More War for Rudy

Rudy Giuliani will apparently attempt to revive his flagging campaign with calls for more war. In particular, since the surge in Iraq has been so awesome, Rudy wants a surge in Afghanistan as well. Logistics? Rudy doesn't worry about 'em: "When asked from where the troops would come, Mr. Hill did not rule in or rule out reducing the size of the American presence in Iraq, but he also stressed that the troop level in Iraq should be based on the security needs there."

He's also calling on us to wage virtual war against al-Qaeda's websites, which he does concede to be "a tricky one, both from an international jurisdiction perspective (almost all of these sites are hosted on servers in foreign countries) and because there is some intelligence value to monitoring the sites."

Comments

Um, isn't the Democrats' strategy to retreat from Iraq and put additional focus on Afghanistan?

Or did the Democrats want to surrender in Afghanistan too? I forget.

Posted by Al | January 2, 2008 1:13 PM

I think the bigger problem, Al, is that even if we wanted to surge in Afghanistan, we don't have the manpower.

The smarter thing than a surge in Afghanistan would be to cut a deal with the Pushtun. How we can be diametrically opposed to the largest group in the country, and one that has historically defeated every single invader of its country, is mindboggling.

Posted by Greg | January 2, 2008 1:21 PM

When asked from where the troops would come, Mr. Hill did not rule in or rule out reducing the size of the American presence in Iraq, but he also stressed that the troop level in Iraq should be based on the security needs there.

Glad to know that Rudy and his staff think the levels of troops we deploy in various countries ought to depend on the security needs in those countries, and not the number of troops we have available.

Posted by rea | January 2, 2008 2:03 PM

Well, remember that Max Boot and some of Rudy's other neocon friends have proposed that we offer an immediate Green Card to anyone in the world willing to enlist in America's Imperial Legions...err, Constitutional Forces of Liberation.

An under-emphasized aspect of this very serious proposal would be that all these "American GIs" from Uzbekistan or who knows where would probably be pretty willing to "liberate" any recalcitrant portions of America in much the same manner they've been "liberating" large portions of Baghdad and other Iraqi cities.

Posted by RKU | January 2, 2008 2:17 PM

I think Rudy should break out the racial epithets amidst calls for flogging, torture, and martial law.

Posted by Jeffrey Davis | January 2, 2008 2:29 PM

As of February 2007 we still had just over 29,000 troops in Korea (as of May this was more than the US contribution to Afghanistan - PDF). Now, I don't endorse Rudy's eternal war strategy, but Afghanistan is going to need more attention. Seems a new Democratic president could do well to pull 10,000 or so troops from there. Makes the Koreans (South) somewhat more happy as our presence is a constant source of frustration for the liberals there. And, hey, who knows? Maybe something will get done in Afghanistan!

Posted by bubba | January 2, 2008 2:30 PM

Didn't Lou Reed have a song in the late 80s with a line about Rudy blowing up the moon? Sweet Lou was unusually prescient with that one. Although, to be fair to Rudy, he probably wouldn't try that until his second term.

Posted by SK | January 2, 2008 2:31 PM

I agree with Bubba. It's time to end the occupation of Korea.

Posted by Al | January 2, 2008 3:24 PM

The smarter thing than a surge in Afghanistan would be to cut a deal with the Pushtun. How we can be diametrically opposed to the largest group in the country, and one that has historically defeated every single invader of its country, is mindboggling.
Posted by Greg

1.The Pashtun don't want to cut a deal with us. AQ Arabs are married into their tribes, they want Fundies in charge of Afghanistan again as Allah's Will.

2. The Pashtun are not 10 feet tall. They didn't defeat ever single invader to their mountains. The Arabs conquered them, then their descents the Moguls, Then the Mongols. Then the Moguls again, then the Brits. All decided that given the Pashtun's fanatical hostility to outsiders and the fact that there was little of value in Pashtun lands, the best long-term strategy was to withdraw, let the barbarians be barbarians, and control the passes and trade routes in and out.

