Marine Corps Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, handicapped a war with North Korea today for reporters, saying that the U.S. would win the war but it would be "messy".
From Stars & Stripes:
If faced by a new threat, U.S. forces would have to use more on “brute force” than surgical strikes because of U.S. operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, Pace said.
“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 we had to go some place else,” Pace told reporters on Tuesday. As a result, U.S. forces would have to use more unguided “dumb bombs,” resulting in more collateral damage, Pace said.
Such an air campaign would be more akin to World War II or the Korean War rather than the precision-guided air war during the initial invasion of Iraq, he said.
He also said that initial and refresher training is suffering because of the Iraq war.
Pace stressed that the U.S. military has the troops to fight if another war broke out, but he conceded U.S. troops are being used “faster than we would like to” and stateside units are not as equipped as they would be if there were no wars going on.
Senior Army leaders recently told The (Baltimore) Sun that the Iraq war is having an effect on training.
There is scant time to train on the high-intensity skills and practice large mechanized maneuvers when combat brigades return home, senior officers acknowledge. With barely 12 months between deployments, there is hardly time to fix war-damaged gear and train newly arrived soldiers in counterinsurgency operations. Some units have the time to train but find their tanks are either still in Iraq or in repair depots.
There is growing concern, The Sun reported Gen. Richard Cody as saying, that the Army’s skills are eroding and that if the war in Iraq continues at current levels, the United States eventually could have “an Army that can only fight a counterinsurgency.” As the Army’s vice chief of staff, Cody is broadly responsible for manning, equipping and training the force.
Pace seemed to offer advice to the North Koreans and the Iranians:
“Applying Western logic to the leadership in [North] Korea is not something that I would personally would want to bet my future on,” he said.
Pace warned potential enemies not to underestimate the “overwhelming combat power” that U.S. forces can unleash if needed.
“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,” he said.
Well, you sound pretty optimistic there, General. Truly, such a war would be very costly in human life and, judging by what I've seen in Iraq, the U.S. policymakers are unwilling to fight such a war. The American people are completely unprepared for what a war like that would cost our military. The North Koreans are a ruthless and capable enemy, and war with them would also involve South Korea, Japan and probably China. Again.
And there is, of course, the MSM. The same MSM who updates the military losses every single day, bemoaning those numbers, yet never mentions the name of those soldiers or Marines, or dares tell their stories.
The same MSM that sympathetically shows the enemy assassinating our unsuspecting troops, painting the war with their liberal bias and influence. The same MSM that needs the support and protection of our military to stay alive "in country".
We still have not learned that fighting a war means to engage the enemy fully; not in the newspapers and in sound bytes, or before the woefully pathetic UN, but in the fields and jungles and city streets where we find those people that want to kill all of us.
The Dems would have you believe that we deserve our military losses in Iraq and Afghanistan because of our failed foreign policy, or because we're forcing more people to hate us or because George Bush "stole" the election. That we're in no danger if we only smile and wave at these people and quit listening to their phone calls, stop monitoring their money transactions and allow them to attack us at will without response. That if we leave Iraq, it will all somehow be better.
Perhaps.
Maybe I'm naive, but I think our military should have all the tools necessary for winning any war or engagement. That means the right training, the right equipment and the right strategy. And even the right support from the politicians that sent them there and the populace that they protect. And if CNN, the NY and LA Times don't like that, too effing bad. Go spout your biased propaganda in Iran.
If Gen. Pace is right, we aren't ready militarily for the next few years. But we'd better get that way quickly if world events are any indication of what is coming. Consider this....
Terror groups allied with Hamas in the Gaza Strip are planning a series of large-scale attacks against Israeli positions near Gaza "within the coming days," including rocket attacks, suicide bombings against Jewish communities and raids of Israeli military posts, several senior terror leaders in Gaza told WND today.
Palestinian and Israeli security officials said they are aware of the attack plans. Israel said it beefed up security at Gaza border crossings.
The Palestinian officials said the threatened large-scale attacks, which they claimed may be imminent, are meant to provoke an Israeli military response in Gaza that would unite the Palestinians and thwart any attempt by Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas to dissolve the Hamas-led Palestinian government.
[...]
Even if any Hamas-directed attacks are not carried out, Israel might still conduct a major military operation in the Gaza Strip in the near future, according to senior Israeli Defense Force officers speaking to WND today.
Yesterday, WND broke the story the Israeli military is set to present battle plans for approval by the government here later this week for a large-scale Gaza offensive, including possible reoccupation of parts of Gaza, according to senior IDF officers .
The IDF assault, a version of which includes reoccupying parts of Gaza, is aimed at blocking Egypt-Gaza smuggling routes, confiscating weaponry already transferred into Gaza, halting the rocket-firing at Jewish communities and badly damaging Gaza's terror infrastructure.
The officials said the offensive is "crucial" for Israel's security and would be the largest military operation launched against Palestinian terror groups in Gaza since Israel evacuated the territory last year.
We're still backing Israel, right? Or would the Dems rather we didn't?
How about this, from Right Truth:
Experts say Venezuela is 'providing assistance to Islamic radicals from the Middle East and other terrorists' according to Terror Close to Home . We have reported here about evidence of Hezbollah in Venezuela and now they are providing ID for terrorists from Syria, Egypt, Pakistan, Lebanon, and more; training these terrorists; providing entry into Mexico where the terrorists can them cross over into the United States via our wide open border.
Or this:
"The thing I worry about most is nuclear weapons being in the hands of a group that does not have a return address. North Korea has a return address. The question is who they may sell the material to, or weapons to," Nunn says.
That's one danger. Another is a rogue state like North Korea funneling nuclear ingredients directly to them, CBS News chief investigative correspondent Armen Keteyian says.
"That's the raw material for terrorism, and it's not properly secured in many cases. Small amounts, but enough to make a crude weapon," Nunn says.
Or even this:
Authorities in northern New Mexico have stumbled onto what appears to be classified information from Los Alamos National Laboratory while arresting a man suspected of domestic violence and dealing methamphetamine from his mobile home.
[...]
"The problem is when you actually have those materials that are supposed to be protected inside the lab and you find them outside the lab in the hands of criminals — that should worry everybody," Brian said.
And even this:
The drug lords at war in central Mexico are no longer content with simply killing their enemies. They are putting their severed heads on public display.
[...]
Beheadings and accompanying notes in sometimes cryptic and misspelled Spanish are becoming a ghoulish vogue among the gangs that grow marijuana, cook methamphetamine and run cocaine in Michoacan. There have been 420 homicides in the state this year, including 19 police chiefs and commanders, and Juan Antonio Magana, the state's attorney general, says well over half the killings were drug-related - the work of smuggling gangs reorganizing after authorities captured some of their top leaders.
Drug wars spilling over from Mexico. Drug dealers with confidential information stolen from nuclear labs. Nukes for sale to the highest bidder. Iran and terrorists threatening imminent war with Israel. North Korea threatening South Korea with war if they impose sanctions.
Georgia. Sri Lanka. Chad. Darfur. And on and on.
There comes a time when talking is not enough. When bluster fails. When yet another empty threat just doesn't have the desired effect. It seems that time is very nearly upon is.
And we all have to be ready for it.
More great reading:
Recent Comments