SURPRISE ATTACKS
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The most important factor in an offensive action, especially in military operations, is surprise. The terrorist attacks at the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon on September 11, 2001 is indeed a great surprise to the United States.
For years, the enemies have been threatening to deliver fierce attacks to cause heavy losses to America. The American authorities have had various plans to prevent and to deal with terrorist assaults that may be directed at numerous sites by weapons such as explosives or deadly chemical and biological agents.
But the terrorists found a new way to attack. They hijacked passenger jet airplanes to crash onto the targets and let the huge amount of fuel of the planes do the rest. U.S. security authorities were taken aback. They might have never suspected that terrorists would be hijacking airlines jets and use them instead of explosives to destroy large constructions and to kill a great number of people. Will there be any other surprise blow that the anti-American terrorists are planning to deal to the American targets?
There could be. It's true that the United States is vulnerable to many types of attack from outside. For years, American public has enjoy freedoms at the largest extent, including conveniences of freedom to travel with very limited security check before boarding an airplane. Now Americans are feeling no more so convenient as before. Since the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, air travel has not been the same anymore. One exception: people born and grew up in Vietnam and other war-torn countries are used to inconveniences and dangers in everyday life. They seem not to feel too uneasy facing security screening at air terminals.
The Sept. 11 tragedy shook everybody, but it is the surprise of the attacks that frightens the American public and authorities responsible for public safety and national security. In a matter of hours, the Americans turned angry and revengeful. Independent public opinion polls show that more than 80 percent of respondents support military actions to fight the terrorists. President Bush has received full support from Congress, largely united for the first time since the 1941 onslaught by Japanese air raid on Pearl Harbor.
As for anti-American groups all over the world, the only way to win a battle against the United States is to hit it at a spot and a time that it fails to predict. The Sept. 11 attacks must have been well planned with intensive and diligent studies for months if not years, according to many observers.
It is not easy to decide which planes to be hijacked so that the attacks could be launched at about the same time in the same region.
It was also not an easy task to recruit 19 young men - according to FBI report - who volunteered to the suicide mission after pilot training. All of these were carried out in absolute secret, and the terrorist groups' leaders would have achieved perfect success if one of the fourth hijacked jet - United Airlines flight 93 - hadn't been delayed for 40 minutes before taking off.
In any war, there have been many battles where one side successfully conducted a military action with total surprise against the other. In the Vietnam War, the Communist 1968 Tet Offensive is an example. Hanoi planners selected Tet holiday to start the general coordinated attacks in order to hit South Vietnam in surprise. A four-day truce during the Vietnamese New Year had been accepted by both sides of the war was the best opportunity for Communist forces.
D-Day set by Communist top commanders was the first day of the first moon in lunar calendar. But about four months before the date, North Vietnam Communist government published the lunar calendar for the next year, the Year of the Monkey, based on its own calculation. So the 1968 Tet's Eve on Hanoi calendar was one day earlier than on calendar published in South Vietnam.
Consequently, VC commanders using North Vietnam calendar began attacking on January 30 (Danang, Qui Nhon, Kontum...) while the commanders using South Vietnam version launched theirs on January 31 (Saigon, Hue...). Thus surprise factor was not playing its decisive role as Hanoi had envisaged.
Communist commanders on the contrary, were surprised when no "people uprising" took place to overthrow the "puppet government" as they had been assured by their superiors before infiltrating into the cities. In several reports seized in Communist secret bases and radio stations, Communist infra-structure members reported to Hanoi that "whenever our revolutionary soldiers launch their offensive in the cities, there will be at least 70 percent civilians and 50 percent 'puppet army soldiers' take side with the Revolution."
Certainly, Communist top commanders did believe in the reports. Moreover, most Communist soldiers had been assured before their departure that they would be sent into the cities just to support the people's uprising and help establishing the "Revolutionary government." When they found out the lies, it was too late and they had to fight.
To the South Vietnamese and the American military, the Communist Tet Offensive was a total military failure. But the American public was greatly frightened by the flashing spots on the Vietnam map showed on TV screen. The spots indicated most South Vietnam cities under Communist attacks, which greatly surprised American people and many turned to the anti-war movements and defeatism.
The American public opinion changed to the favor of the Communist side has never been anticipated by Communist top leaders. So far, they always claim the Tet Offensive their military victory although their hero Vo Nguyen Giap admitted that his side lost the battles in 1968 in an interview with Ms. Oriana Fallaci, an Italian journalist in 1969. However, they have never emphasized on their psychological victory that the American media had awarded them beyond their expectation.
Many Vietnamese émigrés tend to compare the Sept. 11 tragedy with events in the Vietnam War.
There are similarities between the two actions: one is the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, the other is the Communist psychological front against the U.S. side in the Vietnam War.
Both were launched right from within the United States against targets in the heart of the country. Both used American sophisticated means as weapons: The Sept. 11 terrorists flew American-made modern airplanes to hit symbolic targets in New York and Washington D.C. Communist propaganda during the Vietnam War took advantage of the freedom of the press to have its slanderous and made-up war stories spread into every American's living room.
Both caused harmful consequences to the American public and government, physically and psychologically. Both were unpredictable to the American public.
On the other hand, there were some differences. The Sept. 11 terrorist attacks aimed at symbolic sites and rendered loud noises reverberating over New York City and echoing all around the world. The Communist bloc international front in the Vietnam War attacked the hearts and minds of the American people quietly. A great number of the Americans were not aware of it and some even eagerly supported it.
Under the eyes of the Vietnamese exiles, fighting a formless, baseless, highly mobile enemy is not easy. Mighty fire power from jet fighters, ships, tanks, artillery and infantry may not destroy much of the objectives where the enemy forces have dispersed thinly on vast areas, if no new tactic is used effectively.
Many times highly destructive fire power as in the Vietnam War proved a waste of money against the Communist troops. They were lightly equipped with a few more than rifles so they could move quickly, dispersing and assembling in a short time. They served under bloody discipline while they were crammed with political indoctrination and implanted with animosity built on fabricated stories of American and South Vietnamese soldiers' war crimes.
Nowadays, anti-American terrorists are fightingmen who seem much like the Communist troops in Vietnam, even much more fanatic. If the U S. armed forces are planning to get rid of the terrorist groups under Omar bin Laden only or also to punish those who assisted and sheltered terrorists, an appropriate strategy should be thought of and implemented with adamant resolution until victory while causing minimum losses to innocent people.
In such a strategy, psychological actions should be of the highest concerns with largest efforts of the American commanders at all level to eradicate terrorism for good at its foundation. Psychological warfare must be conduct first to promote and maintain patience among the American public.
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