offend Muslims, who believe that infinite justice only comes
from God. (Don't Christians and Jews believe that too? Were they
offended?) So we changed it to Enduring Freedom. Very nice. Too nice.
We should have called it Righteous Might, the phrase Franklin
Roosevelt used in his Pearl Harbor speech to describe what the enemy
would now be facing.
Instead, the enemy today is facing calibration and proportionality.
The ``Powell Doctrine'' once preached overwhelming force to achieve
victory. Yet we have held back. Why have we not loosed the B-52s and
the B-2s to carpet-bomb Taliban positions? And why are we giving the
Taliban sanctuary in their cities? We could drop leaflets giving
civilians 48 hours to evacuate, after which the cities become
legitimate military targets. We know our enemy is planning more mass
murder. Every day of urban safety for them is another day of peril for
innocent Americans.
Restraint has already cost a lot. An important element of winning is
psychological shock, the key to demoralization, defection and
disintegration. We have squandered it. Now that the first wave of
American power has come and gone, the Taliban are ever more convinced
of American uncertainty and of their own indestructibility.
Our solicitousness knows no bounds. The president urges the children
of America to each send a dollar to feed Afghan children. He now urges
American schoolchildren to find Muslim pen pals. After the carnage of
Sept. 11, should not our Muslim allies be urging their people to seek
out American pen pals? We were the ones attacked, by Muslims invoking
Islam. Why are we are the ones required to demonstrate religious
tolerance?
Nice is nice but this is war. We cannot fight it apologetically--the
very talk of holding our fire during Ramadan is beyond belief--with
one hand tied behind our back.
Half-measures are for wars of choice, wars like Vietnam. In wars of
choice, losing is an option. You lose and still survive as a nation.
The war on terrorism, like World War II, is a war of necessity. Losing
is not an option. Losing is fatal. This is no time for restraint and
other niceties. This is a time for righteous might.
©2001 Washington Post Writers Group

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