I saw this Carew guy interviewed last night on MSNBC. An impressive Brit commando type. One thing he talked about that is not described in this article is how the Afghanis treat an enemy captured in battle. He dies very slow and with maximum pain.

The Guardian Sept 19, 2001

In the death zone

It is one of the wildest places on earth. High in the mountain passes vehicles are useless and in winter the snow is neck deep. Then there are the Afghans, devastatingly effective guerrilla fighters, says ex-SAS man Tom Carew. And he should know - he fought alongside them against the Soviet army. Welcome to Afghanistan, a land not conquered since Alexander the Great.

by Tom Carew

We were there to assess their fighting capability and to retrieve Soviet equipment. It was 1979 and the Afghans were fighting a superpower with tactics they had used against the British before the first world war. Watching them fight was like watching an old western: the cowboys would come into a valley and down would come the Indians. My task was to teach them modern guerrilla tactics. Without them, they would be exterminated.

I tried to go without preconceptions, but it was hard. Before leaving Britain, everyone said be careful, they are barbaric, they'll chop you up. My boss at MI6 gave me a Flashman novel about Muslim brutality - his idea of a joke. After a few months adjusting, however, I found the Afghans to be very pleasant. We got along. I respected their bravery; they respected the way I instructed them.

I had more difficulty coping with the physical terrain. When I arrived in Peshawar, an Afghan military leader warned me, "I hope you are fit, my men march very quickly." No problem, I thought. I was used to marching. But my God; up, up, up we went. We entered the Hindu Kush mountains and started climbing. Above 3,000m the oxygen started to thin and my concentration to lapse. The Afghans were used to it, but anyone else feels really light-headed.

As fighting terrain, it is an absolute nightmare. It's a natural fortress. You can't get very far with vehicles; you get bogged down and the passes are too steep. The Russians had a bloody awful time. They really got stuck. It's one thing to put in your infantry, but you've got to keep them within range of your artillery and your mortars. With bad mountain passes, this is almost impossible.

None of this matters to the Afghans: they have it all organised, moving from one village to the next, where they have bases stocked with food. This is how they have fought and won wars for the past 200 years, with little bases all over the place and holes in the ground where everything is buried. This allows them to carry as little as possible and to cover ground much faster than a western force could. We didn't use tents. We lived in caves or slept rough. There were guys in the army just carrying a weapon, three magazines and some naan bread, wrapped in a shawl on their back. There is no way a western soldier could carry heavy equipment and keep up with them.

For a foreign army, establishing a supply route would be very difficult. To try to carry food and water up those mountains, some of which are 4,000m high, would be madness. Because of bacteria, you have to carry bottled water and each gallon weighs 4.5kg. On some days, we were going through 11 to 15 litres. A soldier marching in those hills is going to burn between 4,000-5,000 calories a day. You need high-calorie, Arctic rations. Meat doesn't last more than a couple of days, so must be killed fresh. I contracted hepatitis from bad food.

And, of course, there is the weather. Towards the end of this month, the winter will start setting in. It begins with rain; then it freezes, then it snows. By the middle of October the snow will be very deep, up to neck height. A journey that takes three days to walk in summer will take 10 days in winter. The freezing conditions rule out helicopter support. The mist in the valleys invites crashes.

The Afghan fighters know the mountains as well as a farmer from Wales knows his hills. They are like mountain goats. I heard someone on the radio say, "Yeah, we can put in a load of four-man teams." Well, that's ridiculous. The Hindu Kush is a vast expanse of land. What can a four-man team do that you can't do with a satellite? Never mind a needle in a haystack; it's like a needle in the middle of Wembley stadium.

Besides, a western task force will stick out like a sore thumb in the Hindu Kush. Most of the Afghan fighters wear sandals with old car tyre treads on the bottom. So a western boot print is instantly trackable. Once identified, the soldiers are sitting targets. We trained the Afghans in the art of "shoot and scoot"; they would lay a little ambush, let rip and disappear. They picked it up very quickly. Before long, they had learned to let the Russian convoys get half way up a pass and then blow a hole through their middle. The lucky ones died instantly. The unlucky were chopped to pieces in the aftermath. In the Hindu Kush, don't expect to appeal to the Geneva convention.

The Taliban don't have much in the way of weapons. Their best defence is their terrain. When I first arrived, all they had were old 303s, sniper rifles, and some bolt-action guns. Very few had Kalashnikovs - they weren't used to semi-automatics. Now of course, they are much more sophisticated, although their weapons maintenance is virtually zero; a lot of it won't have been upgraded since the Russian war. They might have a few Stingers left - one of the best, shoulder-held, surface-to-air missiles. But whether they're serviceable or not is debatable. They have a lot of old ZSU23s, one of Saddam Hussein's favourite weapons, which can be used in ground or air support. It's a three-barrel, 50-calibre machine gun, usually arranged in groups of two, three or four, and it's fearsome. It has a range of about 4,000m, so if you're coming in on a helicopter and have four of these blasting away at you, it's devastating. They drive their Toyota pick-ups around with these things mounted on the back.

Then there are the landmines. In the early 1980s, they cleared a buffer zone between Pakistan and Afghanistan - an area equal to four days' walk - then put in observation posts on the high ground and mined it all. Everything that entered the area was obliterated and it is possible that the ground is still mined. They are small mines, the size of tennis balls, made of plastic so you can't detect them.

