I HATE being right about bad stuff. Hope I'm not this time.

[arbusto_baboso]

Okay, back in the early '80's, I was predicting German reunification before the end of the 20th century. I had a college professor tell me, in so many words, that I was crazy. History proved me correct, even earlier than I thought it would.

After the breakup of the Soviet Union, and the debate over what to do with the "peace dividend", while others were basically wanting to reduce our military to a fraction of its Cold War strength, I had different ideas. "Go ahead and reduce our nuclear arsenal to bare bones," I told everyone, "and pare down the mechanized units severely, too." I maintained that our future wars would all be small, counter-insurgencies and anti-terror ops, for which conventional arms are ill-suited. I figured Desert Storm was an anomaly, which only fooled folks into believeing our wars of the future would be mechanized, set-piece affairs. I wanted to build up our Special Ops forces, and pay for it by cutting all other military forces way back.

The past few years, I've been shouting long and loud that we'd better start to worry about China. Especially since we give China favorable trade terms even despite her human rights record. I thought Clinton's move to rebuild the port at Cam Ranh Bay was the most brilliant stroke of foreign policy in his administration, and will in future provide necessary anchorages in the Pacific.

So, why the hell are we pulling much-needed garrison troops out of South Korea to bolster a stupid, unnecessary failed effort in Iraq? What message will this send to Peking? Are we just sending them an engraved invitation to roll their tanks on Seoul?

I'm worried that our ill-advised actions in South Korea, as part of an attempt to CYA for our ill-advised actions in Iraq will inadvertently start a major conflict with the only other nation on earth which could conceivably claim superpower status: China.

God, I'm worried. Such a clusterfuck. I hope to hell I'm wrong this time.