we are bold enough to attack two of the three evil Axis what chance do
you think personally we would have against North Korea???


We might now take George Bush at his word: in the wake of the September
11 attacks, he named three nations as the “axis of evil”: North Korea,
Iran and Iraq. The statement had a solid tripartite ring to it,
conjuring images of Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy and Imperial Japan. The
implication was chilling: that Axis, we might remember, damn near
overran the world.

“North Korea,” Bush then said, “is a regime arming with missiles and
weapons of mass destruction, while starving its citizens.” Iran, he
explained, “aggressively pursues these weapons and exports terror, while
an unelected few repress the Iranian people’s hope for freedom.” When it
came to Iraq, Bush was oddly careful, saying it “had plotted to develop
anthrax, and nerve gas, and nuclear weapons for over a decade.” Had
plotted.

We are now, some five years later, left with the realization that
thinking about acquiring weapons of mass destruction will get you
attacked (if you’re Iraq), while actually having them will lead to
negotiations — as is the case with North Korea. In truth, this is not an
incoherent theory of deterrence: the Soviet Union had some 20,000
nuclear warheads aimed at us during the cold war and we spent our time
fighting them in Nicaragua, Chile, the Congo, Vietnam — in other words,
in places where our vital interests were not threatened in the
slightest. In fact, we fought them on every continent in the world,
except Europe, where our vital interests actually were threatened.

But we should not think Bush’s words are a kind of historical conceit;
we fought the Axis by first knocking off its lightweight contender,
Italy. So too, we thought, we would do with Iraq. It was the “axis of
evil’s” Italy. More simply, as one of my colleagues has described it,
the Bush administration went after Iraq because they thought it would be
a pushover, “a Grenada with goats”.

Such glibness is well-placed, for it shows that among the gibberish
being uttered by Bush’s most important policymakers, there is a sense
that perhaps America is not the all-powerful hegemon its class of
neo-conservatives would have us believe. At the beginning of the movie
“Patton” — a classic, played nearly every night on some television
somewhere in America — the great and strutting general faces his troops.

“Men,” he says, “this stuff we hear about America wanting to stay out of
the war — not wanting to fight — is a lot of bull****. Americans love to
fight — traditionally. All real Americans love the sting and clash of
battle.”

No we don’t. At the height of World War II, when we and our allies were
bumping up against the German army, the American army had the highest
desertion rate of any fighting force in the European theater. Dwight
Eisenhower was enraged; there were tens of thousands of men wandering
around behind the lines, “separated from their units”. (British
commanders, by the way, often referred to the Americans as … “our
Italians”.)

That is to say: we didn’t invade Iraq because we thought they had
weapons of mass destruction. We invaded Iraq because we knew they
didn’t. By this through-the-looking-glass logic, the only nations and
movements worth attacking are those that are the least capable of
hitting back. That sounds glib, but it is supported by the facts. During
his recent address before the United Nations Security Council, Bush laid
out a new axis of evil — Hamas and Hezbollah (this is, it seems, the
“axis of not quite as evil, but still evil”). Hamas and Hezbollah were
each mentioned three times. Al-Qaeda, the movement that attacked the
World Trade Center and killed thousands of Americans was mentioned once.
Once. North Korea was never mentioned.

America has a great military man, but his name is not George Patton. His
name is Fox Conner. He was a brigadier general and war theorist earlier
in the last century, and was responsible for tutoring some of our
greatest military leaders — like George Marshall and Dwight Eisenhower.
His view was that dictators would always fight better, because they
ruled by fear. Democracies do not have that, ah, luxury. So, he said,
democracies must follow three rules when it comes to fighting a war:
never fight unless attacked, never fight alone, and never fight for
long. The Bush administration has got it exactly backwards — we attacked
a country that didn’t attack us, we did it virtually by ourselves, and
we have now fought longer in Iraq than we did against Germany and Japan.

