“Remember the optimistic remarks a couple of weeks back about the way American bombs were eviscerating the enemy? This has given way to sombre comment about the Taliban’s dogged resistance. Evidently our leaders gambled on the supposition that the unpopularity of the regime would mean the bombing would bring about the Taliban’s rapid collapse. And they also seem to have assumed that it would not be too difficult to put together a post-Taliban government. This was a series of misjudgements. The Joint Chiefs may have been misled by the apparent success – now that Milosevic has been defeated – of the bombing campaign in Kosovo. Perhaps they should have reflected on Vietnam. We dropped more tons of explosives on that hapless country than we dropped on all fronts during the Second World War, and still we could not stop the Vietcong. Vietnam should have reminded our generals that bombing has only a limited impact on decentralised, undeveloped, rural societies.” – Arthur Schlesinger Jr., wrong yet again, the Independent, November 2.
V-H AWARD NOMINEE: “General Van Tien Dung, 84, lead strategist of the victory of North Vietnamese forces against the Saigon and U.S. regimes, also expressed his doubts about a U.S. victory over Osama bin Laden and the Taliban. “I’m certain that they will fail,” declared the ex-defense minister, who brought the North Vietnamese troops to a lightning-fast victory during the Ho Chi Minh campaign that ended with the fall of Saigon in 1975, marking the end of the Vietnam War. “War doesn’t end the hate. It just adds more gasoline to the fire, provoking more hate and a harder vengeance, above all on the part of those who have sworn to die for their religion,” added General Van Tien Dung. “How will the United States put an end to this war? How will it get out of it? Its soldiers will find themselves with geographical difficulties that the Soviets could not surpass before,” the general concluded.” – Agence France-Presse, October 31.
V-H AWARD NOMINEE: “The United States is not headed into a quagmire; it’s already in one. The United States is not losing the first round against the Taliban; it has already lost it. Soon, a new credibility gap will emerge as the Pentagon attempts to massage the news.” – Jacob Heilbrunn, Los Angeles Times, November 4.
V-H AWARD NOMINEE: “”I don’t know how long this was supposed to take but it’s certainly going a lot worse than expected. We have leading opposition figure captured and executed … defections from the Taleban not happening on any large scale .. Afghan support for the Taleban appears to be on the increase and, if anything more was needed to dim the support of our allies for this whole adventure here we have another Red Cross warehouse has been bombed because of what is called human error. This is a war in trouble.” – Daniel Schorr, NPR Weekend Edition.
V-H AWARD NOMINEE: “You can spend so much time defending the moral legitimacy of bombing Afghanistan and damning Noam Chomsky to hell that you never need to get around, really, to the question of what the real-world consequences of this war are likely to be. Five and a half million Afghans starving, as predicted by Oxfam, if the military campaign prevents delivery of humanitarian relief? Thousands of new Taliban fans and recruits for anti-American suicide missions? A protracted war with a determined, hardy foe that draws in Central Asia, enrages the Muslim masses and destabilizes Pakistan or Indonesia or another country to be named later?” – Katha “Your Stammering Is Eloquent” Pollitt, The Nation.
V-H AWARD NOMINEE: “Like an unwelcome specter from an unhappy past, the ominous word “quagmire” has begun to haunt conversations among government officials and students of foreign policy, both here and abroad…A week ago, the Pentagon said the military capacity of Taliban leaders in Afghanistan had been “eviscerated” by allied bombing raids; now ranking officials describe those leaders as “tough characters” who remain full of fight… The Northern Alliance, whose generals bragged for weeks that it was about to capture the pivotal city of Mazar-i-Sharif, has failed to do so. Nor have its tanks made any progress toward Kabul.” – R.W. Apple, New York Times, October 31.
V-H AWARD NOMINEE: “Many of the Afghan women who have been warning us about the Taliban for years say that bombing would be the surest way to unite most Afghanis around them.” – Gloria Steinem, Village Voice.
V-H AWARD NOMINEE: “It now looks, with 20/20 hindsight, as though we should have taken a few more deep breaths before smacking that tar baby that is Afghanistan. We’re running out of time for three reasons: winter, Ramadan and the prospect of millions of people starving to death.” Molly Ivins, November 4.
V-H AWARD NOMINEE: “Having found refuge in places that America cannot or will not bomb, it appears the Taliban will rule Afghanistan through the winter, thereby handing the United States a humiliating and gratuitous defeat … Of all the proxies the United States has enlisted over the past half-century, the Northern Alliance may be the least prepared to attain America’s battlefield objectives… [The Alliance] remains far weaker than its adversary, it boasts far fewer troops, and lacks the determination of its foe … Its forces lack fuel and ammunition, remain pathetically divided, and seem in no rush to march to an American timetable.” – The New Republic, November 8.
The Dish 