Mullings: An American Cyber-column By Rich Galen

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Rangers Lead the Way. Again.

Monday, October 22, 2001

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From La Costa Resort
Carlsbad, California

About 100 Rangers and other Special Forces troops raided the Taliban headquarters over the weekend in Kanduhar.

It is not surprising that the Rangers got the call. It's what they do. Their most famous assault is probably the landing at Pointe du Hoc in which elements of the 2nd Ranger Battalion landed on the Normandy beach at 6:30 - the first soldiers to attack from ships on D-Day.

The Rangers started that day with 225 men. Two days later there were fewer than 90 still able to fight.

On the 40th anniversary of D-Day, President Ronald Reagan said of the 2nd Ranger Battalion:

"These are the boys of Pointe du Hoc. These are the men who took the cliffs. These are the champions who helped free a continent. These are the heroes who helped end a war."

No surprise, then, that Rangers were "the boys" of Kanduhar.

This is not the start of "THE GROUND WAR" upon which the Pentagon press corps appears to be so fixated. There may well never be ground maneuvers of that type in this war. It was yet another element in "the new war" about which President George W. Bush has been talking since shortly after the September 11 attacks.

The President has been telling us that the US is pursuing a multi-faceted approach to destroying these thugs: Financial, legal, cultural, and military. Because of the nature of the press, it is the military aspect which gets the most coverage; the coverage, to be fair, we like to read about in the newspapers and watch on television.

If Fox were running footage about a bunch of GIs jumping from helicopters and CNBC were running a story about how the government works on money laundering cases, which one would you watch? Me, too.

Actually, CNBC SHOULD be running those kinds of stories. That would be, it seems to me, a very useful augmentation to NBC's coverage.

But, I ramble.

There are some nuances to this business of putting men on the ground that are nothing short of remarkable. For starters, according to some reports, these particular underground bunkers at this particular headquarters have not been bombed.

Why? So that the Taliban leader, Muhammad Omar, wouldn't pack up and move out. Omar and his boys weren't in the compound, but the raid was designed to gather documents and intelligence. The stuff our guys were looking for, according to early reports, was still there and they got it.

I don't do military things very well. Regular Mullsters are all too aware of my parabolic military career with the Army National Guard. Started as a private. Made it as high as sergeant for a very brief period. Ended as a private. A perfect parabola.

That being said, I am in awe of the talent of the planners who, it appears, knew from the earliest days that they were going to send Rangers into this compound and so made certain that compound never appeared on a target list.

Another nuance. The U.S. Government has purchased all images of Afghanistan from the company which provides satellite imagery to private customers. It doesn't make much sense to muzzle reporters in the name of national defense, if the enemy can buy photos pinpointing the location of your soldiers off the Internet.

I wouldn't have thought of that, either.

In one of three - count 'em three - pieces by Michael R. Gordon in yesterday's New York Times, he writes about the current military doctrine:

"Individual operations by American commando teams will be short and intense, at least for now. The goal will be to keep the enemy confused and off-balance with a series of hit-and-run raids.
"According to the United States strategy, the American military, not Al Qaeda or the Taliban, will maintain the initiative. American commanders will try to hold casualties to a minimum not by avoiding close combat, but by surprising and outpacing the enemy."

Very smart people are designing the strategy. But the strategy can't work without very brave young men being very fine soldiers.

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