Insurgents melt away from battle

[daleo]

PANJWAI DISTRICT, AFGHANISTAN — Hundreds of insurgents have scattered from a grinding Canadian military advance in Panjwai district, as soldiers punched into a former Taliban stronghold in a cascade of dust and flying rubble.

A few days ago, the Canadians were convinced that this warren of buildings, code-named Objective Cricket, harboured at least 100 determined insurgents. Some locals estimated as many as 1,000 Taliban were lurking in the region after the rebels overran a strategic belt of farmland southwest of Kandahar city this spring.

But the Canadians gained new intelligence during the weekend, suggesting they would find only scattered groups of two or three fighters opposing them.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20060912.wxafghanbattle12/BNStory

[kurth]

1. Duh. Like they were gonna get in formation and get shot!

GEEEZ.

[warrens]

7. The rats won't even wear bright red uniforms, either

No fair.

[Kutjara]

2. Sounds like someone's still using 18th Century battle tactics.

What do we expect the insurgents to do, wear red coats and tall hats and stand in skirmish formation? Memo to Coalition: we are not fighting the Napoleonic Wars.

[Igel]

8. While there's a difference between 18th century

military practice and what the article says the Taliban did, there's also a large difference between current military practice and what the Taliban did.

Nobody expects them to wear red and march in formation. But most armies expect the enemy to fight like they do, more or less. The Geneva Conventions presume this to be the case, as well.

[happyslug]

9. Have you read the Geneva Conventions?

One of the assumptions is that it covers people who takes up arms AGAINST an invader even if they do NOT belong to an organized military unit. Furthermore the experience of 1939-1945 was still fresh it the treaty writers mind so they included language that covers Guerrillas AND Partisans who fade back into the population.

Sorry, the Convention do NOT assume the way one side fight will be how the other sides fights. Any military leader who makes that assumption should be fired. The other side will fight in a the way that maximized its strengths and minimized the other sides strengths. Any military operations MUST make that assumption, thus your statement is invalid not only for NOT being what the Geneva Conventions says, but also how armies expect to fight other armies. No army wants to fight on even terms, they want to fight on terms that are to their advantage. When they end up fighting an enemy on the enemy's terms you get reports of the other side not fighting "Fair" (and this is generally where a technically superior side finds themselves fighting an enemy who has adopted tactics that minimize those technical advantages).

[Kagemusha]

10. I myself have read them and concur with you completely.

And having read them, I think most people who are ignorant of them - which quite unfortunately, includes the vast majority of US military officers, from what I have seen them say about the conventions in the media (and I mean not even including spokesmen) - they would be just shocked - shocked! - and how plainly and intelligently and non wiggle room-ly they are written. No wonder so much effort goes into obfuscating the blatant routine violating of the Geneva Conventions.

[Guy Whitey Corngood]

12. It also helps to play a drum and carry a big ass flag

while going into battle.

[BrotherBuzz]

3. Methinks Afghan elders have read and mastered...

Sun Tzu's The art of war

[karlrschneider]

4. Like the Minutemen?

:eyes:

[Kutjara]

5. Haven't you heard?

According to some freeper post someone linked to in a thread the other day, it was wrong of us to rebel against King George III, our divinely chosen leader. That's where all our troubles began. If we hadn't thwarted God's will and remained part of England, everything would be hunky dory today.

So those minutemen were just a bunch of terrorists.

God Save the King...er...Queen.

[karlrschneider]

6. Not much surprises me any more.

:grr: :eyes: :puke:

[SoCalDem]

11. "STAND STILL, DAMMIT.. I WANT TO SHOOT YOU"

Duh !

Guerrilla warriors and insurgencies threw away the rule book, centuries ago

[TheLastMohican]

13. Remember these guys fought the Russians

and survived after meeting some of the best Spetsnaz finest. Canadians either terribly underestimating their foe or thinking they are much better than the Russians who were actually very good at what they did, controlling 90% of Afganistan for 10 years. Right now Canadians with US control Kabul and some fire bases and that's it.

[daleo]

14. Your point about the Russians is a good one

We are attempting the same thing they did, with a lot less troops. It seems like sheer arrogance on our part to assume that we will succeed where the Russians failed. Granted, our governments have better control over our media than the Soviets did (I say, half sarcastically).

[gratuitous]

15. Also keep in mind

That the Soviets were flailing about in a country right next door to them. The American and Canadian forces are thousands of miles from their home bases, a nearly unprecedented length for supply lines. And as wondrous as our age is with its satellite hook-ups and near instant global communication, it still takes a long time for a helicopter or a tank or a rifle to roll off the assembly line in North America and get to a soldier who can put it to use in Afghanistan.

And strangely enough, the people fighting on their own land seem to know that their foe is 'way out on an island, supply-line-wise. Maybe Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld can ban globes and maps? And the folks we're killing and getting killed by in Afghanistan will forget how far away we are?