Date: Sun, 21 Apr 2002 11:13:13 -0400
From: bobhunt@erols.com
Subject: [libs4peace] (fwd) TO CATCH OSAMA
To: Individual-Sovereignty@yahoogroups.com, American_Liberty@yahoogroups.com, sierratimes@yahoogroups.com, libs4peace@yahoogroups.com ("Libertarians 4Peace")
NYPOST
TO CATCH OSAMA
By MAX BOOT
April 21, 2002 -- THE capture of Abu Zubaydah, one of the top al Qaeda
leaders, is certainly good news. But where's Osama bin Laden? Recent
reports indicate that he may have escaped U.S. forces at Tora Bora.
In the immediate aftermath of Sept. 11, President Bush pledged to bring
back the world's top terrorist, "dead or alive." He was promptly
pilloried for "personalizing" the conflict. Now administration
officials stress that, while they'd dearly love to get their hands on
bin Laden, this is no longer a top goal.
It's true that capturing or killing bin Laden wouldn't win the war on
terrorism, but not capturing or killing him would be a huge setback. To
get a sense of how huge, we ned to go back to 1916.
On March 9 of that year, Francisco "Pancho" Villa, the famed Mexican
bandit turned revolutionary, attacked the town of Columbus, N.M. His
pistoleros killed 18 Americans and wounded nine. President Woodrow
Wilson, sounding very much like George W. Bush in 2001, pledged that an
army expedition "will be sent at once in pursuit of Villa with the
single object of capturing him and putting a stop to his forays."
Gen. John J. Pershing's expedition is incorrectly remembered as a
clumsy, lumbering, slow-footed beast. Actually its 10,000 men engaged
in some of the fastest and longest cavalry rides in U.S. history. But
they came close to snaring Villa only once, within the first two weeks.
The Mexican revolutionary, wounded in the leg, barely escaped and then
hid out in a cave to recuperate while Pershing's men searched all of
northern Mexico for him.
Pershing did manage to kill 135 Villistas, wound 85 and capture 19, but
in the process he almost sparked a war with the Mexican government. By
July, the expedition was forced to retreat to a camp site in northern
Mexico, where it remained until being withdrawn entirely in early 1917.
Villa had been on his last legs when he attacked Columbus. But the
armed yanquis in their midst allowed him to rally patriotic sentiment to
his side. Before long he had 5,000 men and was on the offensive.
The outcome of the Pershing expedition has long been debated by
historians. Was it a success or a failure? It was a little of both,
but more failure than success because it didn't snare Villa. It didn't
matter how many of his followers were killed or apprehended. As long as
their charismatic leader - whose eyes, according to one person who met
him, were "really not eyes at all, but gimlets which seem to bore into
your very soul" - was still at large, he could always assemble another
army.
Osama bin Laden is, by all accounts, every bit as magnetic as Villa, and
even more dangerous. He may already be dead, but if he's not, we'd
better get him fast, lest he tage a Villa-like resurgence.
The good news is that the U.S. armed forces have staged some daring
raids in the past to capture or kill rebel leaders just as elusive as
bin Laden. In 1915, U.S. Marines occupied Haiti to end a long period
of turmoil. Four years of U.S. rule led to accumulated grievances, and
in 1919 an attorney named Charlemagne Peralte rallied a rebellion behind
the cry "Haiti for the Haitians." His cacos - a combination of bandits
and revolutionaries, named, it was said, after a lcal bird of prey -
soon had much of the north in turmoil.
The job of stopping Peralte fell to Marine Herman Hanneken, who financed
his own "caco" band, which pretended to stage attacks on gendarmerie
outposts. Hanneken hoped to lure Peralte down from the mountains, but
the rebel leader was too smart to leave his camp. So Hanneken went to
get him. He and another Marine, Cpl. William Button, blackened their
bodies, and along with some native gendarmes, pretended to be cacos.
The ruse worked; they reached Peralte's camp and in a brief firefight
killed him. The war was all but finished that night.
America today could use some "Hard Head" Hannekens - soldiers who can
use their imagination to lay unexpected traps for our enemies. The
consequences of not capturing bin Laden are far worse than the
consequences of not capturing Peralte or Villa. Bin Laden has already
killed far more Americans than the other revolutionaries combined. If
he lives to defy America's wrath, the consequences may make Sept. 11
seem benign by comparison.
President Bush had it right from the beginning: We need to bring back
Osama bin Laden, dead or alive.
Max Boot is author of "The Savage Wars of Peace: Small Wars and the Rise
of American Power" (Basic Books, 2002).
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