rant on!

Arabs with wet feet? --no, actually pragmatic. Now that 22 days have elapsed, the mullahs have had time to stir the people and threaten the collection of kings, princes, sheiks, dictators, etc. who rule their countries without popular consent and try to keep a lid on their own fundamentalists.

This is the precise reason why, by the strategy of any war planner, you strike when they are least prepared for it --several hours after the attack, even the Arabs were numb. Our military planners must learn to understand --and accept-- that we are facing a cultural war.

Revenge may be part of the decision, but there is no point in blanket revenge. This is a strategy game and there is no time for idealistic ramblings that the US and the free world should be investigating the causes of terror, or the determination of the fundamentalists to destroy the non-fundamentalist world --it's a stone cold fact, it's war, and the name of the game in war is to win. Finishing second only counts in horse races.

Churchill put it clearly:

If you will not fight for right when you can easily win without bloodshed; if you will not fight when your victory is sure and not too costly; you may come to the moment when you will have to fight with all the odds against you and only a precarious chance of survival.
"There may be a worse case. You may have to fight when there is no hope of victory, because it is better to perish than to live as slaves."

--Winston Churchill
Churchill also said:

"Politics are almost as exciting as war and quite as dangerous.
In war, you can only be killed once, but in politics many times."

--Winston Churchill
which has a double meaning: if you fail to have the courage of your convictions, the body politic which you represent may be killed in the ensuing war on the enemy's terms, not your terms.

This is not a war against an "enemy"; this is a conflict between civilizations and the decisions made need to reflect that reality.

This is not the time for collective action from a coalition which is, at best, giving lip service to Washington solely to avoid being on the wrong side of Bush's statement to the effect: ...'either you are with us, or against us...'

The US must be willing to go it alone; the US is the target since the collapse of the US accomplishes the objectives of the fundamentalists: the collapse of the free world. The fundamentalists do not care if the world is plunged into poverty and darkness --their stated intention is to set the clock back 1300 years as they ban radios, TVs, movies, the internet, etc. --not to mention the treatment of women --worse than chattel slaves.

We, the United States, are fighting for our survival; the Brits will probably hang in there with us as they seem to recognize the imperative nature of survival --even the Queen sang the Star Spangled Banner in St. Paul's Cathedral (that must have been really impressive since St Paul's has a massive, thundering organ); and, the day before, the Queen ordered the Star Spangled Banner played at the changing of the [palace] Guard.

Let's not let a few weak-kneed client governments get in the way of our unfinished business.


--attila out... rant off
03 Oct 2001
Times [This Is London]

US 'called off first attacks'
by Jeremy Campbell in Washington

The United States and Britain yesterday called off military strikes against terrorist targets in Afghanistan at the last minute.

Washington officials say today that a severe attack of last-minute cold feet by some key Arab members of the coalition caused President Bush to postpone the operation.

The waverers are Saudi Arabia, Uzbekistan and Oman, and US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld is embarking on an urgent mission today to strengthen nerves in these countries.

Prime Minister Tony Blair is also about to undertake a hasty visit to the region. Saudi Arabia's support is especially vital, because Allied aircraft and commanders need its base facilities.

Two senior US officials have told reporters that until yesterday the Saudis were firm in their offer to provide assistance for strikes, including use of a state-of-the-art command centre at the Prince Royal Sultan Air Force Base.

Then the situation changed. One US official told Knight Newspapers: "That is no longer true. We fear there is something deeper here."

Mr Rumsfeld's trip to the Middle East is intended to mend these unexpected ruptures.

Downing Street, meanwhile, confirmed Mr Blair will be departing on a mission tomorrow but refused, on security grounds, to be drawn on any of the detail. Amid clear unease over the advance leaks of the trip, a spokesman dismissed all reports as "speculationî maintaining that some of the suggested calling points for the Prime Minister were simply wrong.

Mr Rumsfeld's tour, which includes Saudi Arabia, Oman, Egypt and Uzbekistan, is being compared to the stage-setting trip made by Dick Cheney, then Defence Secretary, to the Gulf just before the start of Desert Storm.

This time there is more at stake. Near the top of Mr Rumsfeld's list of priorities is to talk his way to an agreement with Uzbekistan, on the northern border of Afghanistan, to use the country as a staging area for the attack.

Uzbekistan is now regarded as a potential key asset in the coming showdown, but is rated the coalition's single most fragile link.

Highly attractive to the US are the number of abandoned air bases there, once used by the Soviet Union.

This will be Mr Rumsfeld's first face-to-face meeting with the ruling regime there. It has demanded that the US negotiate a complete Status of Forces Agreement before it will permit the use of its military bases - an unrealistic condition which could be tangled up in legal knots for years.

The trip, undertaken at the request of President Bush, is expected to last three days.

Oman, also skittish, is regarded as an important support base for a ground incursion. US special operations forces can be flown there and then put on amphibious invasion ships.

US officials are not sure whether this is a case of lastminute jitters, or "something more serious".

One notable omission on Mr Rumsfeld's itinerary is Pakistan. "The last thing Pakistan needs is a high profile visit by a US Secretary of Defence," said a Pentagon official.

The country is contending with ferocious anti-American demonstrations, with Mr Bush burned in effigy and hordes shouting: "Death to America! Let Americans come here to be buried!"

Washington officials advised reporters not to assume military action was only hours away. They stressed that Mr Bush will act only when he is convinced, by Mr Rumsfeld and others, that "all the pieces are in place". Such action will come "at various stages and times", they said. The President himself told reporters there is "no calendar" for the start of hostilities.