Asia News Digest
Afghan War Becomes the Quagmire LaRouche Predicted
From the outset of the Afghanistan campaign, EIR founder Lyndon LaRouche emphasized that this military action would only worsen things in the region, and turn into a quagmire. Anyone who had looked at the history of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan (1979-89) would know that the apparent "victory" of the U.S. forces, achieved by massive bombing and followed by the Taliban/al-Qaeda forces melting away into the environment, would be a pyrrhic one, and followed by a re-emergence of guerrilla war, at latest by spring.
The current upsurge in attacks against U.S. and other troops in Afghanistan, more than illustrates that LaRouche was right.
Even CIA Director George Tenet, and DIA Director Vice-Admiral Thomas R. Wilson, in their testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee March 20, anticipated an increase in "insurgency-type warfare," and anticipated "ongoing power struggles" among the Afghans. Tenet admitted that many al-Qaeda and Taliban fighters get away, saying, "There are many, many points of exit that people in small numbers can get out. We're frustrated that people did get away."
In a column on WorldNetDaily.com, published March 19, noted military columnist Col. (ret.) David Hackworth expressed the same evaluation. "The Vietnam War and the current shootout in Afghanistan have a lot in common--killer terrain, nightmare weather, a determined, irregular foe with years of combat experience. A deadly enough mix without U.S. generals who don't understand guerrilla warfare," wrote Hackworth.
Hackworth says that the first big conventional fight in Afghanistan showed that U.S. troops weren't conditioned for mountain warfare, and were prepared neither to face the conditions they found, nor "to face some of the toughest fighters in the world employing the same timeworn tactics they used to defeat the Soviets and the Brits." When U.S. helicopter gunships came to the rescue, they lost all their ships to enemy fire. "The generals, from the jovial Tommy Franks down to the two-star on the ground, didn't get much right until they shrewdly declared victory and hauled butt away from the bomb craters and their plan that went awry.
"The generals had envisioned sealing the enemy inside a noose and then pounding him with bombs, a tactic that seldom worked in Vietnam and didn't work in Afghanistan this time around," Hackworth says, adding that, "Firepower's never the answer unless battle-ready soldiers are deployed smartly to back it up." He also notes that U.S. intelligence was bad, and that the U.S. should not have relied on its Afghan allies, "who left us in the lurch."
"Amazing that none of the brass seems to have bothered to dust off copies of the Soviet-Afghan after-action reports," Hackworth concludes. "In Vietnam, we were also too arrogant to learn from those who failed before us--in that instance, the French. I hope our generals learn fast and get it right in future battles."
Financial Times Pinpoints Taliban/al-Qaeda Tactics
Following the announcement that 1,700 fresh British troops are to be deployed in Afghanistan, the Financial Times of March 19 reported how the Taliban and the al-Qaeda are using the same tactics as the mujahideen used against the Russians, to devastating effect. The FT writes:
"It is now clear that when the Taliban fled Kabul, the Afghan capital, and Kandahar ... thousands of Afghan fighters, and the al-Qaeda fighters who are mostly non-Afghan, fled to the mountains. This was a tactic that the Russians struggled unsuccessfully to deal with in their 10-year struggle to defeat the mujahideen in the 1980s."
Charles Heyman, editor of Jane's World Armies, said 10,000 fighters may have slipped into the mountains. "They will take a hell of a lot of sifting. but if Afghanistan is going to be stable, they've got to be sifted."
'A Freezing Wind' in U.S.-China Relations
That is how the Peoples Daily of March 20 characterized the way in which U.S.-Chinese relations are developing, referencing their evaluation that U.S. actions, particularly on relations with Taiwan, "run counter to the spirit and principles of the three joint communiques between China and the United States."
The degree of tension is indicated by the fact that China has made formal representations of protest to U.S. Ambassador Clark T. Randt three times, since March 7 of this year. These protests concerned both the "leak" of the U.S. Nuclear Posture Review, and the provocative meeting held between U.S. government officials, led by U.S. Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, and the Taiwan Defense Minister, at a recent conference in Florida.
"People cannot but ask: To where does the U.S. side intend to lead China-U.S. relations?" Vice Foreign Minister Li Zhao-XingLi was quoted as saying in the March 18 China Daily. There are reports that the U.S. is considering allowing another Taiwanese defense official to visit, and could agree to a tour by former President Lee Teng-hui. While China has never interfered in U.S. internal affairs and has not done anything to harm the American people, "At the same time, we must let the handful of political paranoids know that the Chinese people will never yield to any outside intimidation," Li said.
In light of these tensions, China will almost certainly cancel the planned visit of its Navy to the United States later this year, according to the military-linked Global Times on March 19. It has been confirmed that Chinese ships will not dock at Portsmouth Navy Yard, as previously planned.
