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/begin my translationRumsfeld, "God damn it! Get them out!" U.S. Defense Secretary Rumsfeld Upon watching a bleeding American soldier from TV last year, Professor Moon Jung-in revealed the behind-story of sped-up U.S. pullout Cho Hyung-rae date: 08/27/2004 18:40 26' Moon Jung-in(professor of Yonsei Univ), the Chairman of Presidential Advisory Committee for N.E. Asian Age, told today (Aug. 27), "The scaling-back of U.S. troops in S. Korea is basically the result of changing U.S. global strategy since 9/11 terrorist attacks. However, 'small' mistakes(such as anti-American protests) sped up the process." Chairman Moon said at the monthly breakfast meeting sponsored by International...

US redeployment seen as targeting China Reports of US troop reductions in Asia do not ease Beijing's concern that Washington is focusing on the region By Ching Cheong HONG KONG - Despite media reports about the United States reducing the number of its troops in Asia, Beijing remains convinced that America is shifting its strategic focus from Europe to this region. This is how it interprets the major troop redeployment plan announced by President George W. Bush last week, the biggest force realignment since the end of the Korean War half a century ago. It is reinforced by a fact-sheet...

SPANGDAHLEM - The US Air Force is deploying 1,000 forces to Iraq from Spangdahlem air base in Germany, a base official said Thursday. The forces are elements of the 52nd Fighter Wing, said Air Force Colonel Dave Goldfein. The troop re-assignment comes amid a realignment of US forces abroad that includes possible base reductions or closures in Germany. But Goldfein said the re-assignment should not be taken as a sign to indicate that Spangdahlem was being closed. "At the moment, however, it is impossible to say what the future holds and what sort of forces will be stationed here," he...

The Cold War has been over for more than a decade, but you wouldn't know it from the way U.S. military forces are deployed around the world. That's why President Bush's announcement last week about redeploying American troops is such good news. It is no secret that the U.S. military is stretched thin to meet the demands arising in the wake of 9/11. The redeployment plan will take some of the pressure off while making U.S. forces more flexible, responsive, and better able to contend with the "tyranny of distance." The current overseas base structure is the result of...

TOKYO -- Japanese Kyodo news agency, quoting U.S. and Japanese sources, said Tuesday that as part of its relocation plan for U.S. troops based overseas, the U.S. would send 1,000 marines from the 3rd Marine Division stationed in Okinawa, Japan, to a drill camp located in southern Korea for regular training before 2008. The U.S. will also relocate its 1,190 marines of the same division to Southeast Asian countries like the Philippines on a long-term basis. Through these relocations, about 2,190 U.S marines located in Okinawa will be reduced by 2008. The sources said that the relocations are the first...

JACKSON HOLE, WY – Vice President Cheney today issued the following statement: "Just over two weeks ago, Senator Kerry talked about the merits of troop realignment in Europe and Asia. 'There are great possibilities open to us,' he said. Yesterday he said it was a bad idea. The one consistency we have seen from Senator Kerry is that he is willing to take any position on any issue if he thinks it will benefit him politically. As we saw yesterday, these political calculations even include his positions on our national security."

CHENEY ON KERRY TROOP WAFFLE [KJL] JACKSON HOLE, WY – Vice President Cheney today issued the following statement: "Just over two weeks ago, Senator Kerry talked about the merits of troop realignment in Europe and Asia. 'There are great possibilities open to us,' he said. Yesterday he said it was a bad idea. The one consistency we have seen from Senator Kerry is that he is willing to take any position on any issue if he thinks it will benefit him politically. As we saw yesterday, these political calculations even include his positions on our national security." Posted at 12:02...

THE PROBLEM with being an opportunist is that you can easily forget what you've recently said. On Monday, during a speech to the Veterans of Foreign Wars, President Bush announced that he intends to modify the configuration of American forces in both South Korea and Europe. On Wednesday, Sen. Kerry, speaking before the same audience, sharply criticized the president's decision. Appearing on ABC's This Week on August 1, however, Sen. Kerry responded to a question by host George Stephanopoulos on Iraq. Stephanopoulos asked Kerry whether, as president, he could "promise that American troops will be home by the end of...

MAJOR KERRY FLIP FLOP ON KOREA/GERMANY PULLOUT NOT NOTICED BY THE MEDIA - JOHN KERRY INTERVIEW 8/2/04 BY GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS [1]10:46:54 GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS (ABC NEWS) (OC) Can you promise that American troops will be home by the end of your first term? [1]10:46:57 SENATOR JOHN F. KERRY (DEMOCRATIC PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE) I will have significant, enormous reduction in the level of troops. We will probably have a continued presence of some kind, certainly in the region. If the diplomacy that I believe can be put in place can work, I think we can significantly change the deployment of troops, not just...

Sen. John Kerry is blasting President Bush for his plan to withdraw 70,000 troops from South Korea and Germany. But less than three weeks ago the top Democrat said he thought such troop reductions were a good idea, specifically naming Europe and Korea. "I will have significant, enormous reduction in the level of troops," Kerry told ABC's "This Week" on Aug. 1. "I think we can significantly change the deployment of troops [in Iraq], not just there but elsewhere in the world. In the Korean peninsula perhaps, in Europe perhaps. There are great possibilities open to us. But this administration...

