Return-Path: <sentto-279987-2097-1000952256-fc=all.net@returns.onelist.com> Delivered-To: fc@all.net Received: from 204.181.12.215 by localhost with POP3 (fetchmail-5.1.0) for fc@localhost (single-drop); Wed, 19 Sep 2001 19:19:11 -0700 (PDT) Received: (qmail 26259 invoked by uid 510); 20 Sep 2001 02:18:12 -0000 Received: from n7.groups.yahoo.com (216.115.96.57) by 204.181.12.215 with SMTP; 20 Sep 2001 02:18:12 -0000 X-eGroups-Return: sentto-279987-2097-1000952256-fc=all.net@returns.onelist.com Received: from [10.1.1.224] by fj.egroups.com with NNFMP; 20 Sep 2001 02:17:49 -0000 X-Sender: fc@big.all.net X-Apparently-To: iwar@onelist.com Received: (EGP: mail-7_3_2_2); 20 Sep 2001 02:17:36 -0000 Received: (qmail 87363 invoked from network); 20 Sep 2001 02:17:28 -0000 Received: from unknown (10.1.10.27) by 10.1.1.224 with QMQP; 20 Sep 2001 02:17:28 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO big.all.net) (65.0.156.78) by mta2 with SMTP; 20 Sep 2001 02:17:41 -0000 Received: (from fc@localhost) by big.all.net (8.9.3/8.7.3) id TAA10458 for iwar@onelist.com; Wed, 19 Sep 2001 19:17:40 -0700 Message-Id: <200109200217.TAA10458@big.all.net> To: iwar@onelist.com (Information Warfare Mailing List) Organization: I'm not allowed to say X-Mailer: don't even ask X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.5 PL1] From: Fred Cohen <fc@all.net> Mailing-List: list iwar@yahoogroups.com; contact iwar-owner@yahoogroups.com Delivered-To: mailing list iwar@yahoogroups.com Precedence: bulk List-Unsubscribe: <mailto:iwar-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com> Date: Wed, 19 Sep 2001 19:17:40 -0700 (PDT) Reply-To: iwar@yahoogroups.com Subject: [iwar] [fc:Ex-spy.chief.says.new.Afghan.war.doomed] Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Ex-spy chief says new Afghan war doomed By Raja Asghar ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - A United States attack on Afghanistan would be "sheer madness" leading to an unwinnable war with high casualties, says a former Pakistani spymaster who advised Afghan guerrillas fighting Soviet troops in the 1980s. U.S. forces could seize Kabul in three days but could never hold the Afghan capital or keep a new government in power, former army lieutenant-general Hameed Gul told Reuters Television in an interview on Wednesday. An attack would suck the United States, the Muslim world and maybe even China into a protracted conflict that would be hard for America's "chocolate cream soldiers" to bear, he argued. "I think it is going to be sheer madness from a professional point of view," Gul said of possible U.S. retaliatory strikes for last week's devastating attacks on U.S. landmark buildings. "I don't think that this is a winnable war," he said at his home in Rawalpindi, near Islamabad. U.S. President George W. Bush has named Saudi-born dissident Osama bin Laden as the prime suspect for the September 11 attacks that killed about 6,000 people, saying he wants him "dead or alive". Bin Laden lives in Afghanistan as a guest of the ruling hardline Islamic Taliban movement, which, despite the threat of a possible U.S. military operation, has refused to hand him over -- at least without solid evidence of his guilt. Gul played a key role in the Western-backed guerrilla war against the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan as the head of Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) network, which covertly funnelled arms and aid to the "Mujahideen" fighters. THREE SCENARIOS, ALL NEGATIVE Gul saw three scenarios for U.S. operations. One was for U.S. forces to fire cruise missiles at bin Laden's headquarters, as they did in 1998 after blaming him for the bombing of two U.S. embassies in East Africa that killed more than 200 people. Such an attack "is not going to have any effect whatsoever" apart from damaging some airfields in Afghanistan, he said. "The second scenario is (that) they try to pluck Osama bin Laden by their commando raids, and that is unlikely to succeed because of the nature of terrain and...the fact that the U.S. intelligence in the past has been failing manifestly," he said. "The third and the mostly likely one is that they would want to install a government of their own choice," Gul said. "They will go in initially and stay there for a short time and set up a government, most probably ... (former) king Zahir Shah or somebody from his camp," he said, referring to the exiled ex-monarch deposed in 1973. But Afghan history was replete with instances of governments installed by outside powers failing to survive, citing efforts made by the former British Empire and later by the Soviet Union. "The Americans are bound to lose and with that they will have to not only vacate Afghanistan, they will have to vacate the Gulf as well," he said. "That will bring about the collapse of the Western power." Gul said it would be "easy enough to get inside Afghanistan" and predicted the Americans could capture Kabul in three days. "But their problem begins thereafter, because whichever government they install, the entire Afghan nation will rally against it," he warned. Gul said the Taliban would declare a "jihad" (holy war) and call in Muslim youths "from Morocco to Mindanao" to fight. "As the Muslims get sucked in, so will the Chinese government at some stage get sucked in too (as they) are next-door neighbours," Gul cautioned, adding Washington might seek to exploit the crisis to contain Beijing's emerging power. Gul said Pakistan should have said a friendly "no" to the U.S. request for support in a military campaign that President Pervez Musharraf has backed in principle. "It is the duty of a friend to say 'look, you are doing something which is going to sink us and sink you'," he said. "If a friend wants to commit suicide, we must stay the hands of the friend. This is the situation, I think, where Pervez Musharraf has failed." ------------------ http://all.net/ Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.2 : 2001-09-29 21:08:45 PDT