-Caveat Lector- Afghanistan - The Last Place On Earth For A War By Oliver Hardy The Sun - London 9-18-1 Afghanistan is one of the most desolate and inhospitable regions on Earth. So a war in Afghanistan would rely heavily on the highly-trained, tough teams of men from the SAS and US Special Forces. Osama bin Laden will need to be prised from his hiding place in a barren terrain characterised by forbidding mountain ranges and dotted with deep caves. And with a stark winter fast approaching, conditions will be extremely harsh. Despite their superior numbers, successive armies have tried and failed to conquer Afghanistan. They have been beaten by the wild conditions and the tribesmen's superior knowledge of how to survive there. US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has already said Special Forces soldiers will be at the forefront of the attack if there is to be a chance of getting bin Laden. They will be assisted by a specialist unit of the SAS, called the Revolutionary World Warfare wing. These men have been training in the mountains of neighbouring Pakistan for more than five years and making secret intelligence-gathering sorties into Afghanistan. They have climbed to heights of 18,000ft and adapted to barren terrain similar to south Afghanistan, where bin Laden runs his training camps. Ex-SAS man Tom Carew knows the tough conditions in the mountains well. He spent two years in Afghanistan training Mujahideen guerrillas in their fight against the Russian Army in the 1980s. Tom, 47, who has just published a book, Jihad! The Secret War In Afghanistan, said last night: "It was hard work for troops in the Falklands. "But that was like a billiard table compared with the terrain in Afghanistan. It's arid, there's hardly any cover, it's very rocky - very hard going. "The winter is starting now and the nights are already getting colder. "At the end of this month and the beginning of October you will start to get the rain. "It soaks everything completely, turning tracks into quagmires. Then it freezes. By the end of next month there will be snow drifts and ice. "Forget tanks and troop carriers. The only way to get around is by mule or on foot." Tom, now living in Belgium under a false identity, said the Afghans are a nation of warriors. He said: "They are a proud fighting people. They are like mountain goats. They were born to this terrain. "If you get caught by the Afghans then it's very bad news. I never saw any Russian prisoners handed back. They take them alive but two or three days later they will be dead. "I once saw a dead Russian who had been captured and he was virtually unrecognisable. "People should go to Moscow and sit down with their generals who have some experience of fighting in Afghanistan. The British got a good basting in Afghanistan in the days of the Empire and so did the Russians." He said the tribesmen he dealt with are adept at using the local terrain to their advantage. The same will be true of the Taliban tribesmen, who are believed to be sheltering bin Laden. "When you are in the valleys they place explosives on the mountainside so when you are climbing up they explode rocks on to you. It's deadly. They also have holes in the ground to use as arms dumps. They stock them with weapons and munitions from mule trains. It allows them to travel lightly when pursued and keep one step ahead." Tom said Bin Laden will have chosen his hiding place well. He said: "Looking for him is like looking for a needle in Wembley Stadium. "He will be constantly on the move. There are caves all over the place to hide in." The barren landscape has helped the rugged Afghani tribesman to remain undefeated in centuries of bloody conflict. The only Western conqueror of part of what is now Afghanistan was Alexander The Great in the fourth century BC. The might of the British Empire and Russia both suffered terrible defeats. On both occasions the bloodthirsty war methods of the Afghan tribesman left the invaders horrified. Military expert Christopher Bellamy said the same torture methods were used on the Russians in the 1980s as perfected on the British 100 years earlier. Bellamy, professor of military history at Cranfield University, said: "If they were lucky, conscripts got the 'quick death'. They were staked out in the sun, a large piece of skin peeled off their stomach and they were left until they stopped breathing. "Officers - particularly political officers and professional soldiers - were often less fortunate. "They were subjected to the 'slow death' which meant just a small fold of skin was removed. It was an agonisingly long time before the end came." http://www.thesun.co.uk/news/14039766?view=Standard MainPage http://www.r ense.com Steve Wingate, Webmaster ANOMALOUS IMAGES AND UFO FILES http://www.anomalous-images.com <A HREF="http://www.ctrl.org/">www.ctrl.org</A> DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER ========== CTRL is a discussion & informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic screeds are unwelcomed. Substance—not soap-boxing—please! These are sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory'—with its many half-truths, mis- directions and outright frauds—is used politically by different groups with major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought. That being said, CTRLgives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and always suggests to readers; be wary of what you read. CTRL gives no credence to Holocaust denial and nazi's need not apply. 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