human
We have them now. Already our better trained men are heading up for Temassinine to the north and Fort Charlet to the east. We'll lose men but we'll knock out every water hole between here and Libya. We'll cut every road, blow what few bridges there are.
gpt
But the important thing is Tamanrasset. What good--
human
We're cutting their supply line, Bey told him.
gpt
Can't you see? Colonel Ibrahim and his motorized column will be isolated in Tamanrasset. They won't be able to get supplies through without an air lift and Sven Zetterberg's ultimatum kills that possibility. They're blocked off.
human
So what? to use the Americanism. They have both food and water in abundance. They can hold out indefinitely. Meanwhile, our forces are undisciplined irregulars. We gain a thousand recruits a day. They come galloping in on camel-back or in beat-up old vehicles, firing their hunting rifles into the air. But we also lose a thousand a day. They get bored, or hungry, and decide to go back to their flocks, or their jobs on the new Sahara projects. At any rate, they drift off again. It looks to me that, if Colonel Ibrahim can hold out another week or so, our forces might melt away--all except the couple of hundred or so European and American educated followers. And, cut down to that number, they'll eliminate us in no time flat.
gpt
You're no fighting man, Peters. Tell me, what is the single most fearsome enemy of an ultra-mechanized soldier with the latest in military equipment and super-firepower weapons?
human
I suppose a similarly armed opponent.
gpt
Rather, a man with a knife.
human
We weren't jesting.
gpt
Neither was I, Homer rapped. He looked around at the rest, including Bey and Kenny.
human
What happens to a modern mechanized army when it runs out of gasoline? What happens to a water-cooled machine gun when there is no water? What use is a howitzer when the target is a single man in ten acres of cover? Gentlemen, have any of you ever studied the tactics of Abd-el-Krim or, more recently still, Tito? Bey, I assume you have.
gpt
During the Second War, Homer continued,
human
Homer's right. Our only tactics are guerrilla ones.
gpt
And what sayest thou, O chieftain of the Tuareg?
human
As all men know, O El Hassan, we now outnumber by thrice the Arab _giaours_ may they burn in Gehennum. Therefore, let us rush in and kill them all.
gpt
Ai, Guémama, that would be the valorous way of the Tuareg. But the heart of El Hassan forbids him to sacrifice the lives of his people. Consequently, we shall use the tactics of the desert jackal. Instruct those of your people who are most cunning, to infiltrate Tamanrasset in the night. Let them not carry arms for they may well be searched by the Arab _meleccha_.
human
And what shall they do in Tamanrasset, El Hassan? Suddenly seize arms, one night, and rise up in wrath against the Arab dogs and kill them all?
gpt
They will address themselves to the Haratin serfs and spread to them the message of El Hassan. They will be told that in the world of El Hassan each man shall be free to seek his own destiny to the extent his mind and abilities allow. And no man shall be the less because he was born a serf, and no man the more because he was born to wealth or power in the old days.
human
Aiii, Guémama all but moaned.
gpt
But such a message--
human
Is the message of El Hassan, as all men know, Homer Crawford said flatly. He turned to Kenny Ballalou.
gpt
Kenny, take over this angle. We want as many propagandists in that town as possible. It's already choked with refugees, most of them not knowing what they're fleeing. We might get recruits there, too. But mostly we want to appeal to the sedentary natives in town. They've got to get the dreams, too. Promise them schools, land ... I don't have to tell you.
human
Right,
gpt
Maybe I ought to get in on this, too. The women might do a better job than men on this slant. It's going to take a lot to get a Tuareg bedouin to sink to talking to a Haratin on an equal basis.