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Politics : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: JDN who wrote (370006)	3/12/2003 10:25:54 AM
From: CYBERKEN	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 769670

The Turkish political fiasco is a great danger to the potential influence of Turkey in the soon-to-be post-Iraq Middle East. One possible solution to the inferior cultures that (temporarily) survive in Syria, Iran, and the Palastinian regions is the reconstruction of a new, enlightened Ottoman Empire, which can function as colonial governors without the inconvenience of Western powers having to do the dirty work of bumping off the Islamic murderers who survive the change in power. The Turks should have, had they been thinking clearly, offered to PAY US for allowing our massive force to be moved through their territory. The fact that they screwed up their parliamentarian vote simply proves that they are still a primitive nation, like the rest of the ME. NATO has painted lipstick on that pig for half a century-but the pig remains. The situation-providing it is not corrected in the next few days-does, however, play right into the hands of Stud Rumsfeld. Rumsfeld is an unusual type for DOD: an innovative thinker. He is also about to become, for the second time since his appointment, a serious war hero of unlimited influence. Rumsfeld as been trying to convince our WWII-to-Vietnam "political" generals that a massive formation, the equivalent of an army corp, is too large and clumsy to be moved to a point of contact in the 21st Century world in time for a lightening conflict. (His recent statement about moving the US Korean monolith back from the N. Korean frontier was aimed at his own obstinate generals as much as S. Korea. Some of those dinosaurs in the Pentagon must have been horrified, and are now generating tons of classified reports on why such a seemingly minor move courts "disaster".) Should Turkey approve deployment tomorrow, the probability that the forces would reach their deployment points in time for any of the fighting is very low (it was low to begin with, of, course). George Marshall spent a decade on the same problem between two world wars, and rendered an American military machine that swept the Axis Powers before it, then dominated the world for half a century. Several small, efficient "light" force structures, supportable entirely by air transport-dropped into the soon-to-be Kurdish Republic-and bringing hyper-accurate, though still overwhelming, firepower to a battlefield, is right up the alley of what Rumsfeld is pushing at the Pentagon, He's getting huge resistance from generals who cling divisions and corps, and don't want them taken away. (The modern force that's envisioned requires fewer generals, and that's part of Rumsfeld's challenge.) The prospect of this massive support force, watching the Iraq war on TV from their ships off Turkey, will settle the "future force" argument in Rumsfeld's favor for the rest of Bush's two terms. There are future wars coming against the likes of Iran, and possibly North Korea. The new 21st Century light forces, with a new class of generals competent to lead and win wars with them, will be Rumsfeld's, and Bush's, military legacy. And America will dominate the dangerous world of Islamic murderers for the NEXT half century...