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Politics : DON'T START THE WAR -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Moneysmith who wrote (15590)	3/5/2003 12:35:53 AM
From: PartyTime	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 25898

It's perhaps the saddest and sorriest position I've ever seen the US in during all of my adult life. At least the Vietnam War was a pile on of administrations making lies and mistakes. But what we're seeing today is entirely coming out of Bush's pockets. How do you think the UN Security Council members feel having their homes and offices spied upon by American's National Security Agency? Franly, I'm not sure Bush is fit to teach eight grade social studies. Anyway, here's some news on the troop buildup. More troops entering the region. This will be nice for Cheney's Haliburton buddies since Haliburton's subsidiary has a no-ceiling contract to feed overseas military personal. Geez, it used to be that the ole' army cook was a pretty good guy, but I guess he's been privatized out of a job. thestar.com U.S. invasion force nears 300,000 Total includes troops now deploying from Germany, Texas, Louisiana Mar. 4, 2003. 09:58 PM WASHINGTON (AP) - The U.S. army's oldest armoured division, Old Ironsides, got orders today to head for the Persian Gulf as the total of U.S. land, sea and air forces arrayed against Iraq or preparing to go neared 300,000. The commander who would lead the war, Gen. Tommy Franks, met Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld at the Pentagon and was to consult President George W. Bush at the White House on Wednesday. Last week Franks reviewed his war plan with commanders at his Gulf post. The pace of troop movements and high-level consultations suggested the military was close to ready for the opening of what would be a multi-directional assault to disarm and depose Iraqi President Saddam Hussein. In addition to the U.S. troops based in Kuwait and every other country on the Arabian peninsula except Yemen, there are five aircraft carrier battle groups nearby, each with about 50-strike aircraft aboard and including 30 to 40 vessels armed with Tomahawk land-attack cruise missiles. A sixth carrier, the USS Nimitz, is en route to the Gulf to relieve the USS Abraham Lincoln. Still to be resolved was the important question of whether Turkey would allow its territory to be used for tens of thousands of U.S. ground forces to open a northern front against Iraq. Three dozen ships carrying weaponry and equipment for the army's 4th Infantry Division, which would spearhead the attack from Turkey, are waiting in the Mediterranean for a decision. In Wiesbaden, Germany, home of the U.S. army's 1st Armoured Division, known as Old Ironsides, officials said the unit received orders today to deploy to the Central Command region. No dates were released. Portions of another Germany-based army unit, the 1st Infantry Division, already are in Turkey to help receive and move forward the weaponry and equipment of the 4th Infantry Division. But that is on hold pending a final decision by the Turkish government on hosting U.S. forces. The army also received orders this week to deploy the 1st Cavalry Division, based at Fort Hood, Texas. The 2nd Armoured Cavalry Regiment, based at Fort Polk, La., also received deployment orders. Together, the 1st Armoured, 1st Cavalry and 2nd Armoured Cavalry will deploy about 60,000 troops, officials said. That is in addition to the approximately 230,000 U.S. air, land and sea forces already on Iraq's periphery. Those include about 65,000 marines afloat and in Kuwait, which would be the main launching pad for any ground assault into southern Iraq. The main army combat unit in Kuwait is the 3rd Infantry Division, although it is being joined by about 20,000 soldiers from the 101st Airborne Division this week. There also are elements of the 82nd Airborne Division in Kuwait. If the 4th Infantry Division, whose soldiers are still at their home base at Fort Hood, Texas, is unable to position itself in Turkey it may be redirected to Kuwait. A decision is expected within days. The air force has F-15 and F-16 fighter-bombers, as well as F-117A stealth fighter-bombers, at Al Udeid airbase in Qatar, as well as F-15s, F-16s and a wide variety of surveillance and other support planes at Prince Sultan airbase in Saudi Arabia. The air force also has more than 200 aircraft at two air bases in Kuwait, and other planes in Oman, Turkey and the United Arab Emirates. The navy has two aircraft carriers in the eastern Mediterranean - the USS Harry S. Truman and the USS Theodore Roosevelt - and three in the Gulf - the USS Abraham Lincoln, the USS Constellation and the USS Kitty Hawk.