U.S. Calls for Multilateral Military Exercise in Philippines--Targetting China
In a move further confirming the warning from Lyndon LaRouche, on a Feb. 16 international webcast, that the U.S. military deployment into live combat situations in the southern Philippines was part of a broader policy of encircling China with U.S. military troops and bases, Philippines National Security Adviser Roilo Golez reported on March 22 that the government is studying what "framework" to use for merging the forthcoming Philippine-U.S. Balikatan 02-2 military exercise in Central Luzon, with a larger exercise involving several other countries, as the United States has requested. Golez described the proposed "Team Challenge" multinational exercise as "a possibility and a good measure to promote regional harmony," according to the Philippines Inquirer, the leading establishment newspaper in the country.
Golez, who has worked closely with anti-China members in the U.S. Congress, said that the exercises would "not be targetted at any particular country." However, other unnamed officials told the Inquirer that the target was China. One official said the exercise was "a counterfoil to the supposed threat posed by China in the region. This would involve invasion scenarios, with China as the aggressor-nation, and responses to a strong China move in the disputed Spratlys territory."
Golez, in 2000, arranged for Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Calif.), who is still fighting the Vietnam War, to fly over the contested islands, and discussed a confrontation with China in exchange for used U.S. weapons.
In a letter to Philippines National Security Advisor Angelo Reyes dated Feb. 27, Gen. Diomedio Villanueva, Armed Forces chief of staff, said the United States also wanted to "invite multinational planning augmentation team (MPAT) observers from Australia, Brunei, India, Indonesia, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, Mongolia, Singapore, and Thailand." China, of course, is not on the list, in keeping with U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld's refusal to allow Chinese observers at any U.S. military exercises.
Of note is the fact that Villanueva also said the U.S. had requested that Korean and Japanese planes "provide lift support to fly U.S. troops and equipment into and out of the country." The effort to draw those two nations into the expanding war policies pursued by the U.S. also reflects the fact, as stated this week by the Chief of the U.S. Pacific Command, Adm. Dennis Blair, to the House Armed Services Committee, that the U.S. military is below-strength, physically, for handling any new operations in the Pacific.
The Balikatan 02-2, scheduled to start next month, will have as many as 2,665 U.S. troops. Ten other U.S.-Filipino "exercises" have been announced for the rest of the year.
The Inquirer reported that political leaders from all sides of the political spectrum are increasingly concerned that "the United States wanted to make the Philippines a staging ground for greater military presence in the Asian region.... The administration may keep referring to year-round war games as 'training exercises,' but this won't disguise the fact that the U.S. military presence is acquiring some permanence."
Communal Tensions in India Are Simmering, Red Hot
Three of the Indian government's coalition parties have called for a ban on the Hindu fundamentalist groups Vishwa Hindu Parish (VHP) and Bajrang Dal, which have been provoking the recent tensions over the building of a Hindu temple on the former site of a Muslim mosque (destroyed by Hindus in the 1990s) in Ayodhya.
The coalition National Democratic Alliance, which is led by Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee's Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), is made up of 16 parties. The three NDA partners calling for the ban--the Trinamool Congress, Samata Party, and Janata Dal (United)--made their demand in the lower house of the Indian Parliament, the Lok Sabha, on March 18. Both VHP and Bajrang Dal, the two groups for which the ban is sought, were involved in the recent anti-Muslim riots in Gujarat state; both are also part of the BJP, but they have little relation with Prime Minister Vajpayee.
Expressing concern over the groups' role in recent days' violence, D.P. Yadav (Janata Dal-United) said, "Fundamentalism in any form should not be allowed in the country and organizations like Bajrang Dal and the VHP should be banned."
Since the NDA has a very slim majority in the Parliament, any serious demand by any of the coalition members becomes a matter of great concern to the Prime Minister. So far, Prime Minister Vajpayee has not responded. But it is likely that he is feeling the heat. Making it more difficult to resolve the crisis is the fact that India's economic situation has fallen short of expectations, and has led the Prime Minister to say that he will have to take some "unpopular" decisions soon.
U.S. Actions Signal New Troubles with North Korea
Hundreds of thousands of U.S. and South Korean troops on March 21 began their biggest simulated conflict against North Korea since the 1950-1953 Korean War. The lack of a formal treaty to end that conflict has left the Korean peninsula as the world's last Cold War frontier, with nearly 2 million troops combat-ready along the frontier between North and South Korea.
North Korea angrily denounced the exercise as a war provocation.
The maneuver began the day after President Bush announced that he would not certify to Congress that North Korea is in compliance with the 1994 nuclear agreement designed to freeze its nuclear weapons program.
Before the announcement, which had been strongly lobbied for by Bush Administration Arms Control chief John Bolton, Sen. Joseph Biden (D-Del.), chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, advised the Administration that North Korea's performance should be certified unless there is current, credible evidence that the country has breached the terms of the agreement. The most recent testimony from the Administration was that North Korea was in compliance.
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