So too, we have abrogated the most fundamental principles of diplomacy.
We insist on negotiating with others (when both Iran and North Korea
want bilateral talks), we insist on making demands we cannot hope to
enforce, and we believe that the negotiations should be short, when
everyone knows that constant negotiations mean constant peace.

Don’t think that any of this has been lost on either the North Koreans
or Iran. The North Korean leadership knows we’re not going to hit them —
why, Americans might actually die by the tens of thousands. It’s much
easier for us to hit Hamas, to ship weapons into the West Bank and Gaza
in the hopes of fomenting a civil war. That suits us. So the North
Koreans are safe. And the Iranians are moving as fast as they can to
make sure they will be too.

Look where you get your info shadow eagle...I did and look at the
links.......

http://conflictsforum.org/links/


Links
Media:
Agence Global
Al-Ahram Weekly
Al Jazeera English
Al-Manar
Arab News
Asharq Alawsat
Asia Times
BBC
Cursor
Daily Star (Lebanon)
Dar Al Hayat
DAWN (Pakistan)
The Forward
Gulf News
Haaretz
Inform
Institute of War and Peace Reporting
IslamOnline
Jordan Times
Levant Watch
Middle East Online
Mideastwire
Le Monde diplomatique
New York Times
Open Democracy
Political Theory Daily
Postglobal
Prospect
Topix
Washington Post
Yale Global
Ynetnews
Zaman

Organizations and Issues:
Alliance For Security
Arab Reform Initiative
Bitterlemons International
B’Tselem
Carnegie Endowment
Center for the Study of Islam & Democracy
Council on American-Islamic Relations
Electronic Intifada
Foreign Policy in Focus
Foundation for Middle East Peace
Friends of Al-Aqsa
ikhanWeb (Muslim Brotherhood)
Institute for Middle East Understanding
International Crisis Group
Jamaat-e-Islami Pakistan
Jerusalem Media & Communication Centre
Middle East Research and Information Project
MIFTAH
Oxford Research Group
Palestine Info
Palestine Monitor
Pictures from the Holy Land
Promise
Qantara.de
Rafah Today
Ramallah Online
Palestine Chronicle
Tharwa Project
US Institute of Peace

Much better reading........



BIOGRAPHY OF GENERAL GEORGE S. PATTON, JR.
One of the most complicated military men of all time, General George
Smith Patton, Jr. was born November 11, 1885 in San Gabriel, California.
He was known for carrying pistols with ivory handles and his intemperate
manner, and is regarded as one of the most successful United States
field commanders of any war. He continually strove to train his troops
to the highest standard of excellence.

Patton decided during childhood that his goal in life was to become a
hero. His ancestors had fought in the Revolutionary War, the Mexican War
and the Civil War, and he grew up listening to stories of their brave
and successful endeavors. He attended the Virginia Military Institute
for one year and went on to graduate from the United States Military
Academy at West Point on June 11, 1909. He was then commissioned a
Second Lieutenant in the 15th cavalry Regiment.

Patton married Beatrice Ayer, whom he dated while at West Point, on May
26, 1910. In 1912 he represented the United States at the Stockholm
Olympics in the first Modern Pentathlon. Originally open only to
military officers, it was considered a rigorous test of the skills a
soldier should possess. Twenty-six year old Patton did remarkably well
in the multi-event sport, consisting of pistol shooting from 25 meters,
sword fencing, a 300 meter free style swim, 800 meters horse back riding
and a 4-kilometer cross country run. He placed fifth overall, despite a
disappointing development in the shooting portion. While most chose .22
revolvers, Patton felt the event's military roots garnered a more
appropriate weapon, the .38. During the competition Patton was docked
for missing the target, though he contended the lost bullet had simply
passed through a large opening created by previous rounds from the .38,
which left considerably larger holes.

After the Olympics, Patton kept busy taking lessons at the French
cavalry School and studying French sword drills. In the summer of 1913,
Patton received orders to report to the commandant of the Mounted
Service School in Fort Riley, Kansas, where he became the school's first
Master of the Sword. He designed and taught a course in swordsmanship
while he was a student at the school.

