Could a foreign military drive Bush into hiding and then capture him? [new title]

Factual Questions
1

I remember in grade school a teacher saying to me, when I said I had a stupid question, that “the only stupid question, is the one not asked”. So, I’m tired of thinking of this particular stupid question and hope that if I spit it out here, someone can at least give me their thoughts.

So here goes…

The U.S. is militarily powerful enough to force Iraq’s leader into hiding, find him, and now keep him in jail. Is there even the remotest possibility that another country’s military or military group of any sort, could force our President into hiding, come to our country and find him, and take him into custody?

OneYogini

2

It’s nice that your teacher tried to teach you and your classmates that you weren’t stupid, by way of telling your questions weren’t stupid before even hearing them. There’s a value to avoiding having people withhold questions lest they be ridiculed. But rest assured, there questions that get asked that are stupid. That said, I do not see your question as stupid.

Well, I guess nothing’s impossible, but given the relative strength’s of the world’s military units, and the logistics involved in doing that, it’s hard to imagine how it could actually be accomplished.

3

It’s not a stupid question, but the answer is still no. You probably knew that when you asked; hence, your labeling it a stupid question.

Being as humble about our military as I possibly can, there aren’t any five world armies put together that equal even a fraction of our technological might. Any invasion attempt would be met with a swift and terrible nutkicking.

4

By who? Isn’t the majority of active personnel in either Afghanistan or Iraq?

5

By little boy and fat man? I know first nuclear is a big line no-one wants to cross, but OTOH, I think that line may be around mainland America.

And that’s even assuming anyone’s got to america across the ocean past a navy and air force.

Of course, there’s several ‘could the US be invaded’ threads. Someone less lazy than me should Search.

6

IIRC, post 9/11, the Prez was shifted to a secure, undisclosed location for afew days. That would qualify as hiding. And I am guessing Ossy would have tried the other part, if he had a nuke.

Its not a stupid q. I have asked stupider qs in my time.

7

Thanks for your posts.

Hey, my thread got a new title…first time I’ve seen that (or had it happen to me) - YAY! I guess. lol!

Okay, I wonder if that means there will be a HUGE response now. LOL!

:slight_smile: Yogini

8

Descriptive thread titles are apreciated. Accordingly, I have changed the title of this thread.

bibliophage
moderator GQ

9

It wasn’t as if GWB was forced to live in a series of underground bunkers with a bunch of 7-up for sustenance after 9/11.

He was back in the public eye the next day.

As for stupid questions when people at the library preface their questions to me by saying “This might be a stupid question …” invariably it isn’t.

Self-awareness of stupid questions usually means you don’t ask them.

I also tell people that there is no such a thing as a stupid question until it is asked of me and then I deem it to be stupid.

10

A land invasion of the continental US is next to impossible for anyone to succeed at doing so. Chastain86 was if anything being conservative in saying it would take the next five world’s largest militaries to even think such a stunt could be pulled off. Remember it isn’t just the United State’s military an invader need be concerned with but the population itself. Americans are a very well armed bunch and you can bet incredibly well-armed partisan groups would materialze overnight.

An oversea invasion is mighty hard to pull off. Germany never managed to cross 30 miles of ocean and get Great Britain. China can’t manage a successful invasion of Taiwan some 100 miles away for the same reason despite having one of the world’s largest standing armies.

Theoretically you might get the President to scoot aboard Air Force One and run around a bit but nothing likewhat happened to Saddam.

11

To capture the President you would need troops on eth ground. That means either invade Canada and head south, invade Mexico and invade north or land on either side of the country. Since the US Navy has no peer, amphibious landings won’t happen. Invading Mexico or Canada would have to be amphibious also and, again, would be crushed by the Americans.

Short answer: not going to happen.

12

I couldn’t resist sharing this cartoon on the subject of stupid questions:

http://overduemedia.com/archive.aspx?strip=20030817

13

Yes, there is the remotest possibility. However, the invading country could not be located on Earth.

