How will it be different? Will there be a draft?

I was only a freshman in high school during the Gulf War and I'm sorry to say, I barely remember any of it. I have a feeling, however, that this will be entirely different. I think I'll remember everything.

-- Anonymous, September 17, 2001

Answers

I would be pretty shocked if there was a draft, unless this turned into a much-wider conflict or unless no other nation helped the USA out. And I doubt very much that either will happen. It will be a long and drawn-out conflict, for sure, but I don't think it will be one where massive amounts of manpower will make it that much easier.

-- Anonymous, September 17, 2001

I agree Mike. This will begin as a war of diplomacy. Of the U.S. and her allies linking arms, making a wall and daring the "enemy" (whoever that is) to try and break through it.

But Pakistan making the initial requests for bin Laden? Even they were like, the Taliban doesn't listen to us. We're NO one.

And what kind of response is: "A guest must leave on his own. We can't ask a guest to leave"?

-- Anonymous, September 17, 2001

It was interesting to see that the Taliban threatened to invade Pakistan. I think that's pretty much an empty threat, for a number of reasons that all boil down to the fact that it would be really dumb. They could destablize Pakistan, since there's a substantial group of Taliban sympathizers in the country, but they probably couldn't win that battle and it would certainly bring forth massive retaliation from the rest of the world.

OTOH, the Taliban's in a precarious position. It stands alone (or almost alone) among governments (particularly since Russia and China have no interest in seeing the rise of such fundamentalism in their own countries), and there aren't many who will cry if it falls due to outside influence. Plus, it has domestic opposition already, is a virtual stone age economy, and is losing a zillion people a day who flee the country. It's best hope is to try and make this a worldwide jihad against the United States, but I don't think it has enough pull to carry that off.

-- Anonymous, September 17, 2001

My boy has occasionally threatened to enlist.

Usually I respond with, "I'll kill you." He's done the Army thing before; he doesn't need to do it again.

Although I feel a little bit guilty when I say it.

I don't think war rhetoric is going to really accomplish what we want to accomplish. One, you're working with a very diffuse group of enemies, considering we've already had investigations in Boston, San Diego, Florida, and Hamburg, Germany. Two, Afghanistan is legendary for its hostility to foreign armies. Three, it's not clear what we would accomplish beyond smoking Osama bin Laden out (if we did). I'm somewhat in favor, if we were able to wrangle control of Afghanistan from the Taliban, to stay in à la 1945-48 Japan and set up some sort of stable, moderate Islamic republic, but I'm not really sure we'd have the guts to do that. In fact, I'm almost certain we wouldn't.

I'm more in favor of treating the hunt as a criminal investigation, with all the countries who lost victims banding together to get bin Laden and whoever helped him -- and if the Taliban refused to cooperate, then go in, and be prepared to adjust all our traditional methods of fighting. Afghanistan would be even harder than Vietnam was.

-- Anonymous, September 17, 2001

WG - agreed. It seems right now that it is a criminal investigation; a worldwide manhunt. But the Taliban's already said they won't turn him over. Because I guess it would be so "rude" to ask a guest to leave.

How would Afgahnistan be harder than Vietnam?

-- Anonymous, September 17, 2001

It's partially explained in Slate today, but basically the terrain is horrible to navigate: there are all sorts of tunnels buried in the mountains that our best satellite imagery can't pick up. Plus we would be fighting a group that has received CIA training and American weaponry. Contrary to current popular belief, the US has not been exclusively anti-Taliban; we sometimes favor stable governments over human-rights-friendly ones, and because an even more unstable Afghanistan could (so went the pre-Tuesday theory) cause real trouble (by spilling over into nuclear-armed Pakistan) the Taliban, able to impose order, were not necessarily regarded as evil.

-- Anonymous, September 17, 2001

WG - gotcha. I thought you meant like Vietnam in the social aspect and its impact on our culture etc.

Also, re: a draft. They would have to call in all the reserves and such first, right? Also an Army Brat friend of mine told me that there's a retirement/discharge "window" and in times of war etc. they can call you back. He said that since his dad just retired, he'd go back into active duty. Also, his brother, who finished his service about 2 years ago.