Patton's first real exposure to battle occurred when he served as a
member of legendary General John J. Pershing's staff during the
expedition to Mexico. In 1915, Patton was sent to Fort Bliss along the
Mexican border where he led routine cavalry patrols. A year later, he
accompanied Pershing as an aide on his expedition against Francisco
"Pancho" Villa into Mexico. Patton gained recognition from the press for
his attacks on several of Villa's men.

Impressed by Patton's determination, Pershing promoted him to Captain
and asked him to command his Headquarters Troop upon their return from
Mexico. With the onset of World War I in 1914, tanks were not being
widely used. In 1917, however, Patton became the first member of the
newly established United States Tank Corps, where he served until the
Corps were abolished in 1920. He took full command of the Corps,
directing ideas, procedures and even the design of their uniforms. Along
with the British tankers, he and his men achieved victory at Cambrai,
France, during the world's first major tank battle in 1917.

Using his first-hand knowledge of tanks, Patton organized the American
tank school in Bourg, France and trained the first 500 American tankers.
He had 345 tanks by the time he took the brigade into the Meuse-Argonne
Operation in September 1918. When they entered into battle, Patton had
worked out a plan where he could be in the front lines maintaining
communications with his rear command post by means of pigeons and a
group of runners. Patton continually exposed himself to gunfire and was
shot once in the leg while he was directing the tanks. His actions
during that battle earned him the Distinguished Service Cross for
Heroism, one of the many medals he would collect during his lifetime.

An outspoken advocate for tanks, Patton saw them as the future of modern
combat. Congress, however, was not willing to appropriate funds to build
a large armored force. Even so, Patton studied, wrote extensively and
carried out experiments to improve radio communications between tanks.
He also helped invent the co-axial tank mount for cannons and machine
guns.

After WWI, Patton held a variety of staff jobs in Hawaii and Washington,
D.C. He graduated from the Command and General Staff School in 1924, and
completed his military schooling as a distinguished graduate of the Army
War College in 1932.

When the German Blitzkrieg began on Europe, Patton finally convinced
Congress that the United States needed a more powerful armored striking
force. With the formation of the Armored Force in 1940, he was
transferred to the Second Armored Division at Fort Benning, Georgia and
named Commanding General on April 11, 1941. Two months later, Patton
appeared on the cover of Life magazine. Also during this time, Patton
began giving his famous "Blood and Guts" speeches in an amphitheater he
had built to accommodate the entire division.

The United States officially entered World War II in December 1941,
after the attack on Pearl Harbor. By November 8, 1942, Patton was
commanding the Western Task Force, the only all-American force landing
for Operation Torch, the Allied invasion of North Africa. After
succeeding there, Patton commanded the Seventh Army during the invasion
of Sicily in July 1943, and in conjunction with the British Eighth Army
restored Sicily to its citizens.

Patton commanded the Seventh Army until 1944, when he was given command
of the Third Army in France. Patton and his troops dashed across Europe
after the battle of Normandy and exploited German weaknesses with great
success, covering the 600 miles across France, Belgium, Luxembourg,
Germany, Austria and Czechoslovakia. When the Third Army liberated the
Buchenwald concentration camp, Patton slowed his pace. He instituted a
policy, later adopted by other commanders, of making local German
civilians tour the camps. By the time WWII was over, the Third Army had
liberated or conquered 81,522 square miles of territory.

In October 1945, Patton assumed command of the Fifteenth Army in
American-occupied Germany. On December 9, he suffered injuries as the
result of an automobile accident. He died 12 days later, on December 21,
1945 and is buried among the soldiers who died in the Battle of the
Bulge in Hamm, Luxembourg.

