Dave pointed out I’d gotten Iraq and Iran confused in my previous news-like post. See, I did a search (here), and got this as my first hit, and didn’t even notice that the country names didn’t match up.

Dave’s right in his expectation that ground troops will be necessary — it becomes clear that bombs and missiles are going to be too imprecise for this, and as I said yesterday (or the day before… this week’s blending together), we should find a way to respond that doesn’t lower us to their level (by using large-scale attacks that endanger innocents).

(At the same time, I find Russia’s proposed plan to back Afghani rebels is inspired, which is probably not that enlightened a sentiment, but there it is.)

One possible bright spot: this war may be nothing like WW2, Vietnam, or the Gulf — Colin Powell said numerous times in an interview today that the enemy is spread out and hidden, that the tactics used against such an enemy with necessarily differ greatly from previous conflicts — this is not an enemy who sits out in the middle of a battlefield, waiting to be attacked.

It seems that this may be the sort of conflict that Rangers, Seals, and other special forces units may be involved in heavily — multiple surgical strikes — I don’t know that that’s what I want to discuss on this page.

Bush in his interview today said something significant. Whereas before the statement had been ‘terrorists and those who harbor them’, he pointedly correctly himself today and said “terrorists and those who harbor, fund, or guide them”. It’s clear that if Bin Laden is involved at all, he’s a dead, dead man.

It’s a bad time to be a bastard, boys and girls.