British Royal Marines mobilize to join US forces in Afghan war

PARIS – The French and British dailies here (we get them early in the morning here, the latter via air or the tunnel Eurostar) continue to be full of news about the escalating air and ground war in Afghanistan.

Yesterday (Wednesday), however, war news was shouldered off the top of the page in two leading London newspapers. The Times bannered: Cannabis Smokers Will Not Be Arrested. The equally sobersided Daily Telegraph headlined: Cannabis Users are to Go Free.

There must be a lot of young punks (and older ones, too) who’re using "cannabis" because the information that British Home Secretary David Blunkett – their equivalent of Secretary of the Interior – had relaxed penalties for possession and use of the drug for the first time in 30 years merited such media play-up.

But hold on. While "cannabis" has been recategorized starting next January from a Class B drug to Class C, putting it on a par with anabolic steroids and anti-depressants like Temazepam, its possession will still be illegal. Penalties, on the other hand, will be much lower. The maximum penalty is still two years in jail, but the first-users caught by police will get away with nothing but a reprimand and a warning.

One argument utilized to get "cannabis" more respectable is the allegation that it is a "pain killer" and sometimes is required for medical purposes. My reaction is: Tell it to the Marines. In my book, cannabis and marijuana still have narcotic effects that make users do weird things, not just go soporific.

If the police can’t "stop" it, there’s no reason to legalize it.

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Speaking of the Marines, the British Royal Marines are set to supply 1,000 of their men, bringing up to 4,000 men and women the special force the United Kingdom is sending for penetration missions into Afghanistan.

The Defense Secretary Jeoff Hoon, was expected to announce today in the House of Commons whether the Royal Marine Commando group, accompanied by a flotilla of six warships and support vessels, would be made available to beef up what the Brits are calling Operation Veritas, a codename for the counterterrorism mission.

The Service chiefs have been recommended that the HMS Illustrious, a royal navy carrier currently operating off Oman (with eight Sea Harriers and seven Royal Air Force Harrier GR7s on board) should be sent as well, to be converted into a platform for helicopter gunships and troop delivery aircraft.

The British press, over the past week, has been announcing that what’s needed is for the Brits – who else? – to arrive. (The hint is that the American Special Forces, Rangers or Delta Force can’t do the job by themselves.)

US Secretary of State (former Joint Chiefs Chairman) General Colin Powell has urged America’s coalition partners to see the military action in Afghanistan "resolved" before the winter’s snows set in. The Brits responded to this by initially offering two squadrons of the elite Special Air Services (SAS), numbering about 200, plus the Pathfinder Platoon and the Parachute Regiment – for a total of 1,000. Prime Minister Tony Blair’s official spokesman has asserted that Mr. Blair’s and England’s commitment to the conflict will last "as long as it takes."

In fact, some SAS men from the Hereford-based regiment have already been operating in the north of Afghanistan for the past two weeks. Among the specialist troops to be dispatched are the SAS Revolutionary Warfare Wing and the Royal Marines’ Special Boat Service (SBS), the naval commando unit equivalent to the SAS. These units performed very well during the Gulf War and "Desert Storm," many of them deep behind Iraqi lines.

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The US Rangers and Delta Force, already hitting targets inside Afghanistan, are, of course, the main proponents in the escalating ground war. I have every admiration for the capabilities of both units – yet, weren’t they the ones who bungled Operation Eagle Claw, designed to rescue Americans under detention inside their own embassy in Teheran? When the operation went wrong, with helicopters and refueling aircraft crashing into each other in "Desert 1", America was humiliated. Iran’s Ayatollah Khomeini trucked international journalists into the desert to view the charred bodies of the dead Americans and got another opportunity to denounce "The Great Satan" (America, of course). In the offshoot of this disaster, US President Jimmy Carter lost his reelection bid and had to return to being a peanut farmer in Plains, Georgia.

The second boondoggle occurred in Mogadishu, Somalia, when the Rangers and Delta Force lost a dozen or more men, three helicopters – one a Blackhawk – downed by RPG rockets, on being attacked by a ragtag gaggle of thousands of townsfolk and mercenaries belonging to Mohammad Aidid, the powerful local warlord. The Somalia mission was a shambles after that.

Now Delta Force and the Rangers are back in action. They surely have learned from their mistakes. As usual their preferred chopper is the MH-60 Enhanced Black Haw, with two 7.62 mm. miniguns, two 19-round 70 mm rocket launchers, two pintle mounts for machine guns in the forward side windows, radar warning receiver, AN/ALQ-144 omnidirectional infrared jammer, hover infrared suppression subsystem, and AAQ-16 FLR imager.

