I'm ex Air Force. Flight instructor, combat crew, plus did a bit of strategic war planning. Studied military history at the Air Force Academy (class of 1973). I did not see Beck's show, but it sounds like he raised a legitimate strategic issue.
It's almost certain that running away from Iraq would be done under VERY adverse circumstances. Assuming we somehow got our people out, getting our equipment out would be even more difficult.
Believe me. Getting our troops out by air if every country surrounding Iraq suddenly turned hostile would be VERY difficult. Assuming we could provide a secure air space over a hostile country (i.e., an act of war...), planes would need a place to land, and a secure place to take off from. They have limited range, so you can't just fly them to anywhere.
Assuming we could get the troops to Israel, we still could not get their equipment out. That would require naval or land access.
Naval would require loading in a hostile port within easy range of Iranian attack, plus secure passage through the Hormuz Strait. Land would require secure passage through Iraq and Jordan. If both these nations had turned hostile, that would mean fighting our way out.
Iraq is actually NOT our worst problem. Afghanistan is. We have insecure supply lines in Afghanistan. The nation is land locked and surrounded by potentially hostile countries. If we were chased out of the country there is absolutely no way we could get our equipment out. We MIGHT be able to secure the air with planes based on aircraft carriers, but getting thousands of people out with planes small enough to land on an aircraft carrier would be impossible. That means we would have to fly them from the nearest friendly airport. The nearest friendly airport could easily turn out to be India. Under these circumstances we could not fly this type of plane over Pakistan, so they would have to first overfly hostile territory to the ocean, and then take the long way around to India. The logistics would be a nightmare, as would maintaining a secure departure point.
Scoff all you want. But some of the worst military disasters in history were caused by troops getting cut off, unable to be resupplied, and unable to fight their way to safety. For relatively recent examples, look at the British at Dunkirk. Getting their troops out was a miracle, and their equipment was lost. Adolph Hitler blundered his way to the loss of hundreds of thousands of troops in Russia by insisting on strategies that got them surrounded and cut off. Napoleon lost an army when he could not supply them during a Russian winter. The French lost Indochina when a key part of their army was surrounded and cut off from resupply at Dien Bien Phu. The list goes on and on.
With a competent Commander in Chief I would not expect a disaster scenario to have much chance of actually happening. But with the Imposter as CIC, I'm not sure he has the ability to prevent this. I'm not even sure he would WANT to prevent it.
As bad as this alleged National Command Authority is, I still have confidence down the chain of command in their commitment to taking care of our people. I do not believe they would let such an unlikely scenario occur. Neither would Congress or the American people.
Thank you for your logical argument.
It’s frustrating to hear people say “we have these things called airplanes”
As if we’ll just be able to fly over hostile countries with no problem.
I say to those people.. how about you get into a plane and fly over a country trying to shoot you down?
You wouldn’t do it.. but you’d certainly send our troops into harms way. I’m glad those people aren’t in charge or we would have a real disaster.