Ia Drang Valley Campaign...Oops...Afghan Campaign Update:
Another interesting report here on latent internal political divisions:
The suddenly active Afghan Northern Alliance, which represents Afghanistan's U.N. approved government, has stepped up its attacks and is now gaining ground quickly. Elsewhere CNN reported the Afghanistan Uzbeki minority has again taken the field with the Northern Alliance. Recent meetings of the Chief of the Russian General Staff with Northern Alliance officials make it obvious a large infusion of Russian military supplies has already started. This is important since the Northern Alliance's weapons are legacy Soviet material. These reports also bring into focus the recent shoot-down of an unmanned Remotely Piloted Vehicle (RPV) intelligence aircraft. In summary external aid is pouring in, morale in the Northern Alliance is skyrocketing and it now enjoys a decisive advantage in tactical and operational intelligence. In less than two weeks ZOG has equipped itself with an Afghan Loyal Opposition that might already be equal in combat strength to the Taliban militia and its bin Laden controlled foreign volunteer brigade of Islamic fundamentalists.
The Northern Alliance will continue to make swift progress unless the Taliban and Bin Laden decide to concentrate substantial forces to stop them. It's too obvious that concentration is what the U.S. Special Operations Command is trying to engineer. Such a concentrated target is what they need for the AC-130 gunships, attack helos and fastmovers that would rapidly enter the battle. Such a tactical concentration would also be a prime target for a joint Anglo-American-Russian air assault insertion to surround them. The spate of reports make it clear many of these forces are already in place in Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan and possibly Tajikistan. A separate British Ministry of Defense report stated premium Brit para-infantry units are being redeployed from the Balkans to 'anti-terrorism duties'.
The Taliban alone might decide to risk such a stand. The Soviet's operations were fought on a low intensity basis. They haven't experienced concentrated air attack in conjunction with ground assault and deep insertion large unit air assaults like the U.S. 101st Airborne Division executed in the Euphrates Valley. Most of the Bin Laden Arabs there (and especially the Iraqis) do know what happened in 1991 in the Gulf War. There is always stupidity to factor in so they may yet decide to take such a stand. Once, anyway. Meanwhile the Taliban's other borders have been sealed off from external supplies of food and fuel. Jack Straw is in Tehran now to tighten down the western frontier and doubtless collect the Grand Poobah's views on the future Afghan successor regime in Kabul.
Tribal politics now come into play. Beyond 'Islam' there is the survival of the Taliban's underlying Pushtun tribe to consider, at least by the Pushtun chiefs and people. I expect in the next few weeks important Pushtun clans will splinter with the Taliban by moving to neutrality. Any future Afghan government has to consider some accommodation with the majority Pushtun tribe. Important Pushtun chieftains now supporting the Taliban know this, too. Afghanistan is very much like an Asiatic Switzerland adjusted for racial differences. It has multiple languages and ethnic groups, one religion (Islam) and ancient traditions of self-reliance for defense paired with a foreign policy of neutrality. The Taliban themselves have strayed far from these national traditions by their deep involvement with Bin Laden's Islamic fundamentalist brand of globalism. Brotherhood with all of fundamentalist Islam can be quickly replaced by a national Afghan ecumenical movement.
I'll continue to take my lonely stand against the growing talking head consensus that Afghanistan by itself is America's New Vietnam. It's merely the major opening campaign with direct U.S. ground forces involvement. The ongoing Worldwide Vietnam is the counter-insurgency war against all of fundamentalist Islam. Personally I already hear the Fat Lady singing for the Taliban in Afghanistan. The Islamic worldwide insurgency against ZOG is being knocked back to a lower level but it will continue. To continue the Islamic Worldwide Vietnam comparison, Afghanistan temporarily became a local 'liberated province'. The Islamic globalist guerrillas were openly ruling as the communists often temporarily did in various provinces of South Vietnam from 1964-1969. Then USA-ARVN forces would appear and this condition would cease.
Global Factor. I disagreed with much of Mr. Ruppert's fine essay but nowhere more than with his forecast that ZOG-NWO is going to destroy every last separatist movement on the planet. The instantaneous airbag style deployment of the Northern Alliance into a serious opposition ought to teach him and many people precisely why so many of these isolated local small conflicts now smoulder just below the flash point. They're kept on minimal life support as insurance against the day it's necessary to remove an out-of-control local regime. ZOG's imperial strategy is identical to the old British Empire's: divide and rule. These insurance policies are doubly necessary when your effective direct ground combat force is as small as World ZOG's forces are. Mr. Ruppert may not learn but regimes world-wide will draw the appropriate conclusions. So far from diminishing in number I anticipate more Loyal Oppositions will be created in key areas not yet enjoying them.
History being the dying discipline it is, most don't know the early days of Vietnam through 1971 featured Viet Cong kamikaze terror attacks in the cities. None were ever on the scale the Islamics are now operating at but the methods are identical. Much else in bin Laden's Al Qaida structure bears strong similarities to the National Liberation Front-Viet Cong's mix of organization and tactics, too. Classical revolutionary insurgency theory also says not to become decisively engaged on unfavorable terms but to instead melt back into the population and await more favorable conditions. This is what Mao Tse Tung or Ho Chi Minh would have done in a similar situation.
Afghanistan has already served its local purposes for bin Laden and his fundamentalist Islamic insurgency. During the last five years he's trained thousands of hard corps leaders in his camps and dispersed most of them throughout the world. The current operations merely heighten pressure on bin Laden to now disperse the remainder throughout the Islamic world. The goals of the Jihad are larger than any single Islamic country. Bin Laden's age of 44 also gives him a several decade time horizon to consider. The Taliban may actually be telling the truth when they say bin Laden has now disappeared.
The organization and tactics these fundamentalist Islamics have adopted are radically different from previous national and ethnic group based movements in the Islamic world. Previous Islamic terror attacks were invariably accompanied by a series of demands and propaganda proclamations. These vastly larger attacks had neither. They are so different from all previous Islamic thinking and practice one starts suspecting people with completely different viewpoints and experiences of providing deep cover support and advice. Historically they are far more comparable to revolutionary terror as used in China and Vietnam.
When people start looking for state sponsors of Al Qaeda and the Islamic insurgents, they should seriously consider Beijing and its covert services. And if bin Laden never turns up in the body count then trying looking for him in China.
"Maguire" 24 Sep 01