However, such high-falutin’ technology doesn’t impress the rugged Taliban mujahideen, with their RPG rockets, AK-47s and other automatic weapons. If the Somalis could shoot down the menacing Black Hawks, or MH-47E Chinooks, or MH-53 Pave Low IIIs, the Taliban can, too.

Already mistakes, owing to too high a dependence on technology, have been made. Sure, the allied air assault has been successful. Six terrorist training camps east of Kabul, three more west of Kandahar, have been destroyed. Nine Taliban airfields have been blasted "almost out of action." Twenty-four military garrisons have been hit hard. (Contributing to the damage, naturally, were the Tomahawk cruise missiles fired by the British Navy submarines Triumph and Trafalgar.)

Yet, the Pentagon admitted last Tuesday that a "1,000- lb. bomb which went astray" might have struck a hospital or old folks’ home near the western Afghan city of Herat. The Taliban quickly declared that 100 civilians had been killed.

In another incident Saturday night, two 500-lb. bombs were dropped "accidentally" on a residential district northwest of Kabul by an F-14 trying to hit military vehicles half a mile away.

When you’re conducting a supersonic war, supermistakes inevitably happen. Each time a bomb goes wrong, the Americans create hundreds of even thousands of new enemies on the ground.

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The biggest problem, though, is that which defeated the American special forces in Somalia, Africa. When the Somalis, originally terrified by the resonant and ominous sound of the Blackhawks and the apparent "invincibility" of the battle-armored Americans, discovering that Americans bled as much as anybody else, could be killed, their gunships downed – and, worst of all, were "afraid" of death, the Somalis shrugged off their awe and fear and murderously assaulted Americans and their convoys from all sides.

The Taliban mujahideen, meaning the most fanatical and committing among them, are motivated by religious fervor, no matter how misbegotten. They believe they are going to die for Allah, and be rewarded fulsomely in a paradise reserved for Warriors of the Faith.

How many Americans will go into battle with that kind of Faith? And be ready to die in combat? That will have to be seen.

In the frenzy of World War II, in the Pacific, Africa and Western Europe, Americans of another generation showed their mettle. Will the fast-food, cyber-byte generation perform as valiantly and as well?

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Paris remains Paris. The crowds jostle each other on the sidewalks. The French act as though there were no "recession". Indeed, they look prosperous – and are as arrogant and infused with hauteur as ever.

This is one of the most enchanting cities in the world, even when it drizzles. The sunsets, with the Eiffel Tower silhouetted in crimson, orange and gold, are magnificent. The bridges gleaming across the Seine are romantic as ever. The Metros run like an underground river relentless (but one or twice there’s a strike, again a phenomenon of la vie Parisienne).

One of my old friends, Jean Michel Gourevitch, just-retired Editor-in-Chief of the top daily Le Figaro (some claim it’s Le Monde, or The World), met me at the airport at the ungodly hour of 6 o’clock in the morning to drive me to my hotel all the way from Charles de Gaulle (Roissy). This goes to show that the French don’t make friends easily, but when they do, a friend is a friend for life. So, there you are. The French can be irritating, and then they can be endearing.

Ninety-seven million tourists visit Paris every year, I’m told. No wonder. It is a city that glitters with gold. Right across from my hotel, in the Place de L’Opera, the old opera house gleams in marble and gold-coating, with its impressive statues sandblasted into looking brand-new and its facade lorded over by golden letters. At the rear is a marble ramp leading up from street level to the rear entrance. It is closed to the public, of course, but was originally put in there by the original architect so the Emperor Napoleon could ride his carriage all the way to the door. Most operas are held nowadays in the new Opera Bastille, built almost on the site of the famous Bastille which was stormed by angry Parisian mobs to set off the French Revolution. A few days ago, in this modern opera house (featuring five moveable stages electronically operated, and other fantastic features), we watched Giuseppe Verdi’s famed Rigoletto. You’ll recognize the arias there because they’re among the most popular, even among philistines unused to the classics.

It was a marvelous experience to sit among an audience so enthralled by the magnificent voices of the singers, the lady who portrayed Gilda was a renowned South Korean diva, that it was wrapped in total silence, letting Verdi’s unforgettable music waft over it, entranced and mesmerized completely.

Paris, it must be said, is charming in the daytime, but it's more than that – irresistible – at night. That’s when the lights come on: The Eiffel lords it over all, then there’s the Arc de Triomphe at the Etoile shining down the fabled Champs Elysees. An added feature is that, at the other end of the Champs, is a giant ferris wheel all lighted up at the Place de la Concorde. Years ago, I wrote an article in Mabuhay magazine entitled "Incomparable Paris." It’s still incomparible.