General says new war could strain military

[ckramer]

WASHINGTON — Stretched thin in Iraq, the U.S. military would have trouble responding as quickly and effectively as commanders would like if it had to go to war in Iran or North Korea, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff told Congress Wednesday.

Air Force Gen. Richard Myers, said a sudden military crisis in one of those two nations — both of which are resisting U.S. demands that they give up nuclear programs — would likely force the Pentagon to remobilize reserve and Guard components that have rotated home from Iraq to rest.

In addition, because of the current strain on U.S. forces, it would take longer for U.S. troops to respond to a crisis in Iran, North Korea or some other major conflict than U.S. battle plans call for, Myers told the House Armed Services Committee.

usatoday

[Betsy Ross]

1. A crisis ANYWHERE would put a strain on the military,

Hell, isn't Iraq enough crisis putting a strain on the military?

[keopeli]

2. I feel a draft...

[Wright Patman]

10. Robot army

There was a NYTimes article about this. By 2010, one-third of the ground forces will be robots. They don't need VA benefits or body bags.

By 2035 the whole damn military will be R2D2 and C3POs. Then they will take over the world.

This is why Japan and China had better think about pulling the plug on us. 2 billion Asians are still no match for conscienceless robots.

Link to DU thread on this:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x1244535

[peacebird]

12. absolutely NO WAY by 2010

They did a big test last year, offered a million dollars to the winner and not ONE robot succeeded in finishing even HALF of the course across the desert.

absolutely NO WAY will the software and hardware be ready to have autonomous robots in the field in five years. Just not conceivable. The ones they have now are remote controlled by guys with laptops - still require HUMANS in the loop one on one.

[Occulus]

17. They're working projects we know nothing about

Deep-black stuff hidden in DARPA funding and such. Really makes me wonder sometimes, what they're up to, when I hear little tidbits like this....

[LinuxInsurgent]

21. yeah...it got perceptibly colder around me all of a sudden...

brrr.....:evilgrin:

[Betty]

3. The military already IS strained

why else would they be forcing people to stay in Iraq past their alloted time if it weren't for the fact that they are seriously stretched thin already?

[chookie]

4. Bush has set us up

Bush says he's following Rummy's lean and mean plan -- which he assures us is working magnificently and that it only looks like a disastrous quagmire killing Americans and innocent Iraqis meaninglessly, but he ALSO says, "When the commanders come to me and ask for additional troops, I will supply them." Translation: a draft. It's just a matter of time before he calls that press conference and says, "The commanders *have* come to me, and I must keep my word, in order to protect the American people and freedom for all people."

The administration is moving ever more recklessly to widening the war in the Middle East. They WANT a wider war, a nice big "all outer", and bush also claims to have won a "mandate" for his war policy -- so he is going to shove a vastly bigger war down the throats of the American people. Coming to a town near you, sooner than you might want to believe. And they're going to get their war, just like they got the last one, because there is no effective opposition, and Bush is nothing if not utter bold and brazen in his actions.

[cliss]

7. Bush's actions certainly lead us to believe that.

When I read articles like this, I force myself to remember that we comprise 3.8% of the world's population. And yet we're trying to boss around the other 96%.

There's another amazing thread on the LBN, that shows a map of where we have US troops around the world. It's amazing. I was just stunned. We're EVERYWHERE. There are US military bases around the world, in every nook & cranny.

Not huge numbers, but a few thousand here and there, and you've got World Domination. Only problem: it's paper-thin. Just a thin veneer of muscle; just enough to convince the local Yokels that we're serious. Don FumsRailed said, "We can fight several confrontations at the same time". I wonder. For how long?

And this is the biggest problem facing the Hopeful Warmongers in Washington: M-O-N-E-Y. This is even more serious than the shortage of troops. The neo-cons have far bigger plans than people and money will allow. It's also the only thing that's going to stop them cold in their tracks before they can blow half the world's surface off the globe.

Russia is trying to stop them, so is China. The rest of the world is trying to mobilize to counteract the Maniacs. They'll try, but they won't be the ones to stop us.

It will be us. The funding will finally dry up. The US will be a shell of its former self. We'll be back to the 1930's, complete with the Dust Bowl and hanging bread wrappers on the laundry line.

[ugarte]

5. Not an altogether bad thing

If Bush had a million more troops, I'm sure he would put them to use.

[0rganism]

6. Two choices for bush: draft the poor, or nuke Persia

Now if it were any other president, even Reagan or Bush Sr., I'd list a third option for peaceful resolution through negotiations. That's obviously not what bush wants.

Let's see... drafting the poor could have a negative effect on the GOP's redneck base, and he'd be gambling that public opinion will have stabilized back into its usual apathy by the time his brother runs for president in 2008. The up-side is that he gets to put a lot of the young people who'd naturally be opposed to his policies into military indoctrination centers and maybe even get them killed in a far-away country. On the other hand, while nuking the middle east would initially be deplored by the world at large, it would also be a definite rallying point for the Armageddonists in his base. It could potentially hinder his corporate allies in their push to lay claim to all that juicy profitable oil, but that would lead to raised prices which means they make more money for less work. And it gives him an opportunity to use up some of those extra ICBMs which are just depreciating in their dark silos. And maybe it gets bush off the hook for the proposed Nevada nuke testing, if we're using Syria instead.

Right now, I suspect bush favors the nuclear option for its simplicity and finality. Occupation is such a pain in the ass, why not just convert all that excess human mass into energy, and be done with it? All he needs is a major terrorist attack in some blue city in a swing state, and the remaining population will come begging at his feet for revenge on the evildoers. (Watch out, Pittsburgh!)