To: Moneysmith who wrote (15590)	3/5/2003 1:06:39 AM
From: stockman_scott	Respond to of 25898

What Would Genghis Do? By MAUREEN DOWD Columnist The New York Times March 5, 2003 It's easy to picture Rummy in a big metal breastplate, a skirt and lace-up gladiator sandals. Rummius Maximus Pompeius. During the innocent summer before 9/11, the defense secretary's office sponsored a study of ancient empires — Macedonia, Rome, the Mongols — to figure out how they maintained dominance. What tips could Rummy glean from Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar and Genghis Khan? Mr. Rumsfeld would be impressed, after all, if he knew that Genghis Khan had invented the first crude MIRV (a missile that spews out multiple warheads to their predetermined targets). As David Morgan writes in "The Mongols," when the bloodthirsty chieftain began his subjugation of the Chinese empire in 1211, he had to figure out a way to take China's walled cities: "Genghis Khan offered to raise the siege if he were given 1,000 cats and 10,000 swallows. These were duly handed over. Material was tied to their tails, and this was set on fire. The animals were released and fled home, setting the city ablaze, and in the ensuing confusion the city was stormed." In her new book "The Mission," about America's growing dependence on the military to manage world affairs, Dana Priest says that the Pentagon commissioned the study at a time when Rummy did not yet have designs on the world. To the dismay of his four-star generals, the new secretary was talking about pulling American soldiers out of Saudi Arabia, the Sinai Desert, Kosovo and Bosnia. He thought using our military to fight the South American drug trade was "nonsense." He hated to travel and scorned "international hand-holding," Ms. Priest writes, adding that the defense chief was thinking that "maybe the United States didn't need all these entanglements to remain on top." He canceled multinational exercises, and even banned the word "engagement." His only interest in colonization was in putting weapons in space. Then 9/11 changed everything. At the Pentagon, Paul Wolfowitz talked about "ending states who sponsor terrorism." He and Richard Perle said our best bet for stomping out Islamic terrorism was to take over Iraq, rewrite those anti-American textbooks and spur a democratic domino effect. Now, with the rest of the world outraged at the administration's barbed and swaggering style, the Bushies have grown tetchy about the word "empire." They insist they are not interested in hegemony, even as the Pentagon proconsuls prepare to rule in Iraq, the ancient Mesopotamian empire. Bernard Lewis of Princeton, Newt Gingrich and others worked on the August 2001 report on empires, which noted: "Without strong political and economic institutions, the Mongols and the Macedonians could not maintain extensive empires. What made the Roman Empire great was not just its military power but its `franchise of empire.' What made the Chinese Empire great was not just its military power but the immense power and might of its culture. "If we can take any lesson from history it is this: For the United States to sustain predominance it must remain militarily dominant, but it must also maintain its pre-eminence across the other pillars of power." Some demur. A classical scholar, Bernard Knox, said, "Empires are pretty well dead; their day is gone." Niall Ferguson, a professor at Oxford and New York University who wrote the coming book "Empire," said that while "it was rather sweet" that the Pentagon was studying ancient empires, he thought the lessons were no longer relevant. "The technological and economic differences between modernity and premodernity are colossal," he said. Besides, he says Americans aren't temperamentally suited to empire-building. "The British didn't mind living for years in Iraq or India for 100-plus years," he said. "Americans aren't attracted to the idea of taking up residence in hot, poor places." He's right. America doesn't like to occupy. We like to buy our territory, like the bargain Louisiana Purchase and the overpriced amount we were going to pay Turkey (the old Ottoman Empire) to use its bases, before its Parliament balked. At the outside, we prefer to time-share. As the brazen Bush imperialists try to install a new democracy in Iraq, they are finding the old democracy of our reluctant allies inconvenient. nytimes.com