FIRST BLOOD

FIRST BLOOD

By JOHN RINGO
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October 29, 2001 -- Washington, July 24, 1861. Secretary of War Simon Cameron says Confederate troops "proven to be tough warriors."
IN retrospect, this would have been accorded the Homer Simpson "DOH!" award. Let's just give it to Adm. Stufflebeem and the planners at CentCom now.

On April 14, 1861, President Abraham Lincoln called for 75,000 volunteer troops to "end the rebellion" in the South. The duration of callup, how long Union generals estimated the Civil War would take, was three months time.

Thousands of young men, from both the North and the South, flocked to be in at the first battle, variously called "First Manassas" or "First Bull Run," sure that it would be the first and only battle of a brief, glorious, victorious war. Four years and 600,000 bodies later, both sides realized they had made a grave error in judgement.

In perfect hindsight we know that neither side was willing to just "give up," "give in" or roll over. But at the beginning of the war, both sides, Union and Confederate, saw the other as, variously, weak, spineless, unsupportable and undertrained.

At First Bull Run the Confederacy, despite being outnumbered and outgunned, kicked Union butt. They had superiority of position, used terrain skillfully and counterattacked at appropriate moments, throwing the numerically superior Union force back on its heels.

Let me substitute the words "Kandahar Airport" for "Bull Run" in the above. Then let me put in "American Forces" and "Taliban mujaheddin."

First battles are always illuminating, and the Kandahar raid was classic. The Rangers landed expecting light opposition. Wrong!

For anyone who was on Bird One of the Grenada jump, the words "light opposition on the drop zone" are a sure-fire way to get the old pucker-factor up. But unlike the Cubans, the Taliban weren't content to just sit in their defenses. They have been fighting a bitter and highly professional struggle for nigh-on 30 years.

And they have learned, in their bones, the importance of hitting an enemy when they are confused. So up they came out of their bunkers and hit the Rangers hard. And, since we have any Rangers to talk about it, they were apparently stopped butt-cold.

This fight actually met several of its objectives. Both sides learned a little about the others. The Rangers were given some live-fire training. And we found out that Mullah Omar really wasn't home.

But coming out and saying "We were surprised by the quality of the opposition" should just make anyone with half a brain's blood boil. THEY'RE AFGHANIS!

For the last month, all we've heard (except that anthrax was going to kill us all) is that the Afghanis are some of the most formidable fighters on Earth. Which is true. And the fact that the Taliban took over the country by force, against determined and pretty professional opposition, should have set off the clue-meter about the quality of their forces.

But somehow the brilliant planners at CentCom were, apparently, under the impression that they would flee as soon as they saw the mighty U.S. Rangers drop from the sky.

Not even close! Would you like to try again in Double Jeopardy where the score can really change?

Should we take this defeat (it's spin to say it was anything else) as a sign that we should give up? No.

But what we, as a nation, should get out of it is a few heads, notably anyone in the Pentagon who thinks that:

* Air power can win against a determined foe.

* The Taliban have been "gutted" by the air campaign.

* The Afghanis are the sort of driven sheep we fought in Desert Storm.

* The Afghanis are a bunch of medieval idiots that we can wave the flag at so they run away.

* Pinprick Ranger raids and B-2 bombers are going to do anything but tick the Afghani people off.

This is going to be a long and difficult war, stretching far beyond Afghanistan. And I don't have a problem with the first operation being so screwed up that one of the helicopters came apart on takeoff. (Kudos to the pilot that got it back down in one piece, by the way.)

But I do have a problem with planners that underestimate the determination, fanaticism and professionalism of the Taliban. They didn't get to be the rulers of Afghanistan (a notoriously ruler-unfriendly country) by being either nice or stupid.

Bush and Rumsfeld would do well to purge early and often until they get some real war-fighters in charge. Ones who neither take counsel of their fears (political or otherwise) nor underestimate their opponent's resolve or professionalism.

"Surprised by the quality of the opposition." If I wasn't laughing so hard, I'd cry.

Ex-paratrooper John Ringo's novel "A Hymn Before Battle" (Baen) is now out in paperback.

E-mail:abn1508 [at] mindspring.com