Posted on 07/16/2006 4:32:19 AM PDT by Alas Babylon!
The Talk Shows
Sunday, July 16th, 2006
Guests to be interviewed today on major television talk shows:
FOX NEWS SUNDAY (Fox Network): Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice; Sens. Christopher Dodd, D-Conn., and George Allen, R-Va.; Philippe Cousteau, president of Earth Echo International.
MEET THE PRESS (NBC): Sen. Joseph Biden, D-Del.; former House Speaker Newt Gingrich; columnist Robert Novak.
FACE THE NATION (CBS): Rice; Richard Haass, Council on Foreign Relations president; Rep. Jane Harman, D-Calif.
THIS WEEK (ABC): Rice; Madeleine Albright, former secretary of state; Kerri Strug, Olympic gold medalist in gymnastics.
LATE EDITION (CNN) : White House counselor Dan Bartlett; Israeli Vice Premier Shimon Peres; Imad Moustapha, Syrian ambassador to the U.S.; Sens. Trent Lott, R-Miss., and Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif.; Mouwafak al-Rubaie, Iraqi national security adviser; Pakistani Foreign Minister Khursheed Kasuri; space shuttle astronauts.
Interesting, I like Newt for his intelligence and political aptitude, but believe his conceit gets in the way.
Perhaps the conceit is symptomatic of insecurity? Politician's downfall = wants to be liked by too many people.
Harman has definitely contracted "electionitis." She used to be credible and respectable .. her pathetic shift in the last month or so has been stunning.
ditto the sick part...Dems/Libs: I cannot put them in the same sentence with the words "patriotic Americans."
Well, the "rest of us" doesn't include me and several others, so be careful whom you presume to speak for. You are entitled to hold your opinion but not to speak for mine.
I think you are seeing a Newt Gingrich that you decided on long ago, not the one who is actually on the air today. That's fine. You disagree with him. That doesn't make you right and hiim wrong, nor do bald assertions that someone is "panic stricken" or "factually absurd" win any converts to your point of view.
You need logic and facts, not invective. You may very well be right and Newt (and I) wrong, but you haven't presented anything that sways me as you haven't presented anything other than noise and smoke, no facts and your analysis, while interesting, is not based on any stated logic or set of conditions that can be checked or discussed.
You are overestimating their abilities, just like was done with Saddam's vaunted military, which was the fifth largest in the world at the time. In the end, they were surrendering to reporters.
Fifty years ago and with considerably less military capability the North Koreans (with Chinese help) managed to fight us to a stand still.
No, we defeated the North Koreans going all the way up to the Yalu. It was the Chinese intervention (and our decision not to use all the weapons in our arsenal) that resulted in a stalemate. The Chinese forces outnumbered the North Koreans 3 to 1. We were still able to project force and power halfway around the world and inflict far more casualties on the enemy than they did to us.
The North Koreans invaded the South, a surprise attack. The Incheon landing, just 3 months after the invasion, turned the tide. The UN troops then captured Pyongyang, the capital of North Korea, and drove to the Yalu River bordering China. The Chinese came in after that and a stalemate ensued. The US did not declare war against North Korea or China nor did we engage in an all out effort to defeat the enemy.
The enemy had all the advantages in terms of terrain, proximity, shorter supply lines, etc., yet they couldn't defeat us even in a land war.
they launch a war there will be no half measures. If they have a weapon they'll use it, screw the consequences. Same with the Iranians and a big segement of our other enemies. The Wehrmacht was one of the most capable and professional fighting forces ever put in the field. They were also some of the most vicious and ruthless combatants of the era, but the relatively primative Russians defeated them (with big help from nature).
The Iranians can't "launch" a war against anyone, because they don't have the logistics to carry it out any more than they could defeat Saddam. The North Koreans can only go south and they would be met by a very well equipped and trained ROK force supplemented by US air power and command systems. I have participated in some war game exercises assuming a NK invasion of the South. In the end, we prevail because of our superior military ability and technical means to oversee the battlefield and coordinate our response. If the NKs use nuclear weapons, it is game over for them.
The Russians didn't defeat the Wehrmacht, but they did inflict enormous casualties helped by arms and supplies from the US and Hitler's mistake of opennng a two front war. The vastness of Russia also strectched the Germans supply lines as the Russians retreated. The Russians lost about 9 million military personnel and 16 million civilians.
Numbers are not meaningless, unless you are assuming that they are facing us directly and that there's nothing else occupying our forces. And they did fight Iraq to a draw for eight years. Imagine what they can do to Yemen or Saudi Arabia if they set out to?
For starters. We would never permit them to invade Saudi Arabia or the Arabian peninsula. The Iranians don't have the logistical ability to project the forces needed to invade SA or Yemen. The Iraqis and the Iranians are not even third rate military powers. They were both incompetent.
And if you don't think the current Iranian or North Korean military with their current weapons could wipe out the Imperial Japanese or German armies of World War 2 in hours then your smoking something.
