NYT/Reuters: U.S. Would Win New War but It Would Be Dirtier: General Pace

[DeepModem Mom]

U.S. Would Win New War but It Would Be Dirtier: Pace
By REUTERS
Published: October 24, 2006

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States has the capacity to defeat any enemy with overwhelming power, despite the Iraq war, but a new conflict would involve more brute force and civilian casualties, the top U.S. general said on Tuesday.

Asked about any potential threat from North Korea, Marine Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, said he did not know the intent of the Pyongyang leadership but the U.S. military could cope with any potential enemy....

***
Pace said the conflicts in both Iraq and Afghanistan meant some precision weapons and intelligence systems were already in use and could not be immediately be deployed elsewhere.

"It would be more brute force, wherever we might have to go next, than it would be if we weren't already involved in the war we have going on in Iraq or Afghanistan,'' Pace said.

"You would end up not having all of the precision weapons that you might otherwise have going into a second theater, wherever it might happen to be, and therefore you would end up using more dumb bombs, so to speak, more brute force, than you would otherwise,'' he said....

http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/news/news-security-usa-military.html

[DavidDvorkin]

1. Every empire tends to think that

Right up to the very end.

[sugapablo]

12. No, you misunderstand...

The US can win any war it wants to fight. However, we really don't want to get our hands "dirty" which is why we're in this mess.

When you fight a war, it's supposed to be about conquest or survival. Not regime change. Not "oil".

When you fight a war for conquest or survival, you have no problems with obliterating your enemy. You don't concern yourself with "civilian casualties". You don't concern yourself with how "bad you might look in the press". You just destroy everything in your path until the enemy is dead or defeated.

If the US wanted to, they could start killing everything that moved in Iraq until there was no more "enemy". If that meant killing EVERYONE, then so be it. But we could do it. Make no mistake about it. We have the capability. We just don't have the stomach.

Same with Israel. Israel could easily defeat Hezbollah, the PLO, Hamas, Syria, etc. But they don't want to have to wipe out millions of people. But they have the military might to do so should they wish. Hezbollah, Hamas, et al does not have that capability. If they did, they'd use it.

This is something the enemies of the US and Israel and other western nations know. They know "we" don't have the stomach to really flex our military strength, and they use that against us. Hence the problems today in the middle east, like Iraq.



P.S. I LOVE Mozilla 2.0's built in spell check for web forms. :)

[SquireJons]

13. You are wrong about Israel

They do not have the power to defeat a number of states in the Middle East, at least not without significant help from the U.S. You must remember that Israel has virtually no natural resources within it's territory. That means no oil. They also don't have the population to take on large Arab (and Iranian and Egyptian) armies. What they do have is nuclear weapons, and that is why Pakistan exported it's nuclear technology to other Arab states. So, if Israel went nuclear, they could win a large scale war, but they might risk being a target of a nuclear attack themselves. So there is a stalemate.

In a conventional war, Israel would not do well against a coalition of Middle Eastern states. Their weapons are superior, but that wouldn't save them. In the 1973 war, the only thing that saved their butts was a massive infusion of weapons, ammunition, fuel and cash from the U.S., and that only allowed them to sue for peace. Had we not come to their aid, it's very likely that Israel would not exist today. In their last two conflicts involving Lebanon, they failed miserably, despite overwhelming military superiority on their side. And that was against a rag tag militia. Try going against the combined armies of Egypt, Iran, and Syria... it would be a slaughter on both sides, but Israel does not have the numbers to survive. Plus they have more to lose. Or as Rummy would put it... they have lots of attractive targets.

[sugapablo]

14. Actually...

There is a debate going on in Israel right now.

Some wonder if they should continue to accept aid from the US. They are currently a minority, but their ranks are growing.

What would they do instead? You ware wrong about natural resources (kinda). They have a tremendous amount of brain power and have a very large tech industry.

China has shown great interest in technological systems from Israel. Israel is currently prohibited in sharing tech advances with China based on its agreements with the US to accept its aid.

Should Israel stop receiving US aid, some argue they could make out better economically by selling technology to China (and other countries the US dislikes).