August 19, 2004 -- ON Monday, President Bush announced a plan to improve military readiness by withdrawing our troops from Cold War-era garrisons overseas. This should not be a partisan issue. But it's an election year . . . Every Democrat jockeying for an assistant-to-the-deputy-undersecretary janitorial position in a Kerry administration attacked the proposed basing changes as calamitous: We'll throw away our influence in Europe. NATO will buckle. South Korea will be defenseless. And virgins will be ravished around the world. In remarks on the subject yesterday, John Kerry lied to an audience of veterans. He knows the withdrawal plan...

THE COLD War in Europe is long over, and yet American troops remain deployed in an outdated Cold War configuration. President Bush on Monday announced plans, drawn up after considerable deliberation, to reshape the map of American military deployments. Predictably, the proposal was instantly and lamentably attacked by the President’s political opponents. Shifting the stations of tens of thousands of troops is serious business, with potentially immense ramifications for American security. It should not be treated as just another opportunity for political gamesmanship. President Bush’s redeployment plan emerges, as did the Bush Doctrine, from an effort to view the world...

John Kerry will on Wednesday set out his opposition to the Bush administration's plans to bring home 70,000 US troops from permanent overseas bases, leaving their future dependent on the outcome of the presidential election. Setting out one of the few clear strategic differences between himself and George W. Bush, Mr Kerry is expected to argue that the withdrawal of troops from Europe and Asia threatens to undercut alliances and weakens America's ability to project its power overseas. White House officials described the realignment as addressing an outdated distribution of US forces, a legacy of the cold war ill-suited to...

KITZINGEN, Germany - Hans Seitz has sold engraved pewter plates and cuckoo clocks to U.S. soldiers for years. Now he fears some of his best customers may be going if two U.S. divisions pull out of Germany. Seitz was one of many Germans — all the way up to Defense Minister Peter Struck — who expressed regret Tuesday at the prospect that the United States will withdraw a large share of its 70,000 troops from Germany under plans announced by President Bush. "It would be bad. We would certainly miss them," Seitz, 70, said of the soldiers of the 1st...

...The Pentagon said yesterday that two Army divisions would leave Germany; the withdrawal of 12,500 troops from South Korea has already been announced. More specifics are to come, and the redeployment will take place over the course of the next decade.... The effects of the restructuring will be felt in the U.S. Some 100,000 military families and civilian workers will be returning home. Since a high percentage of troops in the volunteer military are married, this change will make life easier for spouses and children. Troops will be more likely to be deployed abroad on temporary assignments while their families...

August 17, 2004 -- YESTERDAY, George W. Bush announced that the U.S. military would move some service personnel from bases in Europe and Asia to bases inside the United States. The total number of forces involved will range between 60,000 and 70,000. The change will take 10 years to complete. Surrogates and spokesmen for the Kerry campaign went ballistic. "Alarming," declared Richard Holbrooke, the foreign-policy guru who will almost certainly be secretary of State if Kerry is elected. Wesley Clark, who was supreme commander of NATO before his disastrous run for the Democratic presidential nomination earlier this year, thundered that...

Reprinted from NewsMax.com Monday, Aug. 16, 2004Oh, Now the Germans Like AmericaHooray! The U.S. is pulling troops out of ungrateful Saddam-loving Germany, and dollar-addicted Old Europeans are in moaning as their withdrawal symptoms begin. "Base closures would hit us very hard," fretted Ole Kruse, spokesman for the Bavarian city of Wuerzburg, home of the U.S. Army's 1st Infantry Division. Baumholder, a town in rural western Germany, will lose $150 million a year if the U.S. military training area leaves, Mayor Volkmar Pees complained today to the Associated Press. "We view this with great concern," Bamberg spokesman Steffen Schuetzewohl chimed in....

The big story out of the speech, of course, was the decision to begin a major (and very, very long overdue) restructuring of US forces; to bring home a large number of them so that we'd have a larger force available in the United States for swift deployment to emerging threats. The military historian Victor Davis Hanson pointed out to us a while ago that the main problem with large US forces permanently based in foreign lands is two-fold; it engenders an infantile dependency on the part of the foreign land while at the same time building up a reservoir...

BRING GIS HOME: W. By Deborah Orin August 17, 2004 -- WASHINGTON -- President Bush yesterday unveiled plans to bring home up to 70,000 troops from Europe and Asia, with the biggest chunk coming out of Germany. Democratic rival John Kerry's allies instantly opposed the idea. "The world has changed a great deal and our posture must change with it," Bush said as he revealed plans for a massive shift of troops that he said will make it easier to strike fast against terror � and easier on military families. "Our service members will have more time on the home...

SPIEGEL ONLINE - 17. August 2004, 9:14 URL: http://www.spiegel.de/politik/deutschland/0,1518,313617,00.htmlUS-Troop Withdrawal Union Politico concerned about Europe's Security After the restructuring of the armed forces announced by George Bush, the USA's allies are having thoughts about the consequences. While the Japanese and Russians are pleased with the troop withdrawal, criticism is getting loud in Germany. The Union [CDU - opposition political party, longjack] fears a "danger for the security of Europe".. DDP US-Soldiers at US-Airbase Spangdahlem / Eifel Tokyo/Berlin - The reorganization of the U.S. armed forces is better suited to the global security situation, and contributes more to stability and peace, stated an explanation by...