Just Another Blog

Just Another Blog
*Contact Info* Email Me MySpace: Profile & Pics AIM, YIM, MSN: icanblog ICQ: 160644326 *Links* Hyena Vince American in Taiwan Drudge Fark Digg *Popular Past Posts* Omni Financial Omni Financial Sucks American Income Life September 11th Absinthe Sapisvr.exe	Sunday, April 07, 2002 Special Forces in Uniform William Arkin of Johns Hopkins University has a rambling editorial in The Los Angeles Times on the nature of the work the United States’ special operations forces are doing in Afghanistan. The piece starts out with this interesting description. Since the Taliban was swept away, the Herat [a restaurant in Kabul] has served a conglomeration of customers reminiscent of the bar scene in "Star Wars." But if one looks carefully at its unlikely collection of customers, they turn into human tea leaves: There are diplomats, United Nations officials and NGO workers--along with their Afghan counterparts--working to rebuild a 23-year-old, war-blasted infrastructure. They represent the reasonably bright future Afghanistan could have. There are young Afghan men of indeterminate rank and allegiance with Kalashnikov rifles--harbingers of the violent chaos ahead if the first group fails. Finally, there are the young Americans in Gore-Tex jackets and Nike shoes who say vaguely that they are "engineers" come to help with reconstruction. Some are in fact Army soldiers working on roads and such. Many, however, those with no license plates on their new Toyota Land Cruisers, belong to the U.S. "special operations" forces. And this part of the Herat crowd--what they do and how they do it--may determine which future Afghanistan actually has. But Mr. Arkin goes on to argue that: a) these special operations personnel should be dressed in military uniforms b) they should be more closely aligned with the UN International Security Assistance Force c) they need to be more careful of the intelligence they are supplying to the folks who control the bombs d) they should be more interested in rebuilding the Afghan nation so as to prevent it from becoming a future breeding ground for terrorists. Ahh, to heck with it! I am starting to ramble on even more than Mr. Arkin. Suffice it to say that I do not readily agree with his conclusion that getting our special forces either into uniform or out of Afghanistan will help our mission to eradicate terrorist workings in the country. Read the whole thing to try to figure out if this is really the conclusion that he is trying to point us toward. That's all for now. It's taken me 45 minutes of fighting with Blogger to get this up. I can take no more. Jonathan 4/07/2002 11:57:00 AM	Some parts true. Many made-up. Songs don't stay posted long. All photos are manipulated. Denver *Archives* February 2002 March 2002 April 2002 May 2002 June 2002 July 2002 August 2002 September 2002 October 2002 November 2002 December 2002 January 2003 February 2003 March 2003 April 2003 May 2003 June 2003 July 2003 February 2004 March 2004 April 2004 May 2004 June 2004 July 2004 August 2004 September 2004 October 2004 November 2004 December 2004 January 2005 February 2005 March 2005 April 2005 May 2005 June 2005 July 2005 August 2005 September 2005 October 2005 November 2005 December 2005 January 2006 February 2006 March 2006 April 2006 May 2006 June 2006 July 2006 August 2006 September 2006 October 2006 November 2006 December 2006 February 2007 March 2007 Home