Remembered for his fierce determination and ability to lead soldiers,
Patton is now considered one of the greatest military figures in
history. The 1970 film, "Patton," starring George C. Scott in the title
role, provoked renewed interest in Patton. The movie won seven Academy
Awards, including Best Actor and Best Picture, and immortalized General
George Smith Patton, Jr. as one of the world's most intriguing military
men.

more good reading for you shadoweagle....
http://www.korean-war.info/history/

Heres you a brief of the Korean war. US and UN forces annialated the N
koreans in less than a year driving all the way to the Chinese border in
less than 1 yr.
It was the Chinese, and Americas politics that gave us problems



In initial stages of the war, North Korea's troops overwhelmed South
Korean forces and drove them to a small area in the far South around the
city of Pusan. This became a desperate holding action called the Pusan
Perimeter. Upon the entrance of US and UN forces, American General
Douglas MacArthur, as UN commander in chief for Korea, ordered an
invasion far behind the North Korean troops at Inchon. United Nations
troops drove the North Koreans back past the 38th parallel and continued
on toward the Yalu River border of North Korea and China. This brought
the communist Chinese into the war.

I disagree for the most part with the direction of your post. Here is
why. First on the issue of attacking North Korea, in spite of the
appearance that they are a powerful country they really are not so. They
have about 1% of the GDP of South Korea. South Korean expenditures on
their military outstrip the North's by many times. But in the meantime
the North is pouring everything they have into their machine. The South
puts a small percentage of their economy into growing their military.
The South could whip the North without our help at all at this point.
The North may have a nuke or a few, but they are small relatively
speaking, What 4 kilotons was their test, compared with 10 Megatons that
the US has on the shelf. The Hiroshima bomb was about 5 kilotons, while
the Nagasaki bomb was closer to 10 kilotons.

North Korea is not a world power. They are poor and failing, and
fighting with them just irritates China, who we prefer to have good
relations with.

Now Iraq is a different story. Through the 70s Iraq and Iran had some of
the largest military s in the world. I forget whether they were 4th and
5th or 3rd and fourth, but I think they were 3rd and 4th, with Iran
having the larger force. After that things got more complicated with the
rise of the Ayatollahs and loss of position for Iran as an American
Allie.

But Iraq had several things that were problematic. One was the zealot in
charge. He had attacked his neighbors and that mistake made him very
vulnerable to criticism from outside, and even to attack, clearly.
Besides having a strong military and a penchant for using it, it also
had a source of great wealth in its oil fields and the ability to
harness the revenues for the purposes of developing more dangerous
weapons. Then with the more dangerous weapons and a history of using
them unfavorably, they were ripe for attack.

Another thing, the statement that dictators fight better because they
rule by fear sounds good, but it ignores their motivation and only
addresses their ability. When a dictator fights a war, he gets to
personally reap the spoils if he wins, and if he loses, they it is him
personally who loses everything. Consider Saddam for example, he had a
large country, and all the wealth and advantage he wanted within that
country. When he lost he was ultimately captured and executed, little
reason for him to fight as hard as possible.

I find it interesting that small dictators manage to gain power over
enormous amounts of natural resources and wealth with seemingly no
outside assistance and nobody asks the question of whether they were
helped into their position or takes steps to alleviate the situation.
Seems a little like driving a car with your eyes closed, Three little
monkeys saying, hear no evil see no evil speak no evil, while someone
seizes Venezuela or Iran.

Shakes me haid n rollz me eyez.

Having said all that I'd like to add that nobody has been tending the
garden where North Korea was concerned and you are right that it is a
menace.

But anyway, here is where Bush got it backwards, just my opinion and you
might weigh in here. So far as I know when one country conquers another,
looking back through history for many centuries, the next step is to
conscript every able-bodied man and march him to the next frontier into
another battle. This does several things. First he is paid so he is not
starving. Second he is busy so he can't wreak so much havoc as he might
if he had all his time to create trouble. Then he has to answer to
someone else for his schedule and be on time when his post is due. Then
he is taken away from the hood (his home stomping grounds) where his
gang can gather into units and cause trouble. He is given something
bigger to go after, some objective that they can work together to
attain, in this case conquering their next neighbor. So in my opinion
they need to look back at history and learn a lesson and then gather up
the Iraqis and march them to the next border. Give them a real chance to
determine their own future instead of letting its neighbor defeat them
from within by some manner of subterfuge and unchecked violence. So long
as Iran and other neighbors thrash Iraq, the Iraqi people will have no
peace. For them to stop Iran, Iraq needs to defeat them.

eagle posts a bunch of nonsense

Iraq clearly supported terroist activities and was massing weapons that
could have easily landed in the hands of these terrorists.

