Given that the Canadians and Dutch already have had good experience with their tanks in Afghanistan and that the Army had good results in Iraq during that counter-insurgency, the Army's position on the Marine introduction of tanks is kind of unbelievable:
Army officials will keep a close eye on the arrival of U.S. tanks in Afghanistan as the Marine Corps begins to deploy its tracked vehicles there this winter.
What's to keep an eye on? We know they will be useful. Few roads in Afghanistan. Tanks have tracks. Add it up.
I suspect the Army will be keeping an eye on the reaction of Afghans and the press to the deployment. As I've noted before, the idea that because the Soviets used tanks that our use of tanks will sour the Afghan public on our forces is ridiculous. An American general had exactly my reaction:
A tank’s firepower remains unquestioned, but rusted Soviet tanks still sit in Afghanistan, serving as stark reminders to Afghan civilians of the destruction leveled by the Soviets in the 1980s. Critics wonder if NATO’s employing tanks would turn the populace against coalition forces.
Hodges doesn’t buy it, though. The same argument could be made for attack helicopters if that were the case, he said.
“I personally had never made the connection that [the Afghans] would see the tanks and it would remind them of the battle days of the Soviet Union. The same would be true then of helicopters or any other weapon system,” he said.
Any weapon is a tool used to complete a mission. As long as our military uses their tools wisely, they will protect people and not alienate them. We could alienate Afghans if all we had were M-16s but went around slaughtering people.
Tanks are a useful tool. Why the out-of-proportion agitation?