-- Anonymous, September 17, 2001

"^*0000 ^BC-APNewsAlert,0039
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - Taliban leader will let council of Islamic clerics decide whether to hand over Osama bin Laden to the United States, Taliban-run radio says."

-- Anonymous, September 17, 2001

A draft is highly unlikely, for two reasons. First, it would have to be a huge war to have to include individuals who are not connected to the military in one way or another. There are three lines of military membership already, those on active duty, those on active reserve duty (about 1,000,000) and those on inactive duty. I'm on inactive military duty, which means that I don't have to go to any military activities, but could be called up and have to go. The liklihood of that is very low.

Any military engagement in that part of the world would resemble Vietnam more than it would Desert Storm. The military has been moving in a direction of smaller conflicts that include less ground troops and then only in a limited capacity. Desert Storm was a military operation that went against the trend in modern military engagements. We wouldn't need the amount of troops that would require a draft if we were to invade Afghanistan.

-- Anonymous, September 17, 2001

Now they're throwing around "biological warfare." This scares the shit out of me. Anyone got details?

-- Anonymous, September 25, 2001

As you all know, bombing began yesterday.

Thoughts?

-- Anonymous, October 08, 2001

Any thoughts on the two related anthrax cases in Florida?

-- Anonymous, October 08, 2001

I heard that they found traces of anthrax in the building. But I mean, the Sun in West Palm Beach? It seems so random to me. Except for the fact that Atta was living in a Miami suburb, right?

-- Anonymous, October 08, 2001

Heard last week that an ebola-like virus was spreading throughout the Pakistan-Afghanistan border area. The stuff of nightmares.

-- Anonymous, October 08, 2001

Robyn - I read that. I think they conclusively determined that the ebola was due to the squalor in the refugee camps. Ebola is so communicable, it spread really quickly in the camp because there was an infected refugee.

-- Anonymous, October 08, 2001

http://www.cnn.com/2001/HEALTH/conditions/10/12/nyc.anthrax/i ndex.html

-- Anonymous, October 12, 2001

For the record, RCW.com has yet to receive anything powdery.

-- Anonymous, October 12, 2001

Every time I sneeze, I say, "Uh oh, I think I got the anthrax." Every delivery to our lab, we call out, "Hey, who ordered a box of the anthrax?" At lunch today, we joked about ordering chicken salad on an anthrax croissant.

And you know any time something goes wrong, it's Osama Bin Laden's fault. Osama messed up my data base. Osama ruined my crystal structure. Osama took my last tampon.

How bad are the jokes getting in your work place?

-- Anonymous, October 12, 2001

The guy who works behind me tacks "or they win" onto everything. It's quite addictive, despite being in very bad taste.

If I don't eat this cookie, They win.

If I don't finish this graphic, They win.

-- Anonymous, October 12, 2001

Two American soliders were killed in errant bombing, which if I'm correct, brings the total to 3, including the CIA operative killed in the prison.

http://www.cnn.com/2001/US/12/05/gen.war.against.terror/index. html

We haven't talked about the war much. What do you guys think? Should we stop once the anti-Taliban interim government is set up? Should we go after Iraq? What about the American found fighting for the Taliban? What should happen to him?

-- Anonymous, December 05, 2001

I can't talk about it. This military tribunal crap makes me so angry. Basically, any non-citizen can be PUT TO DEATH with a)no defence attorney b)no access to the evidence against them and c)the vote of only two of the five judges on the panel.

I think I might have a tiny bit more faith in the whole secret evidence thing if it hadn't, you know, been so egregiously misused by us in the past few years already.

-- Anonymous, December 05, 2001

They're now searching cave by cave in Afghanistan. Do you think bin Laden is still there? Will we find him?

-- Anonymous, December 18, 2001

I think the more important question is will we find him alive.

-- Anonymous, December 18, 2001

Interestingly, the aforementioned Spam Link of Overkill leads to a site that offers "A Lesson in Arabic Grammer."

-- Anonymous, March 21, 2002

Dammit. I wanted to read about robot warriors.

It's a goddamned conspiracy.

-- Anonymous, March 21, 2002