By Tommy Acosta
(April 4, 2013)
Pray, America.
Pray the conflict in the Korean Peninsula does not break into an all-out-war because this one will be quite different than the war on terror our country has been waging for the last decade plus.
We are not invading a prehistoric nation like Iraq whose military was supplied by the very country that invaded it, allowing us to bomb them into submission and wipe out whatever real resistance they had before our soldiers set their boots upon their land.
This time we would be going up against an enemy that is armed to the teeth with modern weapons from Russia, China and other countries we don’t control; perhaps even weapons-of-mass-destruction we don’t know about yet.
North Korea has a million-man army ready to engage our 28,500 troops stationed there. They have jets, missiles and technologically-enhanced intelligence.
They are well trained, motivated and anxious to kill or die for their country.
Impoverished by crushing sanctions, sustained on meager meals and poverty, they have nothing to lose, while China to the north has everything to gain.
If war breaks out our casualties will dwarf those suffered in Iraq and Afghanistan.
In the 1950 Korean War 34,000 Americans lost their lives in battles dominated by now obsolete weapons. Countless others were wounded in what was later called “The Forgotten War.”
Imagine the casualties we would suffer against the killing power North Korea now possesses.
Those 28,500 American soldiers in South Korea will face an army thousands of times bigger. It’s a nightmare waiting to happen.
Further, it’s no secret the South Korean military would be overrun without our leadership and involvement. The burden is upon us.
We had years to prepare and plan for the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan. Logistically, we were ready and mobilized.
In this case, we are not.
Our country is not prepared to bring the number of boots on the ground necessary to ensure victory.
Nor do we have the backing of the international community on this one.
It will be a bloody spectacle because armies will confront armies, unlike the war on terror where the battles that occur are roadside bombings, ambushes, drone strikes and house-to-house guerrilla warfare.
This administration knows that an all-out war with North Korea is something America does not need and cannot handle at this moment.
If war does break out, we will have to shift hundreds of thousands of our military to South Korea to fight its war.
Be sure when the slaughter begins, voluntary enlistments will dwindle.
We would need to replenish our military at home as quickly as possible and that could only be accomplished with a draft.
Obama doesn’t want this. The Pentagon doesn’t want this. Even the military ordinance and equipment industry profiting from the current wars is not ready to meet the demand for weapons this war would necessitate.
So pray America. Pray for the lives of the youth that would be lost in that theater.
And then, in the end, after the carnage, a new “armistice” will be waiting.
What a price to pay for sanctions.
This war will not be “forgotten.”
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5 Comments
Yes… But what do we do when we come up against an insane dictator? If you are advocating lifting sanctions, then you are condoning the insanity that will destroy the planet.
Obama blinked. By the U.S. not testing its new missile in North Korea’s face, we showed them we ain’t willing to go to war. Thank God.
I guess the best place to start is at the end. “What price to pay for sanctions”. As usual, making comments about disaster and fear, easy to write about when you have no solutions or even suggestions.
The Korea “war” was bad, but we had a government who did not declare war. A “Police Action” was the word of the time. When we declare war, we win. When we play political games, we lose troops and in most cases lose the conflict. But for some reason history is ignored so we repeat it.
Are we apologizing for the shortcomings of the USA again for enforcing “sanctions”? We are broke, and what we have given to this country in the past has gone to the elite, the military, and not to the people. So we prop up a government with our tax dollars that kills its own people. Guess it is not the first time, but you would think that doing the same thing with the grandpa, dad and now the son with the same result would wake up someone inside the beltway.
Maybe we have. Maybe Obama “gets it”, maybe. But it would be nice if he started taking ownership of this serious situation rather than racking up another 18 holes.
The risks…they are real as outlined in the article. 1 million guys and gals with guns, and artillery buried in mountains 20 miles from Seoul, yes – big problem. Do they have the resources to keep them fed and attacking – probably to some extent.
