Washington Post
Quotes:
¡X ¡§You yourself [the United States] trained them to be the best guerrilla force in the world,¡¨ said a former Pakistani intelligence official who said he advised Islamic freedom fighters under CIA-sponsored programs during the rebels¡¦ war with Soviet forces in the 1980s. ¡§Some of these Taliban were the CIA¡¦s superstars. ¡§Doesn¡¦t the CIA remember they were the ones who gave the Afghans the best lessons in the world in how to humiliate a great army?¡¨ said another former Pakistani intelligence official, who has advised the Taliban in military operations for the past five years.
The U.S. military learned during the Persian Gulf War that months of bombing destroyed only a fraction of the Iraqi military hardware arrayed across a flat desert, a lesson that could apply to Afghanistan as well. ¡§Carrying out large-scale bombing of Afghanistan would be a mistake,¡¨ Nikolai Kovalyov, former head of the Russian Federal Security Service, a successor agency to the KGB, said in an interview in Moscow. ¡§We must learn from the lessons of history - we have not been able to solve the problems of terrorism by large-scale bombing.¡¨
In Afghanistan, U.S. surveillance satellites will see no sizable power grids, no vast military bases, no major bridges and highway networks as targets: There are none. Special forces would land in a war zone that has changed little from the desert country of nomadic tribes and medieval-looking villages British troops invaded more than two centuries ago. Land forces, with virtually no access to local supplies, would be treading through one of the most densely mined countries on the globe amid a hostile population.
¡§The first mistake would be a large-scale land operation,¡¨ said former Russian security chief Kovalyov. ¡§In the mountains there, it is impossible to determine where or what to destroy. For every trainful of explosives, perhaps three guerrillas at most will die. The country is filled with caves and crevices in which to hide."
Quotes:
¡X ¡§You yourself [the United States] trained them to be the best guerrilla force in the world,¡¨ said a former Pakistani intelligence official who said he advised Islamic freedom fighters under CIA-sponsored programs during the rebels¡¦ war with Soviet forces in the 1980s. ¡§Some of these Taliban were the CIA¡¦s superstars. ¡§Doesn¡¦t the CIA remember they were the ones who gave the Afghans the best lessons in the world in how to humiliate a great army?¡¨ said another former Pakistani intelligence official, who has advised the Taliban in military operations for the past five years.
The U.S. military learned during the Persian Gulf War that months of bombing destroyed only a fraction of the Iraqi military hardware arrayed across a flat desert, a lesson that could apply to Afghanistan as well. ¡§Carrying out large-scale bombing of Afghanistan would be a mistake,¡¨ Nikolai Kovalyov, former head of the Russian Federal Security Service, a successor agency to the KGB, said in an interview in Moscow. ¡§We must learn from the lessons of history - we have not been able to solve the problems of terrorism by large-scale bombing.¡¨
In Afghanistan, U.S. surveillance satellites will see no sizable power grids, no vast military bases, no major bridges and highway networks as targets: There are none. Special forces would land in a war zone that has changed little from the desert country of nomadic tribes and medieval-looking villages British troops invaded more than two centuries ago. Land forces, with virtually no access to local supplies, would be treading through one of the most densely mined countries on the globe amid a hostile population.
¡§The first mistake would be a large-scale land operation,¡¨ said former Russian security chief Kovalyov. ¡§In the mountains there, it is impossible to determine where or what to destroy. For every trainful of explosives, perhaps three guerrillas at most will die. The country is filled with caves and crevices in which to hide."
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