Blue Crab Boulevard

No Mercy

You cannot qualify war in harsher terms than I will. War is cruelty, and you cannot refine it; and those who brought war into our country deserve all the curses and maledictions a people can pour out. I know I had no hand in making this war, and I know I will make more sacrifices to-day than any of you to secure peace.

William Tecumseh Sherman, letter to Mayor James M. Calhoun of Atlanta.

The Telegraph reports on new orders that the American commander in Helmand province, Afghanistan has given to use relentless airpower against Taliban elements. There is no mercy and a relentless pursuit each and every time the Taliban launches an attack. And it has stunned the Taliban and completely disrupted their plans for a spring offensive.

Aircrews say they have been told to show no mercy, but to press home their advantage until all their targets have been destroyed. The Apache attack was one of five in three days in -Helmand, where British troops operate alongside a much smaller contingent of American infantry and special forces.

Capt Staley, the commander of the Apache unit based at Kandahar airfield, described how his helicopters had arrived just after an ambush by Taliban fighters with rocket-propelled grenades and heavy machine guns, on a detachment of American special forces and an infantry unit. In the second Apache, 1st Lt Jack Denton, 26, was in radio contact with the special forces unit, Scorpion 36, on the ground.

The soldiers said they had information that the Taliban were escaping across the river. "Look out for any boats," they said. He spotted a small aluminium fishing boat pushing out from the eastern shore of the 200-yard-wide river. In it were six or seven people. When they caught sight of the Apaches, they started to paddle back towards shore.

The aircrew hesitated. "It seemed a little premature," said Lt Denton. "We didn't have hostile intent or a positive ID from the ground commander." But the special forces soldiers were adamant that, although they could not themselves see the men on the boat, they must be the Taliban who had attacked them. That, said Lt Denton, was good enough for the Apache crews.

By then, most of the men were ashore, walking quickly towards the tree line. They appeared to be pulling clothing over their heads – burqas, Capt Staley thought, and Lt Denton concurred. As the helicopters came in to attack, Lt Denton said, one of the men turned to face him and dropped to his knees. "I think he knew that there was no hope," he said. "He was making his peace."

Capt Staley's helicopter hit them with its rockets while Lt Denton, the gunner in the other helicopter, opened up with his 30mm cannon. Three or four of the Taliban died where they stood and the rest made a dash for the trees. "They were trying to get to their bunkers," Capt Staley said. "We started a diving run and destroyed four of the six people we could see, including the Taliban commander."

War is a terrible, terrible thing. But when you are in it, you must win it. And the sooner you win it, the less the suffering all around will be. I think Sherman has it exactly right. You cannot refine it, you can not make it easier and you have to get it over as quickly as possible. There appears to be an American commander in Afghanistan who understand that. The war will be ultimately shorter as a result.

(Somewhere around the Crabitat I have a first edition copy of Lloyd Lewis' Sherman: Fighting Prophet, a biography of Sherman. It is actually still available, Amazon has it. Highly recommended.)

War | Gaius April 29, 2007

By Jim Martin, April 29, 2007 @ 4:44 pm

It’s about time, but remember, the Soviets were as ruthless as an army could be. They won every major engagement yet they could not succeed against a popular movement.
We need more troops there, but none are to be had.
By Gaius, April 29, 2007 @ 4:56 pm

But Jim, the Soviets made no distinction between combatants and civilians from what I have read. Sherman did not advocate for war on civilians – but on the means to make war. He offered the civilians safe passage and US Army assistance in getting out. There is always the risk that civilians will be killed anytime armed opponents are shooting at one another.
By Jim Martin, April 29, 2007 @ 6:26 pm

Help me out here. Are you saying the Afghans defeated the Soviets because of their indiscriminate killing?
The Afghans have a long history of throwing out occupiers. Where does the combatant end and the civilian begin in a popular movement?
By Gaius, April 29, 2007 @ 7:17 pm

Help me out, Jim. Afghanistan is the essential war according to the Democrats. What, exactly, is your problem with it?
By Bill Franklin, April 30, 2007 @ 2:12 am

Do you think those men in that boat hate the US because of our freedom? More specifically, why do you think these men decided to join the Taliban? The standard right-wing response of “they hate our freedom” is an insufficient (and wrong) answer.

When the US stops focusing on these type of “whack-a-mole” killings and focuses on how the Taliban is financed and what motivates people joining the movement, then we’ll have a chance of eliminating the Taliban. But for now, this “war” will go on forever, because all it takes is three guys to decide they’re Taliban and boom you’ve got three more to kill. I think this is what Jim is alluding to by the popular movement comments. You won’t ever see a Taliban head of state sign a surrender document aboard a US carrier, officially ending the war between the US and the Taliban. They will continue to pop up as long as conditions allow for it.

Bin Laden actually wants us over there (Iraq and Afghanistan), burning up a billion+ a week, while the dollar falls to new lows against other world currencies and the price of gold keeps going up. The Taliban are spending 1 dollar for every 10,000 we spend. They know if they keep us over there long enough they’ll bleed us dry financially.
By Purple Avenger, April 30, 2007 @ 9:06 am

We need more troops there

How will you supply them? You need to look at a topo map of Afghanistan.
By Bob from Ohio, April 30, 2007 @ 9:51 am

According to the Christian Science Monitor:

“However, the actual impact of the war on the economy is different than in the past, largely because the US economy is so much bigger now. During World War II, some analysts calculate that the US spent as much as 30 percent of its gross domestic product (GDP) on the war effort. The Korean War, at its spending peak in 1953, represented 14 percent of GDP; Vietnam was about 9 percent. The current war, however, is less than 1 percent of America’s annual $13 trillion.”

So, I think Bin Laden (if alive) will wait quite a while for the spending to hurt us, let alone “bleed us dry”.