If Musharraf falls in Pakistan, and an Islamic extremist government takes over, I think it might force us to pull forces from Iraq to contain the nuclear threat.
I think we are looking at two different thresholds of action here. The original op mentioned North korea already starting hostilities and the potential effect on American theater forces elseware.
The chicoms want North Korea as a buffer zone , they intervened in the korean war after when the north korean army collapsed and looked like the country would be reunited under what we would call now , nato control. Would they intervene this time , who knows for sure.
But if they intervene ,I want them doing according to my strategy and if they have to whack jong 2 and install some party general to save face , then thats the whole point of transfering the weapons to seoul and tokyo.
Declan
It can be argued that the Democrats aren’t spineless, if they unite and vote us out the Iraqi government will fall and then some of the resulting slaughter will fall on them. This was always Bush’s war, it’s gone badly, the Dems don’t want to deny him full credit. As stubborn as Bush seems, he knows it’s gone badly, but cannot withdrawl without losing face. Another more important conflict anywhere would save him face…and disgustingly, probably improve his ratings.
The problem is, by not getting us out of Iraq they alienate the people who voted for them. And by doing nothing to stop him, they make it their war and not just Bush’s.
Thanks to their constant caving in to Bush, and their general appearance of spinlessness ( and politically, it doesn’t matter if it’s real or if they think they are being clever ) I would not be at all surprised to see the Republicans keep the Presidency and gain control of Congress again. Too many people who would otherwise vote Democrat will say “Why bother ? They’ll just toady up to the Republicans again !” They’ve tried this passive stuff before, and it doesn’t work.
Despite previous, vehement and repeated denials, the conservative corpus is currently quite open about having taken Iraq for its oil.
They aren’t going to give that up.
Similarly, the Israel-US axis has correctly assessed that there is no cost to that alliance in expending US military assets and lives for Israeli security. That won’t change either and the security of Israel will remain a higher priority for the US military than the defense of the US.
Those bases are permanently manned.
As tomndebb rightly pointed out, a major conflict overseas would take years to address in our current state of readiness and troop levels.
I disagree strongly that we would either hold onto Iraq or defend Israel if our own country was at risk; if someone was lobbing missiles at us, I would bet our isolationist heart would come out and force a withdrawal back to the US.
If the North Koreans were stupid enough to attack America then I really don’t think that America would need to remove troops from Iraq to do anything in the radioactive wasteland that would be North Korea.
I suspect that neither the Joint Chiefs nor even the current administration would actually be so blind to reality as to jump on a nuclear retaliation bandwagon so quickly.
North Korea probably has some limited number of nukes.
It also has a limited number of missiles of undetermined range and questonable accuracy.
IF they launched a nuclear attack, there is little probability that they would actually do significant damage to the U.S. It would be like the little kid who struggled to pick up a large rock and then hurled it at an adult’s toe. Maybe they hurt the toe, maybe they miss completely, but now they have really irritated the adult and they have no rock to try it again.
Despite any expected U.S. rage, the U.S. would still have to consider that a nuclear barrage would seriously harm South Korea, (including all the U.S. troops stationed there), and China and would envelope Japan in a wave of radioactive fallout. All that to “punish” the kid who no longer has a rock.
A rather more likely response would be for the U.S. to use conventional airpower to destroy all the infrastructure followed by an invasion by the U.S., South Korea, and Japan, supported by either the United Nations or some other coalition of countries.
A “one for one” trade of nuclear bombs of limited yield might be in the scenario, but there would be no torrent of nuclear death obliterating the country and alienating the South Koreans, Japanese, and Chinese for generations to come (and potentially re-uniting China and Russia to gang up on the U.S.).
Americans getting bombed on their own soil has had the opposite effect in the past.
The Dems aren’t toadying, they’re letting Bush burn. The Dems DIDN’T take an overwhelming majority in the last election, they now control the House and barely the Senate, so some people still think Bush is on the right track. Of course you and I don’t think so, but we are outnumbered by idiots and they turn off NASCAR and get out of their trailer parks often enough to have an impact. The Dems want a president, and as long as Bush is twisting in the wind they’re more likely to get one.
They aren’t letting Bush burn, they are burning themselves. The “idiots in trailer parks” you talk about aren’t going to vote Democrat anyway, and the Democrats are alienating both their base and what passes for the center. Why do you think that people who think the Democrats betrayed them, or that there’s no difference between the two parties, or that the Democrats are actually working for Bush are going to vote for a Democrat ?
You’d see production shoot up like crazy, something like what we did in World War II. Every man, woman, and child would be galvanized against this new threat.