A silly comparison, but even then I would still put my money on the Germans and Japanese who would use their superior military organization, industrial might, and logistical capabilities along with superbly trained and battle hardened veterans to win the day, espeically if that is all they had to deal with.
We are not living in the 1940s, but in the present. By conmparison, the military power of Iran and North Korea is not that daunting. Israel could mop the floor with either of them.
I'm measuring their ability to inflict damage on relatively undefended opponents. The current axis of evil has the WW2 axis powers beat all to hell. Even their ability to inflict damage on us with our modern capabilities is nothing to ignore. They would have a short and very violoent experience on the battlefield, no doubt about that, but at what cost to our forces or our society, if they were able to choose the battlefield? And don't forget that they may have nukes.
I have no idea what "relatively undefended opponents" your are refering to, but neither has the ability to project their power significantly. If they were to use nukes, then they would be committing national suicide. I just think they are more rational than you think they are. You can come up with all the scenarios and comparisons you want, but the political and military reality is that a direct, traceable attack on the US is highly unlikely.
As to the rest, you just don't see the same world that I do and are not willing to consider other possibilities. Is it likely that it will play out as I have suggested or Newt has implied? Probably not. Is it possible? Absolutely. Any other conclusion is a "failure of imagination."
We have contingency plans for all kinds of events, including thinking the unthinkable as Herman Khan wrote.
#510, that is a great point. I like that thinking, it is like a catchy Cole Porter tune that keeps running around in your head. I always think of a Governor that a Dad would install on the family car when he lets his teenage son use it, and wants to see the Car again in one piece. Daddy Brit is the Governor for Wayward Teenager Juannnie(whiney) Williams. Great thinking.....When I was a kid they pronouced it "Guv a Noor", I have no clue why, it was just they way they thought then I guess.
I have read a couple of articles in the last few months..
One was that there was a very lib dem, running against her in the primary in California...and THAT made her move left.
Plus, I read that Nancy Pelosi has said that WHEN she becomes Speaker of the House...she would replace Harman on the Intelligence Committee..with, JACK MURTHA.
Re Harman: Sometimes I wonder if I imagine that she was once considered a moderate. But perhaps that stance was for the benefit of all the aerospace industry in her district.
Then, Hughes moved a large part of their El Segundo operation to Tucson, Union Oil shut down the refinery... etc.
Much aerospace still in her district, but they *work* there, don't necessarily *live* there.
She has lost her brain, makes no sense on anything she utters.
LOL...yeah, thats it..Malaria...
Zackly what happened.
I think it's actaully worse than you imply.
The Plame outing was the direct result of one easily-disproved assertion from Joe Wilson: that VP Cheney had sent him to Niger and supposedly ignored his findings. Beginning with the Kristoff article and then in his own op-ed, Wilson carefully crafted his words to make it sound like Cheney sponsored him (he went "at the behest of" the VP's office). I remember very clearly---in those first few weeks after his op-ed---all the talking head shows asserted "CHENEY SENT HIM AND THEN IGNORED HIS OWN MAN!!" [i.e., Chris Matthews]. Wilson appeared on these shows and now claims he never said Cheney sent him. Crafty. He sat on those panels and never corrected Chris or Tim when they interpreted it that way---you might say it became "conventional wisdom" that he'd been sent by Cheney.
I'm sure the folks in Cheney's office were simply saying "Who the heck is this guy?! And who sent him to Niger?"
THAT was the issue that led to Plame's outing. It's really very simple...if one is really seeking the truth. The Senate Intelligence Committee report showed definitively that Plame sent Joe to Africa and he had lied about Cheney. If the MSM were interested in truth, they would have recognized right then that they'd been had by Wilson.
Some days, our media really scares me. We don't have a government run media like Russia, but we do have a leftist run media which transcribes whatever the DNC tells them to and leaves the investigative work to the blogs.
I remember too when Wilson wrote that he went to Niger at the best of the VP's office. In fact, I was in an argument with a freeper about this matter once and he tried to say that Wilson never said the VP sent him which is technically correct but only by a hair.
Wilson is delusional at best. I believe he openly discussed his wife's CIA ties. I envision Pal Joey as the Walter Mitty type who in his fantasy world perceives himself to be not just the spouse of a "spy" but one himself. It is as by telling people he is married to a CIA "agent" he automatically cloaks himself in the same shroud of secrecy that envelopes her.
You know where this is from:
What you said is entirely possible...
I have come to realize that Congresscritters seem to be voted back into office based on the "pork" and contracts they can secure for their businesses.
In fact...I think that is why Jack Murtha could get reelected,...in spite of his treasonous remarks.
#567, I always have to give my honest opinion, and I am not alone in those thoughts about you,you are really respected and appreciated here. Oh, jeez I spilled the beans.LOL!
The 20% accounted for by: They love simply to hear the sound of their own voice? Haha.
To Newt's credit, Tony Blankely used to work for and with him and that is one brilliant guy, who also worked for Reagan.
Can't believe Tony is a product of UCLA. lol.
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