Kerry criticizes troop redeployment plan

VOANews.com:

Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry says President Bush's plan to redeploy up to 70,000 troops overseas will not help in the war on terror or relieve an overextended U.S. military. Senator Kerry made the comments at the same veterans convention where the president announced the redeployment on Monday.

Well, moving troops from Germany to the U.S. this won't directly help the war on terror. But I don't see how it hurts. And it does make it easier on troops being deployed troops to various locations if they are based in the U.S. rather than overseas. In essence, we are going to have to send our troops out to fight in various countries. That is why we call it a war. So let's give them a more permanent home they can be at when they aren't deployed rather than having them be deployed in Germany and THEN also deployed to the Middle East. Seems to me this is better for the military personnel, which is good for the military. This line also is interesting:

"And this hastily announced plan raises more doubts about our intentions and our commitments than it provides real answers," he said. "For example, why are we unilaterally withdrawing 12,000 troops from the Korean Peninsula at the very time we are negotiating with North Korea, a country that really has nuclear weapons."

South Korea has very capable armed forces. If they wanted to, they could mop up North Korea quickly and easily. Problem is, any confrontation on the peninsula would result in a huge number of civilian casualties. Seoul is about 30 kilometers from the border and within the range of NK artillery. Even without nuclear weapons a war would be very harsh on South Korea (and worse on North Korea). North Korea is ruled by a crazy person. I mean really really crazy. And even though he should know that North Korea can beat the snot out of him, we have troops there to make sure that he knows that if he attacks, he will be fighting the United States too. Militarily our troops in South Korea are pretty insignificant. Diplomatically they are very important. But the fact that we need to keep a troop presence there so that North Korea doesn't forget that if they attack the South they will also be attacking us, the number we have there currently and the number that we need to achieve that goal are not necessarily the same. It seems pretty obvious to me that we can withdraw 12,000 troops from South Korea and the remaining troops can still perform this mission just fine. John Kerry knows this too. Update: The Raging Squirrel comments on this as well, with more details. And he agrees with me!