Something to ponder

[pecunium]

When some member of this administration goes someplace like Iraq, or Afghanistan, it's a secret.

Not just the President leaving his guests to go have turkey in Baghdad, but Rumsfeld, Rice, etc.

So how did the Taliban know Cheney was going to be there?

Comments

Three quick possibilities

[libertango.livejournal.com]

* This time, it wasn't that much of a secret. Whether through intent or incompetence, who knows.

* The attack was planned in advance, and Cheney's presence was coincidence.

* It wasn't the Taliban.

I don't think all three of these can be true at once. But each one is not necessarily exclusive of the other two.

[wcg.livejournal.com]

He flew in yesterday, in such bad weather that Karzai couldn't get out to Bagram AFB. So Cheney spent the night there. That gave someone time to organize a strike.

[ms-tek.livejournal.com]

I think it was coincidence. They never had a chance of getting close to cheney anyway.

[pecunium.livejournal.com]

Here's my take: and it's the hidden part of the question.

He was seen in Islamabad yesterday, so his presence wasn't completely secret.

But it means

1: Someone who saw him reported him to the Taliban
2: The Taliban was able to mount a response in a short piece of time
3: The Taliban was able to act, well away from their centers of power,
4: That action was conducted in an area where they aren't said to have a large network of support.

Now, it's possible this was a big co-incidence, but the speed with which they claimed Cheney was a target, and the timing of it, imply that they have an active, and widespread intel network, and that the action cells are tied into it.

In short, when we let Pakistan give them a truce, we were being just as stupid as it looked.

TK

[blackbirdcd.livejournal.com]

As if it matters, the Taliban are virtually useless.

Take this attack as an example. Perfect opportunity to blow up the VP of the country they despise, and they completely blow it (so to speak). They could've attacked with rakes and shovels and been more effective.

[sinboy.livejournal.com]

Could well have been a leak from inside the Afghani government. I have no reasons to suspect they're not as infiltrated as the Iraqis. Unlike us, they're good at that sort of thing.

[cakmpls.livejournal.com]

Well, if there hadn't been others killed, I'd suspect fragging.

[cakmpls.livejournal.com]

...we were being just as stupid as it looked.

Once again.

[cactusthesaint.livejournal.com]

That perfectly explains the growing numbers of dead Coalition soldiers.

[blackbirdcd.livejournal.com]

I forgot to insert my [sarcasm] [/sarcasm] tags in that post.

[cactusthesaint.livejournal.com]

Right. Nice save.

[blackbirdcd.livejournal.com]

It kills me that the Taliban resurgence is such a "surprise". We're talking about a sub-group who has thrived on escaping into the hills to regroup and come back later. And now we've marginalized our presence and influence there for a few years and look who's back. Astounding.

[antonia-tiger.livejournal.com]

1) Did they have to know it was Cheney? Could they have had intel suggesting a cabinet-level VIP? Such as a menu for the cooks? Or griping in front of the waiters about extra duty tomorrow.

2) Given the above, was it a credible attack on the VIP, or a propaganda attack. From at least some of the reports, it was right at the outside edge of the security system.

And then just run with the first news reports on who was there.

[minnehaha.livejournal.com]

"So how did the Taliban know Cheney was going to be there?"

Do we know that they did know?

B

[pecunium.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure.

I'd have to look at the timelines; of the announcements, in detail.

The reports I heard (with grain of salt) are that the Taliban claimed they were trying to kill Cheney, with the attack.

The attack is, to the best of my knowledge, consistent(in that that sort of thing hasn't been happening in Kabul, much; the MO there seems to be rockets, and firearms; except for a few cases of targetted car-bombs) with them making a specific attack.

So, did they know it was Cheney, per se, or just some US official? I don't know. If they said they were trying to kill Cheney, before the announcement was made that he was there, then we have an answer.

On the flip side, we might have announced his presence, to make the Taliban look dangerous (i.e. "Oooh look, they want to kill the VP") and gin up support at here, and then they played into that by claiming he was the, specific, target.

TK

[cactusthesaint.livejournal.com]

Well, it kind of was a surprise. OEF 6 (roughly March 2005-March 2006) saw more action than OEF 2-5 combined. I'm not sure how Spring 2006 turned out for the people who replaced OEF 6, but I'm sure it wasn't pretty, and I doubt it's going to be much better this spring, either.

The Taliban won't win (m)any direct engagements, but they have gotten pretty ballsy - there were several times when OEF 6 got into firefights with 100+ Taliban.

[pecunium.livejournal.com]

None of this surprises me... why?

I read Kipling, and the various accounts of the British attempts to take control of Afghanistan.

I recall what happened to the Russians.

I don't think we are fundamentally better than either of those were at this sort of thing, and we committed far fewer resources to it.

In short, we bought Afghanistan on margin.

TK

[fidelioscabinet.livejournal.com]

Failing further information, which can change my mind if it's valid, I think they had the brains to take advantage of things when it turned out that their regularly-scheduled suicide bombing coincided with Cheney's presence. It makes them look good, even if they didn't get close to him. And they could always hope the defibrillator wouldn't go off in time to save him.

[jeffreyab.livejournal.com]

There seems to have been a real attempt by the Taliban to hit the lesser members of NATO in an effort to inflict enough casualties to force them to go home.

Made easier by the Pakistani truce.

ballsy = bad, although traditional, tactics

[cactusthesaint.livejournal.com]

I don't think it's necessarily true that the Taliban have been specifically targeting non-U.S. NATO targets. I think they're just attacking any targets of opportunity.

During OEF 6, the U.S. Army were deployed (among other places) all up and down the Eastern border of Afghanistan, mostly along Highway 1 (plus or minus a hundred klicks or so), and they were attacked quite regularly. If there were more attacks targeted at other NATO members from Spring 2006 onwards, that's probably because the U.S. Army had handed over responsibilities for a large chunk of the aforementioned territory to the Canadians. Aside from sounding funny when they talked on the radio, the Canadians were pretty competent and if I were a terrorist, I wouldn't think it was any more likely I would survive if I mounted a direct attack on the Canadians rather than U.S. forces. I don't know what happened after that first hand, as I left in March 2006.

[cactusthesaint.livejournal.com]

In short, we bought Afghanistan on margin.

You're exactly right. Didn't someone or other say we weren't sending enough troops into Afghanistan? And didn't someone else say we were doing the same thing when we invaded Iraq?

[dsgood.livejournal.com]

Possibly also relevant: the US military record in the Americas. If US intervention in less-develiped countries was likely to accomplish anything: Haiti would be prosperous, and Cuba would be solidly pro-US.

[moropus.livejournal.com]

Somebody talked about it in front of the native and 3rd party national cleaning people. You get so used to having them around, they become invisible.