Whither Next America ?

I was on Fox and Friends a couple of weeks ago (thanks guy! It was fun!) and one of the questions they didn't ask is "where next?"

Everyone is discussing that. Should we stop with Afghanistan ? Are we going to invade Iraq ? Are we going to be replaying Mogadishu ? Are we going to invade France , just to get them to shut up?

Who the hell knows? I mean really, I don't think I said this in "public" but I was one of the guys thinking that Afghanistan was going to take divisions (I believe 19 was my count) of regular troops. The way that the Bush administration handled it, which I couldn't imagine anyone doing in my wildest dreams, still has me floored. There's a reason that Condoleeza Rice has her job. The various pundits, including especially the group of failed Clintonista has-beens and I'm pointing directly at you Bill Richardson, Wesley Clarke and Madeleine Albright, might as well put a big map on the wall and play a blindfold game of "pin the tail on Osama." Because they (and I to an extent) don't have a clue about where this war is going. It's too radical. And they're too clueless.

Don't get me wrong, I've gamed spec-ops wars that were similar. But having the actual political will to use Green Beanies in the way they were intended is just astounding.

The Green Berets were developed as a latter day equivalent of the WWII Office of Strategic Services. The OSS ran several highly praised guerrilla movements during WWII and as guerrilla operations became more prevalent, it seemed wise to have our own specialists. The mission of the Green Berets was always been to go "behind enemy lines" and support "friendly" partisan forces with logistics, training and communications support, including calling for air support. In a "real" war with the Soviet Union , they were going to be in places like Gorky and Azerbeijan raising guerrilla movements to hamstring the Bear.

But the political will to use them never existed. They did a little of that in Laos and Cambodia , but using them to, for example, create a "pro-American" Viet Cong in North Vietnam was considered political suicide. The closest they came to doing something along the lines was with the Contras in Nicaragua , and no actual serving Special Forces were involved. Officially.

Now they are The Man. They, and the Air Force, took a small group of half starving, mostly defeated Turkmen, Hazara and Pashtun and conquered one of the most "undefeatable" countries in the world. Even if the Afghans had not switched sides so readily, as Tora Bora proved, they could have won anyway, and nearly as fast.

But can we from this single data point draw a clear line to the future? I don't think so. The identical approach would not work in, say, Iraq . Among other things, Saddam has wiped out his equivalent of the Northern Alliance , to the point of rounding up their families and cutting their throats.

We could use some of the same "Afghan War" methods in Somalia . That country is even more broken up factionally; supporting specific factions to do the ground fighting while backing them up with bombers would probably work. It would certainly put paid to Al Quaeda which, remember, is the mission.

But somebody in the Bush Administration is planning the next phase. And I get paid to second guess them. So, knowing that they are smarter than me, closing my eyes, picking up my little stick pin and thinking about who is who in the Bush administration, here is my prediction. And, remember, I've been wrong all the other times:

First, expect a brief stand down. We put a heck of a lot of hours on the bombers and fighters and they are going to need repair. And the ship crews are going to need to get to port and stretch their legs. It would be interesting if we went heavily for basing in India . Once that is over (or while it's going on) we'll put strong diplomatic pressure on Saddam to open up for inspections. Meanwhile we'll start inserting teams, SF and CIA, into Somalia and Yemen to make local contacts while Predators roam the skies. (We're sort of starting this phase already.) After the door-kickers are fixed up and ready to go again, we'll deliver some ultimatums. I would not be at all surprised to see simultaneous "hot" actions going on in Somalia and Yemen . They may hold off on one if Iraq looks to be brewing.

At some point, Saddam is going to tell us to kiss his ass. He'll probably try to play games: "You can go here, here and here but not there." At which point he goes from "I've a little list, they never will be missed" to "bye bye Saddam." We'll use primarily special operations teams, probably basing out of Turkey , with blocking forces to make sure he doesn't roll into Saudi Arabia just to tick us off. And other than that it will be similar to Afghanistan .

All of these actions will have some political repercussions. We'll just have to see what they are. But the point to keep in mind are these words:

"We're going to find them, to follow them, wherever they go and smoke 'em out of their holes."

Powell vacillates. Rummy occasionally looks like he's unsure this is really going down. Rice second guesses herself in the deeps of the night. But Dubaya doesn't care. He means it, he lives it, he breathes it. All you pundits write that on your palm and repeat it until you figure it out. This ain't Bubba, this isn't George H. This is Dubaya and he's opened up a can of Texas ass-whuppin that's probably not going to be closed in the next six years.

There's another old Texas saying: "There ain't much can stop a man who knows he's in the right and just keeps a'comin'."

You keep a'comin', Sir. You do that little thing.

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