for the record...

[anotheranon]

I've not been commenting on politics lately, but I have been keeping up. Reading all the usual sites (as well as some with commentary, and/or some bias).

I'm not sure why Dubya is suggesting that Iraq is taking precedence over N.Korea, given that the latter have given hard proof of their intentions. Reading this discussion on wcg's journal, I'm inclined to think that it's unlikely that the U.S. could fight a war on 2 (no, make that 3 - the sneaky Al Qaeda [spelling? I've seen many]) fronts at this time.

Dubya has also gracefully chosen to commemorate the 30th anniversary of Roe v. Wade by declaring "Sanctity of Human Life Day" - which would be almost touching except the scheduling and phrasing scream pro-life. I've been perhaps a bit eager to find fault with this administration at every turn but I don't think I'm overreacting in this case.

There are many anti-war protests scheduled for this weekend, none of which I will be attending. I am still waiting for the gov't to offer proof that Iraq has weapons of mass destruction, and more specifically, if it has the means to get them here (or anywhere else). I have no problem with getting rid of Sadaam Hussein, but not by the "running in like Rambo without a jock strap" method and mentality that Dubya et. al. seem to embrace.

Tired now, going to bed.

Comments

[wcg.livejournal.com]

Nice to see that I'm providing you with food for thought. Apropos your conclusion, it's not that the US armed forces couldn't fight 3 simultaneous conflicts, but we couldn't do so very well for very long with any reasonable chance of clearly winning. The focus on Iraq means that our actions against Al Qaeda have been placed onto a back burner labeled "long term low intensity conflict" and given over almost entirely to US Special Operations Command. It also means that if Korea gets suddenly hot, the 2nd Infantry Division is going to have a really hard week feeling like the Lone Rangers until reinforcements come in from California, since their normal backup team on Okinawa is now diverted to the Indian Ocean.

[anotheranon.livejournal.com]

You are better informed than I regarding military matters - ok, perhaps the U.S. COULD fight on 3 fronts, but if warfare can't be sustained/won, what is the point? Considering that at least two of the parties have nuclear weapons (U.S. and N. Korea), it is a "winner take all, loser destroyed" type of situation, isn't it?

As for the War on Terrorism being given over to Special Ops, this actually makes sense to me. Coventional attacks in Afghanistan failed to root out Al Qaeda but managed to successfully kill Afghan civilians and some allied troops (if I'm remembering right). Bombing aimlessly clearly doesn't work in this case, so this is a good idea from my (rather limited) POV.

[wcg.livejournal.com]

I think we're mostly in agreement. Though I've some concern about tieing up USSOC with the big and nebulous mission of hunting Al Qaeda, and thereby removing special operations capability from other areas. (As a Marine, I should be gloating at that, since it means that the only Special Operations capable forces left to US commanders through most of the world are Marines now, but I got over that kind of parochialism long ago.)

Otherwise, you are right. Korea is especially sensitive now because even if the North Koreans didn't employ the first use of nuclear weapons, the US commander would almost have to use tactical nukes to stop a North Korean assault across the DMZ if there were to be any chance of stopping it before it reached Seoul. I'm convinced that no US general will do that, even though it'll get him relieved of command if he survives the fight, because no general wants to go down in history as the man who introduced nuclear weapons into operational warfare. (No, Hiroshima and Nagasaki weren't operational warfare, they were cities selected for awful demonstrations of capability.) But the current SecDef is just nuts enough to give a direct order to use tactical nuclear weapons.