Friends And The Not So Friendly

I thought that we would begin redeploying our military forces in the not too distant future, but eh speed with which it is happening is incredible.

We've had substantial Air Force assets in both Saudi Arabia and Turkey since 1991. Yesterday, a significant draw down was announced in Saudi Arabia and now we are apparently all by shutting down in Turkey where we are abruptly going home calling the mission obsolete.

Germany is just now learning that the 1st Armored Division may not be coming back anytime soon. Apparently it will be deployed to new homes in some of our Eastern European allies like Poland, Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria.

The repercussions of these moves should be interesting to watch.

Turkey is already on the brink of an economic implosion and the Turkish Army - the real power in the country - is skittish about the new Islamic government. As we pack up and go home, Turkey will lose the money that all those soldiers supplied, which will certainly not be good for the economy. If things start heading south, which is prime time for the demonic clerics to try to take over, I really wouldn't be surprised to see the Army declare new elections - regardless of the wishes of the government.

In Germany, 1st Armored going away should almost certainly seal Gerhard's fate. This will weaken an already hobbled German economy. It will also point out to the German people just how seriously Gerhard's liaison with Jacques, has damaged German-American relations. And they will start to realize that France never took the risks of Germany. France has no US bases to lose. Both nations risked US trade boycotts and such. Only Germany risked a not insignificant part of their economic base. Gerhard will soon be going into involuntary retirement.

I honestly expected this to happen (South Korea will be the next to see redeployments, just as soon as North Korea goes back into their little crazy cave), I just didn't see it happening so fast. I though that we would go through the base closing commissions and negotiations that we did when we closed so many of the domestic bases a few years back. I really didn't expect us to just back up the U-Hauls one day and say "Bye!"

Bob Irsay has nothing on Rumsfeld and Bush.

Bob Irsay was the owner of the Baltimore Colts football team. He literally moved the team to Indianapolis in the middle of the night one night. The people of Baltimore still don't like him