Report: U.S. Pacific Command chief tells troops to be ready to 'fight tonight'

TOKYO, Oct. 7 (UPI) -- The head of the U.S. Pacific Command has asked troops to be thoroughly prepared for possible North Korea provocations during an upcoming anniversary.

Adm. Harry Harris told U.S. military personnel at Yokota Air Base in Japan on Friday that they should be "ready to fight [North Korea] tonight," Japanese television network Asahi TV reported.

Harris made the remark during an inaugural ceremony for Lt. Gen. Jerry P. Martinez, who is now in command of U.S. Forces Japan.

Harris, who recently met with Japanese Defense Minister Tomomi Inada regarding enhanced cooperation, described North Korea's provocative actions, including missile and nuclear tests, as the most urgent threat, according to Asahi TV.

http://www.upi.com/Top_News/World-News/2016/10/07/Report-US-Pacific-Command-chief-tells-troops-to-be-ready-to-fight-tonight/3231475866008/

Yes, but to be clear, this does NOT mean that the Admiral specifically believes that war is imminent.

From the linked article:



The "be ready to fight tonight" statement, isn't a call to load the transports and start the bombers heading for N.K., it's a fairly standard general reminder that readiness for war, is a fundamental requirement for all national defense, at all times.

i guess when he said "be ready tonight" could fall into that as well, seems oddly specific on the "when"

I take it you've neither ever been in the Military, nor in any large private enterprise company, and heard a speech by the Commander or the CEO.

This is boilerplate stuff.

If you really want to know whether a military commander is warning of imminent danger don't look at his published SPEECHES. Look to see, did he actually issue any specific directives to move forces from standby/ready, to forward deployment positions? Did he have all forces put on full alert? All leaves cancelled, and all reserves called into active duty? Was additional ammunition and armaments being rapid-shipped to the area of concern?

No. Therefore, again, this is classic rah-rah hyperbole.

You can relax.

looks like you were right... lil kim and the evil NK's didn't attack...

maybe they knew what was good for them!

lol.. i think they'll attack when china tells them to...

One of the things you can get a bit of a handle on by studying a lot of history, though it is tricky, is what used to be called SABER RATTLING.

That's where leaders of various nations make ominous statements, and others make equally threatening statements in return. It can go back and forth for a long time, and still be meaningless in any real way.

There are various reasons for it. In a weaker country, such as North Korea, the leader will boast and puff himself up, and pretend to be on the verge of going to war, often over nothing, but it's because he is trying to get his own people to feel okay about how otherwise poor his leadership is. There's some of this in Putin's Russia as well, although it gets more complicated there, since Russia isn't as weak.

It can be hard to tell the difference sometimes, between plain old "saber rattling," and actual imminent threats, but generally, when the stronger nation (the US in this case) doesn't ACTUALLY go to a war posture, it's unimportant.

By the way, just in case someone doesn't know the old term, it's called "saber rattling" because in the days of silly men wearing decorative sabers all the time, when one of them decided to pretend to be brave and aggressive, he would grab the hilt of his saber, NOT TAKE IT OUT OF THE SCABBARD, but just wiggle it around to make metal on metal sounds with it, as a sort of threat.

People who are about to attack, generally don't do that. They just take their weapon of choice out, and wail away at you.