Judy: a) that opposing the war is not "wanting the US to lose it" b) that
the general, well, I've said it, he can suck it up. Our soldiers have had
to do that right from the start. It's called "being a soldier".
Well, sure, (a) and (b) make perfect sense. What I was trying to point
out--and again this may be an American thing--people here actually DO seem
to want the US to lose in Iraq. That's what Grange was indicating in his
outburst and also why Lou Dobbs was nodding his head in agreement.
As for Andy's ridiculous, alarmist contention that the US is out of
troops, here's General Peter Pace on that:
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/1152AP_US_North_Korea_Military.html
General says U.S. could beat N. Korea
By ROBERT BURNS
AP MILITARY WRITER
WASHINGTON -- The U.S. military would prevail in a war against North Korea
but at a greater cost in lives than if the United States were not already
fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of
Staff said Tuesday.
"It would not be as clean as we would like it to be, but it would
certainly be sure, and the outcome would not be in doubt," said Gen. Peter
Pace.
He told a Pentagon news conference that the U.S. military has plenty of
people available to fight wars beyond Iraq and Afghanistan, but he
acknowledged that U.S.-based ground combat units are not fully equipped.
"We have 2 million folks who can start protecting this nation anywhere
else we need them to tomorrow, if we need them to," Pace said when a
reporter asked what sort of threat North Korea's military poses.
The fight, however, would be messier than if the U.S. military did not
have 147,000 troops tied up in Iraq and about 20,000 in Afghanistan.
"It would be more brute force, wherever we might have to go next, than it
would be if we weren't already involved in the war we have going on in
Iraq and Afghanistan," Pace said. "Why? Because you need precision
intelligence to drop precision munitions. And a lot of our precision
intelligence assets are currently being used in the Gulf region. So some
of those would not be available if you had to go someplace else."
As a result there would be more unintended damage inflicted, he added.
"You end up more like a World War II, Korean War campaign," he said,
adding that he was not making any predictions. "I'm just saying that, on a
scale, you're going to have to use more brute force to get the job done"
in North Korea.
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