[SquireJons]

16. In this corner...

Wearing blue trunks, weighing in at 2 pounds, 6 million Israeli brains. In the other corner, wearing red trunks, 68 million Iranians with guns.

Place your bets.


Israel will not abandon it's ties with the U.S. to go with another super power. It's always best to leave the dance with the date who brought you.

[LynnTheDem]

17. "Hence the problems today in the middle east, like Iraq."

You gotta be joking.

[BeHereNow]

2. Translation: Iran

No wonder the Bushes are setting up house in Paraguay.
To hell with the rest of us who will be left to try and
survive the HUBRIS they are planning to unleash.
God help us all.
BHN

[dos pelos]

4. The 98,000 acres in Paraguay...whats with that?

He just likes Paraguay,wants to ranch?Needs a fallback position?Ever heard of a sitting American President readying a foreign residence an estate?This is no San Clemente,certainly no Plains.

[hogwyld]

8. Well, does Paraguay have an extradition treaty with us?

Maybe the whole *co junta is preparing to pull a Josef Mengele!

edited for wooden-headedness!

[peacebird]

10. I heard something about the land containing a huge water aquafer

I think he's planning on owning the next "oil" - clean water.

[Erika]

3. Pace thinks W and Rummy were inspired by God

He's a total idiot and will probably be laughed at by the rest of the world. His thoughts are meaningless.

[dos pelos]

5. If his finger is on the trigger its not......

If he has the power to decide which weapons are used and where then what he thinks is not meaningless at all.

[Erika]

6. No, he will be known as a man operating under faulty pretenses

and meaningless.

[EFerrari]

7. Delusional scumbag. n/t

[mediaman007]

9. Pace is what was left over after Rummy purged the military of

independent thinkers. Let me guess: at Annapolis he would have been up to his armpits in hazing.

[Nihil]

11. "...the war we have going on in Iraq or Afghanistan"? Doesn't he know?

Sorry, dumb question ... of course he doesn't know - he's the infamous
fundamentalist fuckhead isn't he? "Gott mit uns" et al.

> "It would be more brute force, wherever we might have to go next, ..."

Is the civilian casualty rate not high enough for you Pace?
Are there still too many children surviving the US "peace-keepers"?
Far too many limbs still attached to their owners?
Damn, just have to go in hard instead of being kind & considerate eh?

If there was any justice in the world, it would be the Peter Paces,
the Bushes, the Cheneys that get strung up and BBQ'd on a bridge by
angry civilians. "Hi, I'd like to let you meet your Maker. Step this way."

[bemildred]

19. Yeah, the pretense is annoying.

Like what is going on now is all about "precision" and technical expertise. Someone should tell him we are losing now in two places to snipers, IEDs and suicide bombers, and cheap rockets, at 1000 times the cost.

I was reading somewhere a while back that each B-52 eats 100,000 gallons of aviation fuel for each mission. That's $250,000 a flight, just for fuel.

[SquireJons]

15. It all depends on what you mean by war.

If the U.S. were fighting for it's survival, than yes, we have the military force to win a limited, non nuclear conflict with any single country, even China. But we would have to use every thing we have, and get significant help from our first world cousins. Don't forget, we spend more on our military that the rest of the world combined, and our weapons are better.

But, if the U.S. were to have to fight more than one country at the same time, say China and Iran, he is wrong. Very wrong. We do not have the troop numbers to sustain a single attack, much less two. China is too big to conquer and Iran is large, mountainous, and has a huge population of it's own. The only way we could defeat either country is with nuclear weapons which China already has and Iran soon will have. So the use of nuclear weapons in such a war would result in nuclear attacks on U.S. cities. Not exactly my definition of 'winning a war.'

[Toots]

18. Yep them North Koreans know absolutely nothing about bombs

They know nothing of how the North Vietnamese survived the constant bombing of the north or the thousands of miles of tunnels throughout the south. It is becoming apparent that the Generals left in our military are very incompetent people. If they think that dropping a bunch of "dumb" bombs on North Korea will win a war for them.:shrug: America can not be safe as long as these imbeciles remain in power...