“How not to win a war: America is trapped in a B-52 mindset”
The Guardian (UK)
Friday November 2, 2001

"Futile because carpet-bombing, whatever its immediate consequences, looks to all but an implacable American public like an act of desperation prompted by a failure of imagination. Every towering column of dust and ash obscures ever more completely the twin towers whose appalling downfall was the root of it all."
“How not to win a war: America is trapped in a B-52 mindset”

Leader
Friday November 2, 2001
The Guardian

If this is the best the United States can do, it had better stop and think again. The carpet-bombing of Taliban defensive positions north of Kabul may be, from the Pentagon's perspective, a logical military progression.

It may signal a strategic political decision to support the opposition Northern Alliance more aggressively. It may, alternatively, amount to no more than a show of force, like the one-off commando incursion south of Kandahar two weeks ago, merely intended to quieten critics impatient for battlefield success. As with so much that is happening in Afghanistan, it is impossible to be sure. But what is searingly certain is the symbolic message that these B-52 raids send to a watching world.

Huge earth-shaking explosions, horizons filled with flame and smoke, doomsday clamour and an indiscriminate devastation: these are the familiar, unnerving symptoms of a bankrupt policy, of plans lacking or gone awry, of exponential escalation and dread futility. Familiar because the world has seen the Americans go this way before, in Vietnam, in Cambodia and in Iraq, with no good result.

Unnerving because the impression strengthens that President George Bush has no clear idea how proportionately to attain his ends or even what those ends may ultimately be. Futile because carpet-bombing, whatever its immediate consequences, looks to all but an implacable American public like an act of desperation prompted by a failure of imagination. Every towering column of dust and ash obscures ever more completely the twin towers whose appalling downfall was the root of it all.

With every unguided bomb that drops, with every pinpoint missile gone astray, with every child maimed and with every redoubled cry of Taliban defiance, the military assault on Afghanistan becomes more of an obstacle to justice in its broadest sense, less a legitimate part of the solution. Nor are civilians the only victims. Not by a long chalk. In fighting in this way, by repeating the mistakes of the past, the US makes victims of history, of compassion and of its allies - and of the rightness of its cause.

It did not have to be like this. Prior to the onset of the campaign on October 7, the use of military force in Afghanistan was endorsed if not actively supported by most of the world's leading countries and by the UN. On the basis that equal weight would be given to diplomatic and humanitarian initiatives, and to legal and financial means of fighting terrorism, the government, like most British people, lent its support.

But once the initial attacks had achieved air superiority, the bombing did not stop. It intensified. Once al-Qaida's camps were destroyed, the US simply expanded its hunt for targets. Despite boasts about precision strikes, reports of collateral damage quickly emerged. This toll has since been rising sharply. Once Afghanistan's skies belonged to the US, and the country was diplomatically and physically besieged, the long-brewing humanitarian crisis did not become any easier to address. As the bombs fell and Taliban fury grew, it suddenly became much harder.

At the same time, other expected types of military action failed to materialise. Grabbing Osama bin Laden - still the war's primary objective - turns out to be too difficult. They say he just cannot be found. This shocking intelligence failure has also hampered much-anticipated plans to mount search-and-destroy missions or insert special forces. Suggestions that the US would create bridgeheads or seize airfield bases, such as Bagram, have come to nothing so far. Even while military commanders talked of a new kind of war, they were actually pursuing the old, discredited kind.

Every time they said the campaign would be a long one - estimates of its duration have expanded inexorably - suspicion grew that they really had no clue where they were heading or how long it would take. Having said this was not a repeat of the Gulf war, Washington is now discussing the possibility of a Desert Storm-size invasion next spring. If ever there was a new, Vietnam-style quagmire in the making, Afghanistan must surely be it.

Overshadowed and undermined by ever noisier bombing, diplomatic initiatives have been unable to make headway. The best hope for a peaceful way forward, the UN's chief envoy, Lakhdar Brahimi, is denounced by the Taliban as Washington's tool. Pathans and Tajiks, a king and a president, warlords and bandits haggle about a chimerical future government while regional powers manoeuvre for position.

US military tactics have meanwhile shaken the coalition so painstakingly glued together by Colin Powell. Muslim deaths, coupled with US inability to curb Ariel Sharon's parallel excesses, have been more than enough to shatter the illusion of Islamic solidarity. Amid this alienation and loss of sympathy, hopes that the crisis could prove a catalyst for Palestine or Kashmir have vapourised - additional victims of B-52 thinking. And one of the biggest victims could yet turn out to be Tony Blair. He went out on a limb for Mr Bush. But his limited ability to control events was on humiliating show in the Middle East this week. Mr Blair is already struggling to square US tactics with national interest and his political base. This dilemma could prove to be seriously damaging.

If the US cannot do better than this, it had better stop and think again - for the sake of the Afghan people, for the sake of peacemaking diplomacy and relations with the Muslim world and for the sake of allies who require a wiser leadership. Ramadan and winter provide a chance to stand back and reconsider. In this mishandled military campaign to date, there are no winners, only victims. And that simply cannot be allowed to go on.

 http://www.guardian.co.uk/waronterror/story/0,1361,585353,00.html

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How to really win a war:

See this video clip of Major General Singh, a 35-year career army veteran, and John Hagelin PhD, award-winning quantum physicist, speaking recently on APTV USA:
See:  http://www.worldpeaceendowment.org/videos/solution010918.ram
[Streaming video - requires media player such as RealPlayer]

See also:  http://www.worldpeaceendowment.org/
[Includes peer reviewed research published in respected publications such as Journal of Conflict Resolution]

"Problems cannot be solved at the same level of awareness that created them."
Albert Einstein (1879 - 1955)

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