>>>The scary thing is some people in the administration, along with the Air Force (but none of the other armed forces), think we could achieve military objectives in Iran without getting our hands dirty. Just fly over at 20,000 feet and drop bunker busters and whatnot. You would think Iraq would have taught us the fallacy of that approach, but apparently not.
>>
>>Though it seemed to work for the first while in Afghanistan.
>
>Selective memory?
>Do you really remember it as high-altitude bombings doing 'all the work'? Do you forget "who" was doing the real work on the ground... Norther Alliance and who knows who else?

Hi Jim. Just the opposite. Afghanistan was reasonably successful implementation of the new style of warfare that Rumsfeld has been pushing for. Special forces working in concert with smart bombs and high altitude bombing. Using high tech to inflict massive damage on the enemy while reducing US (NATO) casulties to a minimum.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2001_Afghanistan_War#Military_operations

By the time the Northern Alliance would arrive at the battle the Taliban would have been killed or greatly weakened. Using the Northern Alliance was more about the nation building that would happen after the war.

It is interesting that after this military and diplomatic success in Afghanistan, that they in Iraq they made 3 mistakes:
- failing to building a true coalation (NATO, UN... something)
- failing to back an internal faction
- putting massive amounts of troops on the ground which became occupiers and targets