Rudy is wrong about Afghanistan being something that needs a 100% military solution. We need to get serious about building Afghan economy and wiping out the heroin trade. While most Pashtun areas are not worth occupying, it has the raw materials in certain areas and in the fertile valleys to be a prosperous country. We can do the heroin trade in by buying up the crop, offering non-monetary trades and goods ready for cash that will starve the Taliban and AQ of funds. That will likely push the heroin trade back into the Golden Triangle, but we can live with that. (What would AQ or Talibanis then do to a farmer who watched his heroin crop be cut down but got full market value in a satellite TV, 13 goats, fertilizer not good for poppies but great for beans, 2 years worth of clothing and food, and free non-Islamic textbooks for each kid in each farmers village area? They can't easily confiscate TVs and goats and lose all the middleman markup on illegal grugs)

The Lefty meme that it is "impossible" to staff up the US military is wrong. We have capacity to respond to multiple threats. If we decide we absolutely must, we can explode the size of the US military. When we had less than half the population we have now and 1/7th the GNP, we staffed up 9 million in under a year. We wouldn't need that many...but remember the all-volunteer military was only intended for peacetime and the proviso is always there we can elect to restart the Draft if the threat is high or major war starts. In the 60+ years since WWII, we also have developed the capacity to destroy nations with little manpower using WMD, and we have also developed means to destroy 90% of a mid-sized country's economy and military with precision conventional munitions.

But military is not the preferable path, and if used, should be used on the offensive, in massive preponderance of force, with full civil followup if we wish to rebuild..or used to ensure something we broke as a threat to us stays broke (Carthage).

Posted by Chris Ford | January 2, 2008 4:14 PM

as Clinton showed in the 90s, the military presence in South Korea is a powerful diplomatic tool for dealing with North Korea. While it's certainly feasible to draw it down, it would be a mistake to eliminate it.

Posted by Sandals | January 2, 2008 5:50 PM

Our presence in KS certainly shouldn't be eliminated. Just pointing out our priorities by the numbers. 3-4 small bases with proper strategic support gives all the support KN needs to not fuck around.

Posted by bubba | January 2, 2008 11:17 PM

Our presence in KS certainly shouldn't be eliminated. Just pointing out our priorities by the numbers. 3-4 small bases with proper strategic support gives all the support KN needs to not fuck around.

Posted by bubba | January 2, 2008 11:19 PM

Our presence in KS certainly shouldn't be eliminated. Just pointing out our priorities by the numbers. 3-4 small bases with proper strategic support gives all the support KN needs to not fuck around.

Posted by bubba | January 2, 2008 11:20 PM

"The Arabs conquered them, then their descents the Moguls, Then the Mongols. Then the Moguls again, then the Brits."

And they're all still there, are they, you MORON?

Remember the Brit army that went in, and sent ONE survivor out?

That's us, dipshit.

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | January 3, 2008 12:18 AM

Our presence in South Korea serves one purpose and one only: as a tripwire.

The troops we have there would last less than 48 hours against a major North Korean attack. The North Koreans can drop half a million artillery shells an HOUR on the DMZ and Seoul.

Our troops are there so that if any of them get killed, we can exert our treaty with South Korea to get involved in the war - during which, according to Pentagon war games, we would lose fifty thousand casualties in the first ninety days.

It's stupid to maintain that presence. If the North really ever intends to attack the South, their presence will do nothing to change the outcome.

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | January 3, 2008 12:22 AM

Ford: "If we decide we absolutely must, we can explode the size of the US military."

I'm all for it if it gets your ass sent to Iraq.

"we have also developed means to destroy 90% of a mid-sized country's economy and military with precision conventional munitions."

Economy, yes, worked really well in Iraq.

Not so much, the enemy military.

Nitwit.

You want a nine million man US military to go marching around the world getting rid of governments you don't like.

Meanwhile the Chinese would be mounting a 50-million man military to see to it that doesn't work out so well.

Add in a few million from every place else on Earth that doesn't like the US - say, ten million from the Muslim lands, five million from Africa, ten million from South America - and you'll be speaking Chinese or Arabic before the year was out.

The United States is 300 million people. The world is six billion.

Get a fucking clue.

And for what? So you can beat your chest, chimpanzee, and claim "I'm an American! The most powerful nation in the world!" To deal with some couple thousand "terrorists" who wouldn't even bother with us if we changed our policies next week?

Moron. Worse, a sociopathic moron.

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | January 3, 2008 12:31 AM