There wouldn’t literally be a draft, but there’d be so many new recruits, a draft wouldn’t be necessary.
I can see how it’d work both ways for public opinion polls. I could people looking for something to unite behind, with that, by default, being the president. I can also see how people would realize that we aren’t “safer” by having most of our military in Iraq and how the president would get a lot of (all of the) blame.
Like I said, the last election was a swing for the left but it wasn’t an overwhelming trounce, which means there are plenty in the middle that still believe we should stay now reguardless of past mistakes. Letting Bush get what he wants should convince the moderates that Republicans aren’t the party to vote into the NEXT Oval Office. That is what Democrats and left minded people really want. A withdrawl now, mid term, means** when ** things get bad in Iraq, Bush can say it was the Democrats fault, and he’d be half right.
It’ll convince people that the Democrat’s aren’t worth voting for, that’s what it will do. That’s what it’s already doing. Why vote for people who’ll simply do the opposite of what you want ?
It won’t convince the moderates that the “Republicans aren’t the party to vote into the NEXT Oval Office”; it will convince people that they are the ONLY party. That the Democrats are just welcome mats for the Republicans who will do what the Republicans tell them, who cave it to every demand and shy away from every threat. Why vote for the Democrats if they will just submit to the Republicans ? Thanks to the Democrat’s behavior, I expect many of the people who would otherwise have voted for them, and who did vote for them last time, won’t do so again. They’ll go back to the Republicans, to some doomed third party, or just stay home. The Democrats appear determined to prove that they don’t matter, and that doesn’t win elections or accomplish anything useful.
Not blind. A nuke is most definitely a WMD. And it would be showing the world the consequence of such a use. This thought troubles me greatly, but not responding would be to invite open season on America.
Plenty of people volunteered in WW II, but they still needed the draft. Plenty of people were happy to wait until their number came up.
But, as tomndebb said, you don’t build an army overnight. Each one of these people would have to be processed, get uniforms and weapons, and get training. You’d have to convert those few factories that haven’t moved to China for war work. While all this was happening, you’d have to face the threat, and that would take the troops now in Iraq.
I don’t quite understand how you think the Dems can force at least 20% of the Republicans in the Senate to allow the withdrawal bills to pass. It will be pretty clear who is blocking a change of policy in Iraq.
Der Trihs, as is often the case with voting, you want the ‘least bad’ person into office. There is no miracle worker on the horizon who will wave his wand and solve American woes. A Dem forced complete withdrawl (assuming they can as Voyager pointed out) will scatter the blame of the impending disaster. I don’t understand your logic that voters feel Republicans have screwed the pooch yet will still vote for them because the Dems are just clones. Lets say for the sake of argument they are clones, then the right wont have a serious problem voting for an African American or a woman into the next Oval Office, yeah?
Well, the rank and files won’t obviously, but the corporate leaders seem to be leaning her way.
They could have simply refused to send Bush more money, for example. And it’s not clear at all; I see no reason to believe that the Democrats oppose what Bush is doing, or that they intend any change about Iraq, or even care about Iraq. And if they do it doesn’t matter anyway, as they’ve proven.
I care nothing about “American woes” at this point; America has proven it deserves neither my sympathy or my loyalty. And if the Democrats keep obeying the Republicans, they aren’t “the least bad” people; they just aren’t anything. Except flunkys.
They already took on much of the blame when they gave Bush authorization for the war, refused to try to restrain him and in general sucked up to him for years, and did so again big time when they caved in to Bush AGAIN after supposedly getting control of Congress.
No, because the right is all about bigotry. And I only said some would go back to the Republicans; haven’t you ever heard people say they’d prefer a real Republican over a fake one ? As for the rest, I said they’d go to a third party for a symbolic vote ( since the Democrats appear to be trying to prove that voting for them is meaningless ), or simply not bother to vote.
Bush controls the military, the Dems control the purse strings, if the Dems stop the flow of money Bush still wont withdrawal and the underfunded vulnerable Americans overseas will be the Dems fault.
Foreign policy change is THE ace that will see the next Dem POTUS…or the next Rep for that matter.
An American citizen entirely disenfranchised yet still hysterically attacks both major parties, an odd sort of hypocrisy.
Caved in? I do remember the smell of the veto marker quite a few times. By having bills and referendums that don’t pass, we at least get more public record of who is still willing to call Iraq a ‘win’…and their cushy office chairs will go empty soon.
I’m smelling the mother of all intelligent debate enders…the word ‘Nazi’.