i) The hubris of the greatest world power and this in turn related to ii) An overwhelming US and British technological superiority facing mostly outdated weapons iii) Complete dominance of the air that allows bombing at will. iv) A view that the coalition against the Taliban would be overpowering, ignoring the fact that many of the members face internal difficulties limiting their support. v) The idea that it could easily bribe many of the warlords to defect to the opposition and so hasten the fall of the Taliban. vi) A failure to recognize the complexity of the political situation re opposition forces e.g. Pakistan's position re the Alliance etc. vii) A failure to recognise the effects of the bombing on support for the Taliban. viii) A basic lack of respect for the enemy because of the presumed overwhelming superior force of the US as in ii) and iii)
I am sure there are many others. However, I think that the US is becoming acutely aware of the coalition problem and of the complexities involved if -or when- the Taliban are defeated. This is complicating the military programme and perhaps creating so much conflict within the administration that it is no longer clear there is any coherent policy being followed at all..
Cheers, Ken Hanly
----- Original Message ----- From: "Doug Henwood" <dhenwood at panix.com> To: <lbo-talk at lists.panix.com> Sent: Tuesday, October 30, 2001 9:26 AM Subject: Re:lbo-talk-digest V1 #5178
> Daniel Davies wrote:
>
> >My personal bias, as you correctly detected, is that individuals can
> >outperform institutions systematically under conditions of pressure.
>
> I've been amazed over the last few days by Washington's amazement at
> the tenacity of the Taliban and by U.S. forces' failure to get any
> useful intelligence in their ground raid the other day. Any
> reasonably literate newspaper reader could have predicted both. Is it
> groupthink that led them to these idiotic expectations? Racist
> underestimates of the foe? What?
>
> Doug