Stardate 20011011.1543 (On Screen): One of the reasons it's important to not personalize this too much ("we're fighting to kill bin Laden") is that he's not really the point; even if he dies, al Qaeda still needs to be neutralized. And with the kinds of attacks we're making now, even if we do kill him we may never know for sure. Right now our
B-52's and
B-1's are involved in major air strikes against ground installations, including underground complexes and caves. If we collapse a cave system, how will we ever find out who was in it? If we take out an underground complex which had a big supply in ammunition in it (which apparently has already happened) we have the same problem. So if, as this article speculates might happen, bin Laden decides to bail and get away across one of the borders, the best we can hope for in future is to pick up his activity if he ever becomes active again, or to rely on informers. (If he doesn't become active again, then he's not a threat.) Right now, I see four points to this campaign:
- To reduce the resources and capabilities of al Qaeda as much as possible. This process begins in Afghanistan but won't end there. This will involve not only destroying their installations but also locating and cutting off their sources of money and supplies and other kinds of support. While this may involve a great deal of military action, it will primarily be political and economic.
- To annihilate the Taliban and place a better government in place. That's going to be a process which will take years, since there will be a lot of rebuilding to do. It's going to be expensive, in lives and in money.
- To make Afghanistan an object lesson for any other nations currently permitting terrorist organizations to operate within their borders. When we go to the next one and say "Cooperate or else!" they'll know what "or else" implies. Part of that requires that nearly all of the Taliban top leadership must be killed, so that the political leaders of the next nation know it is their own lives on the line and not just their hold on power or the lives of their people which are in peril.
- This is the first step in a process of rooting out not just al Qaeda but other similar groups who use similar means. This is the least well defined goal of the process; it may never be clear when it's finished. In fact, it may never be finished.
It's clear that this is going to be a very long war. Even if the action in Afghanistan were to end soon (a possibility, though I think a remote one) the struggle will go on for years.
(discuss)
