Dear Mr. President..

[Hangtime]

Voss.. yer wrong.

Just saw the Taliban on TV. Didn't you?? They go to Pakistan to film that? Last time I looked there were lights on in Kabul. A phone system. Internet access.. PC's, printers, printing presses, Radio, TV, and Microwave toasters. And CNN. Or did the words of an aggrieved and exceptionally pissed off America get to Kabul's evacuating and terrified citizens by flashing mirrors and smoke signals?

I see you accept the presence of refrigerators.

Yes, the "official" line denys technology in Afghanistan... for everybody but the government and it's cronies.. Lets turn it all off for them. Make 'em real happy.

Then smile REAL big at Iran, Iraq and Syria and inquire...

"Next??"

Lets just switch the place completly off.

[ 09-15-2001: Message edited by: Hangtime ]

[1776]

Hang, thanks.  I just found out who watches CNN.  I often wondered where they get their rating numbers

[newguy2]

Lets turn it all off for them. Make 'em real happy. Then smile REAL big at Iran, Iraq and Syria and inquire...


This is an outstanding idea. Would completely
disrupt said country's command and control. They'd be unable to organize an effected defence again anything. Units in the field would be in a complete blackout with regards to what or where. No communications, No transport, No supply, most of their weapons systems knocked out without firing a shot. The ones that are left would be static. How could they move them? They would have nothing left other that their AK's. Can you say panic?

[ 09-15-2001: Message edited by: newguy2 ]

[MrRiplEy]

Hangtime: FYI internet is already banned in Iran. They only allow limited use through government controlled filters.

Usually most nerve centers in governments are EMP protected, so the hit would focus on the few transistor radio's and a couple PC's they might have in afghanistan.

That country is war ridden and they already live in extremely privitive conditions (except the small priviledged part) and doing things like that would only piss them off, nothing else.

How would you plan to control commerce done through footpaths over the mountain range? Nobody else has managed to stop it, what makes you think you could? You'd have to set half of the population of US to stand in guard at 2km altitude on the side of the mountain.

Any measures that would horrify the people of US are meaningless for the people there.. The nomad culture has never based on any western achievement nor do they even care. It's enough for them to have TNT and Kalashnikovs and camels/horses to move around. EMP won't do jack toejam to those basics.

So, to put that country to its knees, it's imperative to invade it and seize control of EVERY small village all over the country. Unless you do that, the fundamentalists will just keep on traveling across the desert/mountains like they have been doing for thousands of years and making attacks to the US people or even US soil. Guerilla warfare is extremely difficult to stop.

[ 09-15-2001: Message edited by: MrRiplEy ]

[Hangtime]

To wage war OUTSIDE their country they first need to aquire the means to do so.

Just as we need to aquire the means to wage war inside their country.

Yes, we can watch every god-damned trail and camel path in and out. There arn't that many. It's surrounded by mountains with a VERY limited number of access routes. It's not as if we don't know where those routes are.. we've used them ourselves.

It would require a lot less manpower to seal that place up and bomb every building flat than it would to conquer it.

As for Iran and Iraq.. these are semi-modern countries that enjoy the fruits of their exports. Money is DATA. Shut it off; sieze ALL assets extant to the nation, cut off all external access, all egress. Nothin in; nothin out. From anywhere. We can and SHOULD simply divorce them from the rest of civilization. By force, by day, by night, by whatever means necessary.

Turn off the lights.. kill their internal comms, support and supply their internal adversaries and ruthlessly pursue every connection they attempt to use outside their borders.  

The Kurds have been lookin for a homeland for centuries. Lets give 'em one.

[MrRiplEy]

Well, Hangtime, you seem to be pretty confident about your cause. All I can say is Good luck!

Mountains easy to control? Or the desert for that matter? I wouldn't want to be amongst the ones trying. I disagree with you on that.

Of course the afghans will have a harder time harassing controlling troops if they use up all the portable stinger missiles your government has kindly been supplying them with during the conflict with russia..

[Dowding]

Hangtime - do your homework on the current state of Afghanistan.

You have a country verging on starvation, whose infrastructure is virtually non-existant thanks to decades of conflict.

The situation is so bad that Afghans have been streaming over the border for years into neighbouring Pakistan. There are now millions of them in refugee camps there.

And now you want to 'nuke' one of the world's primary 'stone-age nations'.

There has to be another way.

[ 09-15-2001: Message edited by: Dowding ]

[Sandman]

Not only that... think about the political consequences of such an act.

I'm sure Russia and Pakistan would just be thrilled to have a nuclear deviced used near their countries.

The United States has sanction to act, but I wouldn't consider that sanction unlimited. I suspect that the rest of the world would recoil in horror at such an event and the support that we need would evaporate.

[ 09-15-2001: Message edited by: Sandman_SBM ]

[Hangtime]

Would you rather see the US involved in a ground war in that nation? Replete with a vulnerable chain of supply that spans half the globe? The Soviet Union, SHARING a border with Afghanistan was utterly humiliated trying to subdue that nation...

I cannot concieve of a more horrendous way to eliminate another generation of young americans.

I'm not calling for turning it into a Nuclear Wasteland; Hiroshima style.. I'm describing utilising a weapon that harms not a hair on a single moslems head. I'm simply descsribing divorcing them from civilization once and for all.

PUT OUT THE LIGHTS. EMP, then BLOCKADE.

Yah, I'm hugely pissed... deeply saddened, and extemly determined to see justice done, and the threat forever eliminated. Lets make the price of their barbarity beyond their ability to reply. If they have no voice... they cannot scream.

Shut 'em down for good.

[Naso]

Hang, I dont think the EMP will be useful, read this:
 http://www.hitechcreations.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=4&t=003136

Just for some more infos.

[Tuomio]

Bin Laden dont use any modern communications. You should read his interview, there is pretty good description how the Laden organization works and why its so damn hard to suppress.

They have only basic weaponry, grenades, mines, ak47:s, stingers and rpg:s. Ive seen some ZU-23:s also mounted on the truck. Their primary movement method is by foot or camel. EMP effect would be the same as for the Vietkong soldiers.

[VAQ]

Originally posted by Tac:

Operation Bene Gesserit!

Dune, Frank Herbert.

[ 09-15-2001: Message edited by: VAQ ]

[Eagler]

Dear Mr President:

Kill the freakin SOB's, every last one of them!

[Eagler]

Originally posted by Tuomio:
Bin Laden dont use any modern communications. You should read his interview, there is pretty good description how the Laden organization works and why its so damn hard to suppress.

They have only basic weaponry, grenades, mines, ak47:s, stingers and rpg:s. Ive seen some ZU-23:s also mounted on the truck. Their primary movement method is by foot or camel. EMP effect would be the same as for the Vietkong soldiers.

It's not the weapons, its the terrain..

Then again if we killed their camels, how could they reproduce?

[Voss]

Originally posted by Hangtime:
Voss.. yer wrong.

No, Hang, I'm not.

Unlike America, where every sin is explored and tested, Afghanistan has attempted to make religion law. It will never work, especially for anyone outside of Afghanistan and just like 'Animal Farm' you can see the incongruities within, but your idea simply won't work. It is pure fantasy.

Just south, and to the east of your primary target is the capital of Pakistan. How do you think they would respond to the first nuclear explosion?

It's not camels, either, Eagler. It's goats.