On Thursday, 25 Oct, Dennis Robert Redmond wrote:
> If you accept that some sort of UN action is necessary, then there's
> going to be a military component to that. So far, Powell is following
> the UN script
I disagree, Dennis. That script called for four days of bombing, to destroy air defenses and concentrate minds, followed by a winter of political maneuvering to produce a legitimate interim government. Followed by a spring with a military component that was still up in the air, but which would be pursued after long preparation.
One could plausibly argue that fourteen days of bombing was a variation on that plan. But continuous bombing since then and extended indefinately into the future suggests a very different script -- the "air power is magic and can do everything on its own" script. If that's what the US is following, then it's an anti-UN, anti-political, and anti-coalition script. Every muslim member of the coalition, as well as the UN, has called for an end to the bombing, for reason that are both politically and strategically cogent. Even Britain has voiced its opposition, in a firm low cough, which is the most they ever oppose us in time of war. If the US continues to ignore them all, as well as the feedback of results, then a coalition doesn't exist except as an illusion. An illusion that will be soon be torn apart. And perhaps even some of the countries in it.
There is still time for the US to stop the bombing for any of a number of readily available look-good reasons -- famine prevention, ramadan, winter, the respectful request of our allies -- and go back to pursuing the war primarily along the political front. But if what US officials are saying now isn't bluff, if they really mean to just keep on bombing until something turns up, then they really are fighting the war from 40 years ago, with the same ideas, if one can call feckless optimism and monomaniacal madness ideas. And the protestors who protested it from the first were prescient. And people like me who thought who thought they must have a subtler grasp than that by now were over-clever morons.
It could conceivably be that what we are seeing is a see-sawing of the much bruited Rumsfeld/Powell split. In which case perhaps there is still time for Powell to re-prevail. But if he can't prevail with the entire coalition on his side, and counterproductive reports coming in, then he can't prevail. Or he never really represented an alternative approach.
There is also perhaps a third option lying between the two: that both sides are convinced that air power plus Northern Alliance forces at their present strength are enough to accomplish what they consider an important intermediate military victory -- taking Mazar, investing Kabul -- and they are undeterred by the reports so far of negative results. But that hinge swings both ways. And it still provides no explanation for the bombing of Kandahar, near which there have never been any opposition troops.
Michael __________________________________________________________________________ Michael Pollak................New York City..............mpollak at panix.com