Is Syria the Target

In my reading of military history one strategy you see over and over is that an army will fake an attack at one spot and actually hit its opponent in another place. The last example of this that I know of was Desert Storm. Lots of US Marines were put on boats directly in front of Kuwait City and they just stayed there while Schwartzkoff (with some help from his boss Colin Powell) sent the troops in a "Hail Mary" movement around the back. (He would have made Lee and Jackson proud.)


Now we have made it very obvious that Afganistan is on the hot seat. They will have plenty of time to prepare their defense and perhaps be a tough foe for any type of invasion. This makes me think that it won't come and that we might strike somewhere else.

If any nation is deserving of a military strike it is Syria. Remember way back to when Reagan ordered the bombing of Libya in retaliation for the terrorist bombing of a German nightclub that killed many US servicemen. The great preponderance of US intelligence indicated that the terrorists responsible likely were stationed in, and supported by, Syria. But for political and military reasons, Syria has a relatively strong military, it was decided that Lybia would be a much easier target. Despite the lack of any credible evidence we went ahead with the bombing of Libya in lieu of an attack on Syria. Some might argue that this lead to the bombing of that airplane over Lockerbie but I won't comment on that.

Sen.McCain mentioned Syria a fair bit last night on Leno. I remember thinking it was a bit odd how much he mentioned it, actually.

Why not bomb SYRIA and LIBYA and IRAN and then, when they least expect it, hit AFGHANISTAN as well? I mean, under the circumstances the U.S. will be doing everybody a favor.


(Can this be done with a single bomb run?..)

My top 2 suspects are Hussein and Khadafi. Bin Laden probably works for both of them. If the old man Assad was still alive then I might buy Syria but I don't, now that his son's the boss.


Vince

Interesting supposition. What would happen next would be Syrian (and maybe Iraqi) missiles raining down on Tel Aviv, Haifa and other major cities (Israel has started distributing gas masks, or should I say the few people who still haven't got any are lining up for them). Should they be biologically or chemically equipped warheads, Israel would respond with tactical nuclear strikes. World War III. For this reason, I can't see this happening, unless they can get a promise of restraint from Israel beforehand, which seems highly unlikely this time. IMHO.

Actually, if these nations play host to terrorists and their respective terrorist enclaves/strongholds could be bombed simultaneously and thoroughly, we probably would be doing the world a favor. Just need to make sure of the targets.

I was thinking along the same lines. If we don't start with Syria, I was wondering if Libya would make a suitable "demonstration" country.


I've also noticed that many members of the press are assuming we will be able to accomplish our goals with strategic bombing, and no one in the government is contradicting them. I wonder if this is to draw attention away from ground troops.

This link was just posted to rgp:


http://www.janes.com/security/international_security/news/fr/fr010919_1_n.shtml


JG

Who has a greater motive?

Quite interesting and should be taken seriously since Israeli intelligence is generally quite good. It may indeed have been al-Qaeda in concert with others without the direct masterminding by bin-Laden.


Just more reason to take out the other major terrorists of the world, IMO, as well as bin-Laden.

Oy... where to start.


Al-Qaeda is not an Afghani, Pakistani, Libyan, Iraqi or any other national organization. Osama bin Laden is from Saudi Arabia, his most likely successor, Ayman Al Zawahiri, is Egyptian. Al-Qaeda has documentable links to training camps or trained personnel from groups ranging from the survivors of Black September to Hezbollah to random groups of barely organized militants in half the Arab nations on the planet.


The Taliban is not a terrorist organization, they are a fundamentalist Islamic political organization who has managed to take power in a nation that is considered by many Arabs to be the sphincter of all of Islam. Providing a coordinated and unified appearance in Afghanistan after the Soviet war was essentially all that was needed to develop a tremendous power base there. The Taliban has connections with as many, if not more, organizations than Al Qaeda. Among them are Libya, Syria and Iraq on a formal governmental basis.


Is Syria the target? Kind of. As are Iraq, Sudan, Yemen, Palestine, Egypt and some areas in south Los Angeles.


Unlike the Gulf War, we don't have accurate intelligence with which to prosecute the war. We can't look at photos from an SR-70 overflight and see that a brigade has moved into a particular valley. We're seeking small groups of dedicated individuals who are capable of living throughout the Arabic speaking world. Afghanistan is a logical first target because we do have adequate intelligence that the Taliban there has provided direct support to Al-Qaeda.


This will be a tactical war driven by an overall consolidating strategy. It will never be a purely strategic war as was the Gulf War. Once the overall theme is set, deal with terrorism, then the war will be fought out in individual combat events throughout the world to achieve that goal. The strategies are completely social and political; they will never be so simple as, "Prevent the North Vietnamese from gaining power in South Vietnam." We have a global environment where our strategic objectives can't be met in a single theater of combat.


It's been said that the best way to fight someone is to, "Hit 'em where they ain't." This is simply wrong. We have to resort to the basic concepts of combat that have existed since man first picked up a rock and smacked his fellow man. We have to find him, we have to fix him and then we have to kill him. Our advantage lies in the last two. If we know where they are, we can keep them from getting away, fix them, this is fairly certain. Once they're fixed, we can kill them, this is definite. Our difficulty lies in finding them.


Let's imagine we get lucky and one of the Delta teams on the ground in Pakistan gets ridiculously lucky. They physically see Osama bin Laden climbing into the back of a truck and drive away. They're in a position to effectively engage and destroy the truck and bring back incontrovertible evidence of bin Laden's death. Now where is Al Zawahiri? What about the lesser known organizations that are likely ready to step into Al-Qaeda's place the moment it becomes destabilized?


Is Syria the target? No, Syria is a very likely location for some of the targets. Many people are making a grave mistake in thinking that we are going to war against Afghanistan and this will solve the problems. Others think dealing with the Syrians will somehow resolve the situation. Still others think that the death of Arafat would do it.


To put it into a poker analogy, we're entering a Hold'em tournament where we're only allowed to see our own cards and chips. Everyone else is hidden by a cloth veil so we're never really sure who they are or how big their stack is. The tables represent the various nations that support the terrorists. Afghanistan, Syria, Libya, etc. The US/NATO/Etc, have the chip lead. Unfortunately we can't see which of the other players have half our chips and which only have 1/20th. Finally, to add a thrill to it all, the players can move between the various tables without notifying the tourney director. And all of the other players are allowed to exchange chips, pool them, hide them or keep them in their pockets until after the tourney is over.


Jeff James

Check it out, if you wanna do business with 'em!..

That's Osama's family, alright, who own one of the biggest conglomerates in the Kingdom. Ignore the English spelling.


The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, that is... Which is, last time I checked, one of the "few, true solid supporters of the United States in the Gulf", per the State Department flunky.


Now, remind me, M, which are the three (sorry, it's now two!) countries in the world that recognize such medieval regimes as the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus and the Taliban gov't of Afghanistan? One is Pakistan.