AFGHANISTAN: "The Arabs" Key to the Battle

October 28, 2001; With the air war appearing to be doing more harm than good by causing civilian casualties, the debate goes on about how to use ground troops. The British are for establishing a base in Afghanistan as soon as possible. But many American leaders still oppose a lot of ground combat and are hoping to achieve some kind of political deal with dissident Taliban factions. Any ground operations will require building up large stockpiles of supplies in Uzbekistan and Tajikistan. This runs into conflicts between air force and army commanders, both of whom want to use more of the scarce air transports. The air force owns the transports, although they can be overruled by senior military and political leaders, but the air force will still get a lot of their stuff moved ("to support air transportation" or whatever.) But even sending in a lot of ground troops will still mean lots of air power, both bombers and helicopters.

More of the bombing is against Taliban troops, in particular the non-Afghan units. The non-Afghan troops (called "the Arabs" locally) have long been the backbone of Taliban rule. If any nasty business had to be done (mass murder, executing Afghans, etc), the Arabs would do it. This made it less likely that there would be less likelihood of bad feeling against Afghan Talibans (ie, a blood feud by the dead man's family.) The Afghan Pushtun tribes are being kept in line by the threat of quick retaliation by "the Arabs." But it is unlikely that the Arabs can be destroyed or seriously weakened from the air. While many air power advocates believe the 1999 Kosovo war was won from the air, it was actually won by bribing the Russians to withdraw their support, including weapons shipments, for the Serbs. That, plus backing off on independence for Kosovo, got the Serbs out. But in Afghanistan, the Taliban have no nations as external allies. Trying to remove Taliban power from within means eventually battling "the Arabs."

Right, I see you're continuing your delusions about the nature of the Taliban. The Taliban are overwhelmingly Pashtuns who were trained in schools in Pakistan. The Arabs are only a small fraction of their force. What the Arabs provided is money for the Taliban. If the Taliban had to depend on Arabs to fight, they never would have taken the country in the first place. Even now, reinforcements for the Taliban will come from Pakistan, not from Arabs.

Don't confuse Arabs with the Turkic peoples who've spent centuries kicking Greek butt!

"October 28, 2001; With the air war appearing to be doing more harm than good by causing civilian casualties,"

BS. It is not necessarily true.

Also, until there are 50,000 civilian dead, it hardly matters.

Ground combat in Afghanistan will start just as soon as the Taliban's mobility and logistics have been reduced to the point where light infantry can be introduced. The British are quoted as advocating land warfare as soon as possible, probably because this is the only warfare they can actually perform. They do not have the air assets to run a bombing campaign.

Unfortunately, British defense policy has ensured that the UK does not have the logistical tail to support or sustain ground combat operations. American resources will be needed to haul their supplies, whether by road or by air. British troops will have to be flown to the battlefield (as the SAS were during the Gulf War) and given aerial support by US aircraft. The British have no A-10s, AC-130s, JDAMs etc. The British forces cannot sustain long attrition either. Consider the SAS. A premium fighting force, maybe the best in the world. But there are so few of them that a loss rate of 3 soldiers a week will destroy the entire formation in short order. The same is true, to a lesser degree of the Parachute Regiment and the Royal Marine Commandos.

If the British are going to fight a ground war, they had better wait until Central Command weakens the Taliban sufficiently. To read some newspapers, you would think that military strategies are like fad diets, where somebody has "the answer": bomb the frontlines, introduce ground troops, use cave-busting munitions, etc. This is amateurish thinking.

Central Command knows what it is doing. It understands that war is all about destroying enemy logistics, unit integrity and command. Let the pros do the job.

The Taliban would not know how to fix a car engine let alone fight an artillery battle. The "Arabs" (what the Afghans call all non Afghans that work for the Taliban) are Bin Laden's people and they provide the backbone and logistics/technical knowhow for the Pushtans.

But such info is for those that matter. You matter not at all. Your an fool in your own right.

By the way those Greeks founded Western civilization and kept the Muslim Turks from overrunning Europe. But I doubt you are a Christian or of European origin, so such matters to you are meaninless.

Shalom.

Central Command knows what it is doing. It understands that war is all about destroying enemy logistics, unit integrity and command. Let the pros do the job.

True and more. We need a combined ground offensive aided by American airpower on the one hand and what the Russians call "special operations" on the other hand to hunt and kill all of Al-Quieda (the so called "Arabs").

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