Got a couple of bridges to sell you Fed Man..

Ummm, it's national news. There were never any weapons of mass
destruction, so I hope you were being sarcastic.

And I only have one thing that nettled me in your post ShadowEagle. We
don't live in a democracy, we live in a constitutional republic. That's
the way the founding fathers wanted it; due to the length they went
avoid creating such an ineffective and inefficient method of government.

interesting read at



http://www.nationalreview.com/levin/levin200406011433.asp

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June 01, 2004, 2:33 p.m.
A Familiar Place
It got ugly in postwar Germany, too.

With all the nay saying about our presence in Iraq, it's worth noting
that none of these difficulties are particularly new. No postwar
occupation has been without serious challenges, including the occupation
of Germany after World War II. The New York Times ran a series of news
stories in late 1945 reporting, in part, the following:




"Germans Reveal Hate of Americans," October 31, 1945

The German attitude toward the American occupation forces has swung
from apathy and surface friendliness to active dislike. According to a
military government official, this is finding expression in the
organization of numerous local anti-American organizations throughout
the zone and in a rapid increase in the number of attacks on American
soldiers. There were more such attacks in the first week of October than
in the preceding five months of the occupation, this source declared.

This official views the situation as so serious that he and others
are protesting the withdrawal of 1,600 experienced military-government
officers form the German governments on township, county and regional
levels between Nov. 1 and Dec. 15. "We have been talking since the
summer about the trouble that we expect this winter," the source said.
"That trouble has now begun and we meet it with a plan to withdraw
officers from communities where trouble is already being encountered.

"Loss of Victory in Germany Through U.S. Policy Feared," November 18,
1945

Grave concern was expressed today by informed officials that the
United States might soon lose the fruits of victory in Germany through
the failure to prepare adequately for carrying out its long-term
commitments under the Potsdam Declaration. Government failures were
attributed in part to public apathy. The predictions of a coming crisis
are predicated upon three points:

1) The failure to start training a civilian corps of administrators
to take over when the Army's Military Government pulls out of Germany by
June 1.

2) The failure of the Government to set up an expert advisory group,
such as that which existed in the Foreign Economic Administration's
Enemy Branch to back up the American administrators of Germany with
informed advice and provide a focal point in Washington for
policy-making on the German question.

3) The failure of the Allies to decide together, or the United
States for itself, the crucial economic question raised by the Potsdam
Declaration; namely what level of German economic activity is desired
over the long term?

"Germans Declare Americans Hated," December 3, 1945

An exhaustive compilation of opinions of Germans in all walks of
life on their reaction to the United States occupation of their country
was released this afternoon from the confidential status under which it
was submitted to officials of the United States Forces in the European
Theatre recently.

Bitter resentment and deep disappointment was voiced over the
Americans' first six months of occupation, though there was some praise
for the improvements in transportation, health conditions, book
publishing and entertainment.

"German Election Set In Towns of U.S. Zone," December 19, 1945

United States Seventh Army headquarters announced today that plans
had been completed for initial German elections in January at Gemuende.
A statement said that a vast majority of Germans remained passive in
attitude toward politics and displayed no disposition to take over civic
responsibilities.

I think we can agree that the postwar occupation of Germany, and the
rest of Europe, worked out quite well, despite numerous difficulties and
the best efforts of the New York Times to highlight them — as it does
today in postwar Iraq.

Mark R. Levin is president of Landmark Legal Foundation and talk-radio
host on WABC 770 AM in New York.