It Begins

[Vogue State]

U.S. and British forces have bombed Afghanistan.

CNN story
New York Times
JANG (pakistani news)
Also, coverage from The Dawn (Pakistan)

None of these articles mention any civilian losses. I'd expect a lot of "no Afghanis were harmed in the making of this military campaign" disclaimers if they could be true...

[tw]

Originally posted by Vogue State
U.S. and British forces have bombed Afghanistan.
... None of these articles mention any civilian losses.

This goes right back to the 1st paragraph in Perspective without Pictures
"... an extremist movement becomes dangerous when it can recruit moderates"

I was really hoping that US response would have been more sophisticated, more tactical, and more integrated with a long term solution. This is not to say that current attacks do not have those objectives. It only says that at first glance, this attack looks no different than those futile attacks on Saddam. The difference is that Saddam did not have the sympathies of the Muslim and Arab world. bin Laden is different. A big, obvious, flagrant, and conspicuous attack creates instabilities that make recruiting by extremists easier.

An American attack that empowers Taliban enemies is necessary to be a sophisticated response. But how did we properly equip and train those anti-Taliban forces to overrun Kabul? We did not have sufficient time.

We just don't yet know what the targets were, nor how effective they were, nor what the strategic objectives were. But we do know this much. Now that we have used an anti-Saddam type of attack, the problem must be resolved quickly. We have surrendered a major advantage: time.

For example, if Delta or SAS targets for selective cruise missile destruction, then this war could be conducted discretely, effectively, with sufficient time to root out, identify, and kill Al Qaeda leaders. However now that we went in with all guns blazing, we know have a very limited time to get those murders. We must now succeed in weeks or suffer long term consequences. Note the current muted responses from the Arab world. It will not remain that way in a month because both our credibility and our propaganda has not been effective.

I don't like the military response. It reeks too much of cowboy justice. We should have been operating with the sophistication of a scapel. If not completed within weeks, then all fears in that first paragraph of Perspective without Pictures will be realized.

History is so full of extremists who became powerful or who created great destruction simply by creating such instability as to make a moderate's position untenable.

We are now very much at the scary edge of that dangerous prophecy. Watch carefully. It is not really the number of dead civilian that matters. What matters now is how quickly we resolve our objectives - either the capture of Al Qaeda or the replacement of the Taliban government by responsible, third party Afghanistans.

Having used a conspicuous and flagrant response, we have now severely limited time to resolve the crisis. That big show better have solve the problem up front. Unfortunately the response reeks too much of a VietNam type mentality - where every intelligence service said there were no targets worth attacking - but we bombed anyway.

[jaguar]

I"m hoping they start dropping htsoe foodpackets soon, in afghani too.

Love ya name mate =)

[tw]

from The Economist of 6 Oct 2001
... Americans, largely on the right, who think the country will indeed eventually have to wage war on Islam- or, at least, various chunks of the Muslim world. These voices say that you cannot defeat terror without confronting its backers in Iraq, Iran and to some extent Saudi Arabia and Syria.
... One version ... has already divided the administration. Paul Wolfowitz, the deputy secretary of defence, has clashed with the secretary of state, Colin Powell, over whether to overthrow Saddam Hussein as well as the Taliban. This dispute has not been settled, just deferred.

Indeed, rumors persist that the battleplan has no exit strategy - a definition of when we have completed the task. Mission creep is already suggested by using bin Laden as an excuse to go after Saddam Hussein. We have gone full out in conventional warfare rather that take time to first put all the pieces in place. Look - it will take time just to rearm and establish anti-Taliban forces. Not just to win the war but to win the securing of peace. It will take anti-Taliban forces time to establish a coordinated government that can start as soon as the country falls. You don't just take over a country - then decide who is its leader will be. Such civil wars only result in more civil wars. Just another reason why the anti-Taliban coalition needed time to get ready. Instead we even have word from Pakistan's leadership that the war must be short.

Did the administration panic? Did they decide they must capture bin Laden before winter sets in? That rush to action may be a few right wingers running a campaign in direct contradiction to most every cooperating world leader - including Tony Blair. As noted, having taking the flagratant approach to the problem, then we may have lost the advantage of time. We may have put those Special Forces to great disadvantage. We may also be conducting a solution that even our closest friends think is wrong.

This London Times article is a wee bit worrying:
They opted to bomb, it had better work
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