August 15, 2004

Bush Plans to Cut Forces in Europe, Asia

President Bush has decided to bring home tens of thousands of U.S. troops from posts around the world — most of them in Europe and Asia — plus 100,000 of their family members and support personnel, U.S. officials said Saturday. The changes will have no effect on forces in Iraq or Afghanistan.

As part of the largest troop realignment in years, Bush will shift about 70,000 uniformed military personnel, most of them currently in Europe, two senior administration officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity. A significant proportion will come home, though it was not clear when.

The decision is meant to "strengthen our ability to respond to threats overseas," one official said, declining to elaborate.

"It will improve our capability to protect America and our allies and ease some of the burden on our uniformed military members and their families," one official said.

Bush will announce the move Monday in a speech to the Veterans of Foreign Wars convention in Cincinnati, the senior officials said.

This probably should have been done 10 years ago, when Soviet Communism came crashing down, but better late than never and after 9/11 and the start of the WOT, this is imperative!
Our troops aren't needed anymore to stop a Soviet invasion across the Iron Curtain in Europe and maybe our "allies" like the French and Germans will stop being so ungrateful and pull their own weight and get their own military houses in order.
For 50 years, countries like South Korea and Germany have sat back and relaxed because they knew they could depend on thousands of our superb troops to take care of any military problems that arose in their back yards!
To quote Cartman from Southpark, they need to "respect our authoritah!" and appreciate what we've done around the world to keep the peace for decades!
For our part, it will give our soldiers an unprecedented ability to deploy anywhere they're needed at any time without bothering about jurisdictional problems like flyover rights and whether their current head-of-state is an America hater who wants to overlook traditional alliances to thwart us, like a Schroeder or a Chiraq.
In places like South Korea, it should take our guys off the front line at a time when they're so much bellicosity coming out of North Korea and the South
Koreans are too inclined towards appeasement and accomodation to a nut like Kim Jung-Il, making an invasion that much more probable.
In general, it shows our enemies that the U.S. military is adaptable and flexible and definitely not schlerotic and entrenched in a fixed system, which is key to nations like China and Russia that see-saw between being allies and enemies with regards to problem spots like Iran and Taiwan.
Welcome back to all of you this will bring back to the homeland!
(I know the Germans particularly are going to miss you!)