[kk897]

11. on a thread a few days back, someone said that PNAC believes

a limited nuclear war is winnable and a viable strategy. I haven't checked that out for myself. Can anyone verify this?

Also, did anyone else get the Truthout update yesterday saying that the US will resume testing on nuclear weapons?

[MHalblaub]

14. U.S. REDESIGNING ATOMIC WEAPONS

"New York Times"

ABSTRACT - American scientists are designing new generation of nuclear arms meant to be sturdier and more reliable and to have longer lives; federal officials say program could help shrink arsenal and high cost of its maintenance; critics say it would needlessly resuscitate complex of factories and laboratories that make nuclear weapons and could possibly ignite new arms race; federal bomb experts at nuclear weapon laboratories at Los Alamos, Livermore and Sandia are scrutinizing secret arms data gathered over half century for clues about how to achieve new reliability goals; effort so far involves only $9 million for warhead designers at three sites; relatively small initial program, involving fewer than 100 people, is expected to grow and produce finished designs in next 5 to 10 years, culminating, if approval is sought and won, in prototype warheads that will be larger and more robust than earlier models; chart (M)

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F20714F8355F0C748CDDAB0894DD404482

I also heard about that they want some nuclear bunker buster for tactical use. Not quite sure were I read something about that.

[CWebster]

24. Yes, and think of the jobs the military could produce

for those slackers who would otherwise be a "drain" on the public purse. And the time-tested means to reduce the surplus population demanding educational opportunity, healthcare, retirement benefits, etc.

[burrowowl]

8. We have 150,000

or so in Irak and supposedly almost a million in the Armed Forces. Where are the rest of them?

[Dhalgren]

20. This was explained to me (but I may not have all of the

figures right). If you deploy 150,000 troops on an indefinite basis, you have to have at least 300,000 additional troops within the deployment cycle. So you actually have to have half a million troops committed. That's 150 thousand on the ground, 150 thousand recuperating from deployment, and 150 thousand in preparation for deployment.

I suppose the same multiples of 3 apply to all of our other current deployments, as well - so, yeah, we are stretched thinner than thin...

[bling bling]

9. "New war could strain military" --

Reeeaaaally? You don't say.

[yorkiemommie1]

13. and the the bushbots and their kids still aren't enlisting???....

how come??

[jmcgowanjm]

15. “War with a serious opponent would lead to a level of American casualties

that the U.S. public would not tolerate for long.”

http://207.44.245.159/article8077.htm

Interestingly, if that happens, we may not be able to afford to be
a rogue state for very long. In what’s surely the most telling
and terrifying part of this book, the author takes on the
most frightening topic of all — the real condition of the
American economy, which is now totally dependent on
foreign investment.

Already, it appears clear that the US is driven to rely more
on military adventure because the economic house is in
disarray and "overstretched". They can't just bludgeon their
way economically anymore. They have to use the stick. Any
close look at the inauguration speech bears out the reliance
on forcing the world to conform to us dictates. Why should
this not extend ultimately to existing debt arrangements if the
US finds itself facing an Argentina-like predicament? All
these outcomes may sound quite improbable at this
moment. Certainly, the establishment would brush them
aside. But do not dismiss the possibility that dramatic
change and epic political reforms lie ahead. As we have
said many times before, Washington’s elites will not go
down without a fight.

http://www.prudentbear.com/internationalperspective.asp

I expect everyone 25 and younger to be in
a uniform this time next year.

[Norquist Nemesis]

16. He needs a Reality Adjustment

The military's already strained.

[jmcgowanjm]

18. Speaking of strained

IRR 021605

Hit.

1,600 puppet police quit. US troops enter Hit as
Resistance fighters mass for heavy combat.

In a dispatch posted at 1:59pm Wednesday Mecca time,
the correspondent for Mafkarat al-Islam reported that
the command of the puppet police in the city of Hit, west
of Baghdad had announced its resignation a short while
before.

At that point, the head of the local puppet council in the city of
Hit told Mafkarat al-Islam that the two cities have
effectively “fallen” to the Resistance, since there is no authority
in them representing the American-installed puppet
regime.

In a dispatch posted at 4pm Mecca time Wednesday
afternoon, the correspondent for Mafkarat al-Islam in Hit
reported that fighting had broken out a short while before
as Resistance forces attacked US troops supported
by helicopters and fighter planes in the northern and
western parts of Hit. The correspondent reported that a
fierce battle was underway as he
wrote.

The initial attack came when Iraqi Resistance
fighters ambushed and destroyed one Humvee in the village
of al-Bu ‘Assaf west of Hit, killing three US troops and
wounding a fourth aboard the vehicle.

Iraqi Resistance shoots down US Apache helicopter near Hit.

[jmcgowanjm]

19. US forces said pulling out of ‘Ayn al-Asad base in Hit as morale declines.

In a dispatch posted at 9:12pm Mecca time Wednesday
night, the correspondent for Mafkarat al-Islam in Hit reported
that on Wednesday US forces evacuated an estimated
65 percent of their strength from the US ‘Ayn al-Asad base
near Hit.

The correspondent reported that a source, one of the senior
Iraqi translators who has served the Americans for a year,
told Mafkarat al-Islam that most of the US troops being pulled
out of the base have been wounded or were afflicted
by insomnia, seizures, or serious hysteria, or have
attempted suicide, according to an American medical
report.

IRR 021605

www.freearabvoice.org

[brentspeak]

22. Remember when the Republicans were claiming it was Clinton

who had "stretched the military too thin"? I bet many members of the current military who did serve under Clinton probably in secret wish that he was their Commander-in-Chief again.

[CWebster]

23. that's okay, Kerry has a plan to increase the military

for endless war.



What a guy.