As for the composition of the army, most of the men were 17-24 years old. In some ways, the Afghan soldiers were no different from young guys everywhere; there was camaraderie. They might go and smoke a bit of opium, but for religious reasons, they wouldn't drink. They would get up at first light for prayers and would cover some distance before the sun came up. They would stop five times a day for prayer, although never during battle. I believe the Koran says that if you are engaged in combat, then you are excused from prayers. But they always prayed afterwards. They were normal Muslims, not fanatics.

Still, in terms of their efficiency as an army, their biggest problem was the mullah influence over them. Because of the doctrine that it's a great honour to die in a holy war, they were fearless and took risks that western soldiers perhaps would not. This is not the point of a military exercise, which is to defeat the enemy and live to fight another day. If you are reckless with your life, you risk depleting the army before it has won. But it was almost impossible to raise this issue with them; it would have invited a lot of trouble.

It is, in my opinion, extremely unlikely that Bin Laden is hiding in the mountains. He must have a base from where he can communicate. He can't communicate from inside the Hindu Kush. He is more likely to be on the north-west frontier of Pakistan, a heavily populated area that the west will be loath to attack. It is like the IRA tactic of hiding behind women and children; of hiding in a kids' playground. Besides, he will want to be somewhere where he can get CNN coverage of the attack on America, to admire his work.

Most of the Afghan military leaders I encountered operated from the comfort of Peshawar in Pakistan. They didn't take part in any fighting, because they wanted to be around when the fighting was over, to reap the benefits.

If it comes to a ground war, I believe the western forces will have a very slim chance of victory. The last army to win in Afghanistan was that of Alexander the Great; everyone else has got mauled and pulled out. The CIA made an awful lot of maps when they were there, but a map is only as good as the person using it, and there is no safe way to get troops in. The Afghans are a formidable enemy. I should know. We in the west pointed them in the right direction and with a little bit of training, they went a long way.

-- Lars (lars@indy.net), September 26, 2001

Answers

Let's not blithely march our mother's sons into this, thinking that we can crush these hillbillies in 3 weeks with minimum casualties.

I am not saying we should do nothing.

-- Lars (lars@indy.net), September 26, 2001.

Lars:

The people of this country [not from my experience, but from talking to people who have lived and worked there] are a profoundly ignorant people. Ignorant doesn't mean stupid or uneducated [while this may be true in certain cases]; just unaware of the rest of the world. There is no real central government. Just a collection of separate tribes with their own leaders. Most have no concept of the outside world and many have no concept of anything outside of their own mountain valley.

Then there are the talking heads. They compare this to the Russian experience. Their comments would be true if we intended to occupy the country. Our government indicates that this is not the case [we will see]. We just intend to destroy it. Much like Iraq. I don't think that there are precedents for this approach in Afganistan [or Afganestan as they spell it].

Best Wishes,,,,

Z

-- Z1X4Y7 (Z1X4Y7@aol.com), September 26, 2001.

Winter is a two-edged sword. Winter is tough to survive without fuel, and burning fuel makes you a dandy magnet for heat-seeking equipment. How much food can you have stuck in holes? How much medical equipment?

Surround them, and wait them out.

---------------

There have not been Western armies conquering Afghanistan because nobody wanted it. Other than being country passed through on trade routes. Yeah, a British army led by an incompetent which broker camp discipline, and was only there on a lark, not a mission of conquest, was defeated.

Against the Soviets, they used bolt action rifles, but they also received materiel, usually covertly, from those anti-Soviet forces such as the CIA. THose stingers and SAWs and LAWs weren't made in caves by traditional mountain craftsmen.

Today it would be a much different story. No logistical lines, no replacements, no food, no nothing.

Surround them and wait them out.

-- NoHurry (Sieges@Are.Us), September 26, 2001.

What the hell are you doing reading The Guardian, Lars? I recognized this article after the first paragraph, as I'd read it last week.

-- Anita (Anita_S3@hotmail.com), September 26, 2001.

Slight thread drift but if anyone enjoys historical fiction I would highly recommned the Flashman novels that are referenced in this article. It is a series of books following the exploits of a cowardly English soldier, Harry Flashman, and his adventures in many parts of the British Empire in the 1800's. The author, George MacDonald Fraser, does an excellent job with his background research and manages to convey a very good feel for the times. Several of the books cover events in Aghanistan, the Punjab and other parts of the India frontier. Besides being historically accurate as far as events, the actual adventures of Sir Harry are quite hair raising and humorous.

Again, I would recommend this series to anyone who likes a little mix of fact and fiction, besides what you get on the nightly news.

-- Jack Booted Thug (governmentconspiracy@NWO.com), September 26, 2001.

Anita--

Isn't The Guardian Curtis Sliwa's publication?

-- Lars (lars@indy.net), September 27, 2001.

I'd have to agree with Carew's assessment. It matches exactly every other account I've read. The "cost per acre", in this particular part of the world, is just way over the top...right off the charts. Our chances of pulling off any occupation of even a small piece of that country (with the possible exception of the area held by the Northern Alliance, and then only with their full support) is just not practical, let alone possible.

I think Sieges@Are.Us (love that moniker) is wrong, too. These guys will have plenty of support. Lots more of it than we'll (the US) ever manage. The one thing they do have plenty of, over there, is willing (and even unwilling) human bodies to tote and carry. The Kush is a sieve, a huge, protected supply pipeline, thru to Pakistan, and one we won't be able to touch. Replacements, food, etc, will be no problem for them; none at all...

-- Zzzzz (asleep@the.wheel), September 27, 2001.