This is a joke right?

Allies outline 'bread and bombs' campaign aims
By Brian Groom in London and Stephen Fidler in Washington

Published: September 25 2001 20:07 | Last Updated: September 26 2001 00:38

The US the UK on Tuesday made clear their plans to wage war on the Taliban but feed the Afghan people in a "bombs and bread" military campaign.

Speaking to reporters in Downing Street's rose garden, UK prime minister Tony Blair gave the the fullest picture so far of the allies' aims in the conflict they are preparing to unleash.

He warned that unless Afghanistan's rulers responded to the US ultimatum to hand over Osama bin Laden, prime suspect for the September 11 terrorist attacks, "we certainly have to power to do very considerable damage to the Taliban regime".

With evidence growing that the US and UK are readying their military forces for action over the next few days, Mr Blair said there were "scores" of terrorist camps in Afghanistan, not just bin Laden's, and he challenged the Taliban regime to ensure they were "verifiably closed down."

"If the regime in Afghanistan refuses to do what they should, then our enemy's friend also becomes our enemy too," he said.

He made clear, however, that "our fight is with that regime, not with the people of Afghanistan" and pledged concerted international efforts to step up food supplies to try to avert a humanitarian crisis.

Britain would work with other countries, aid agencies and the United Nations to get supplies to refugees and those staying inside Afghanistan. The UK government said the focus would be on delivering aid by road, because drops from the air were random and dangerous.

Mr Blair had to intervene to prevent Israel boycotting Jack Straw's official visit to the region. Ariel Sharon, Israel's prime minister, had refused to meet the foreign secretary in protest at an article by Mr Straw in an Iranian newspaper that referred to "Palestine".

In Washington, US officials said proposals to lessen the suffering of Afghans by dropping food supplies had a political as well as a humanitarian dimension.

In their contacts with the US, Middle Eastern governments - with which the US is seeking to build an anti-terrorism coalition - had repeated concerns about conditions in Afghanistan that had become more desperate since the recent pull-out of UN and other agencies.

"Certainly, there has to be big provision of humanitarian assistance because it's transparently needed. But there's a political as well as humanitarian dimension to this," one US official said.

Donald Rumsfeld, US defence secretery, announced that the military campaign would be named Operation Enduring Freedom and said: "It will not be an antiseptic war, I regret to say. It will be difficult. It will be dangerous. And there is . . . the likelihood is that more people may be lost."

The US also welcomed a decision by Saudi Arabia to cut diplomatic relations with the Taliban. That followed a similar move at the weekend by the United Arab Emirates, leaving neighbouring Pakistan - which pulled out its diplmats from Kabul on Monday - as the only country to maintain diplomatic relations with the regime.

Worked well with in the SF/Montagnard situation about 30 years ago...

"We tried bread, but found it would not explode." -- bathroom wall humor, Harvard, 1981

Nothing wrong with that...

I'm in the middle of Black Hawk Down right now and I don't know if they did this or not but if they had dropped a bunch of fliers saying they were after aidid and not the people's home or religiion, they might have had a lot less people with aks out on their streets, just my guess.  If they had dropped food with these leaflets it would have been even better.  This book says so far that the locals thought the US was trying to turn them in to slaves and take everything from them.  This is the kind of thing PSYOPs does..
It's always good to have indigenous allies.