14

that cartoon was too cute Shade, thanks for sharing.

well, i’m getting the answers i expected and thank you all. however, next time i will not start a thread in general questions that remotely raises the idea first that it might be a stupid question - lol. many comments on THAT - lol! too funny.

thanks again.

yogini :wink:

15

crap - stupid auto signature…grrrrr! :rolleyes:

16

OK, so a direct naval invasion is out. The US Navy can defeat any other single navy on earth, and it would take a massive (and massively unlikely) coalition of navies to defeat it.

An air invasion, a la Red Dawn ;), is out of the question for a similar reason. The USAF is the single largest developer of new aircraft technology in the world right now, and even sheer force of numbers (if China, India, and Brazil decided to simultaneously make their whole populations airborne infantry, say) would have a tough time cracking our local airspace.

A land invasion would either fizzle before it got started, due to the efforts of our intelligence services, or make Blitzkrieg-style early gains through sheer surprise before being driven back faster than Napoleon was routed from Russia.

There are, really, only two ways to attack the US from the land: Into the desert southwest from western Mexico (west of the Rio Grande), or into the Rockies and the Great Plains from Canada (British Columbia east to Ontario).

In the first scenario, you end up fighting dedicated tank divisions with massive close-air support in a basically inhospitable climate. Units that advance too quickly will be cut off from the main thrust and pummeled into oblivion, and units that advance too slowly will be halted and pummeled into oblivion. Oh, and beware the locals if you decide to thrust up into the big costal cities (or, if you thought invading Saigon was bad, wait until you have to deal with the LAPD, the California National Guard, the US Army, the Bloods, and the Crips).

In the second scenario, the terrain is either a tank-friendly steppe or a rugged mountain range suitable to long-term guerrilla warfare, with a variation in between. There are a surprising number of military units up here, mostly a remnant of the Cold War-era Strategic Air Command. A B-52 may be old, but the thing can carry an absurd amount of bombs for an essentially indefinite distance. Plus, the locals are well-armed and thinly-spread in the countryside. If you want a partisan waiting to happen, look at the Vietnam-vet hunter with more guns than family members, his wife and three sons, their similar friends and neighbors, and the National Guardsmen who live close by. Plus the Border Patrol.

Speaking of the Strategic Air Command, I think we still have enough nukes to vaporize the first few strata of topsoil and render this planet biologically uninteresting until life has a chance to re-emerge on Mars. And they haven’t been rotting, like the Soviet missiles have. Plus, we have a very definite protocol, multiply-redundant in all the right places, on just what we do if someone decides to nuke us.

So, when attacking the US, getting the first hit in is relatively easy, compared to the task of surviving the fight.

17

If several countries united into an alliance, however, that’d be a different matter. Canada-China-Mexico, for instance, wouldn’t be something to sneeze off.

As for “driving Bush into hiding,” I think part of that would require a weakening/loss of the military structure underneath him. If the United States is facing an invasion and a good-sized portion of the US military decide to turn on Bush, for instance, I think he’d have to “go to ground” fairly quickly. Having solid support from the folks beneath you is a critical issue.

18

minor correction: pres. bush returned to the white house on the evening of sept. 11 (after hopscotching to several military bases aboard air force one with fighter escorts) and spoke to the nation from the oval office that night. it was vp cheney who spent so much time in a “secure undisclosed location” that tv comedians made running jokes about it.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?pagename=article&node=&contentId=A13879-2001Sep11&notFound=true

19

You don’t need to invade the U.S. to capture the President. You just fly in your troops (likely mercenaries) undercover on a domestic flight and have them take over the White House. I think a concerted and well planned effort has a 100% chance of success. You just need the will to do it.

20

I meant commercial not domestic and you need more than will, you need money. In the end though I think that such a high cost venture would not be worth it to any foreign group including Al-Qaeda. So what, you get the President - big deal. The U.S.A. would run fine without him.