Jets? No match for what we have. Navy? Don’t think so. Bombers, maybe, but don’t launch them as we’ll knock them down. Tanks and such, old, and somewhat effective, about as effective as Saddam’s tanks against the depleted uranium Gatling gun from an A10 – on station now and has been for several decades by our USAF. The US is NEVER outgunned – but we need to act like it.
ICBMs? Marginal, but now we have stationed off the coast our first laser system capable of downing rockets, jets, drones or any other aerial hardware they want to put up.
North Korea has been playing this card for decades – give us stuff or we`ll do something nasty. And now you have a snot nosed kid who has to prove himself to the military, those that he has not already sent to the “re-programming” camps.
How do we get into these situations? We through our “leadership” have a tendency to display weakness, and as a result we get stepped on. No different than a child testing his parents. Unfortunately we seem to be the parents of the world, or maybe better said, the “baby sitter” of the world. Our biggest mistake, is that WE DON’T CHARGE FOR IT. We seem to think we have to do it for free. Of course…we are broke.
Without the USA – no NATO, no protection in the far east, no control in the Mideast, and every European country who gives free stuff to their populations with their social democracies can do so thanks to the good ole USA protecting their backs with our military. Are you tired of being a patsy?
I can do the invoicing..what do you think? Anyone tired of protecting the planet and not getting a thank you? Or a check? I know…off topic.
North Korea is a potential mess, and a real threat, and if we handle it like a police action, then we will lose a lot of good people, and so will South Korea. However, if we buck up, don’t mess with this snot nosed kid, and if he blinks, we act…decisively, which is the ONLY thing guys like him, and governments like Iran UNDERSTAND, then losses are kept to a minimum, and more than likely no losses at all. You don’t mess with the 500 lb gorilla, but you have to stop giving the gorilla Valium.
I think we are all sick of “rules of engagement” like our troops are saddled with in Afghanistan. Show weakness, you lose.
Good comment Mike. It deserves a response.
Welcome to the ring.
Solutions? Recommendations? O.K.
If you believe that although we have been jerked around by our political leadership the last four or five decades we are still the most powerful and just nation in the world; guardians of democracy and freedom; then the right thing to do is: have Congress declare war on North Korea, immediately mobilize the military; call up the reserves; send air-craft carriers, squadrons of jets and a half million of our troops to South Korea; demand Russia, China and England, France and Spain send in troops to help us as well; inspire the American public to back our show of force; re-instate the draft; and budget an immediate trillion dollars to the new war effort.
Also, we might want to evacuate California to about 500 miles inland should nukes be deployed and the radioactive clouds come across the Pacific to mess with our newborn and unborn.
If you are an investor in bombs, metals, copper, and corporations that make things that make really big booms, then get in there and invest even more because the return will be like nothing you have ever seen before.
It will be costly in human life, but everybody will make a killing — Russian and Chinese arms producers as well.
As a humble journalist who has seen the wizard behind the curtain, my suggestion is that this administration sit on its hands and buy a little time, call up our “friends” in China and Russia and cut a deal.
The Koreas are the line of demarcation between the forces of the West and those of the East.
Let’s not believe for a second that Russia or China got our backs. The last thing they want is us taking North Korea like we did the south and dropping the dead baby at their doorstep.
The deal would have to be carefully crafted. North Korea would get stuff it badly wants. We would huff and puff and they would do their nuclear power thing with little news coverage on our part so we don’t look weak.
We lift some sanctions. They give a bit on the nukes.
We also must keep the tension going because we don’t want anything happening to our corporate military providers’ businesses should the perceived need for military hardware diminish.
A shaky peace is maintained and America could go back to worrying about gun control, gay rights and legalized marijuana…
How’s that Mike?
Just in the first month of the Korean war the US Strategic Air Command dropped 4,000 tons of bombs. High explosives and napalm.
General Curtis LeMay, “we eventually burned down every town in North Korea and some in South Korea too. We even burned down the South Korean city of Pusan, an accident but we burned it down anyway.”