Wednesday, May 04, 2005

Troublesome Army Song

by Tom Bozzo

Here's the Googlish phrase of the day (or Babel-Fishing, if you will).

Secretary Rice (link via MaxSpeak):
I don't think anyone is confused about the ability of the United States to deter... North Korean nuclear ambitions or gains on the peninsula.
Google English-Korean-English machine translation (*):
North Korea nuclear ambition or it is born the fact that it is soul east regarding the royal tomb power of troublesome army song United States which restrains a profit in the insurgent, it does not think.
Nobody would be confused by that.

Rice reality check: "Myers: Iraq, Afghan Wars Strain Military" (AP, 5/4/05)


(*) The Korean translation feature is marked "BETA." To get this translation, I expanded "don't" to "do not" and eliminated the ellipsis. The translator didn't like the contraction at all.
Comments:
By god! that will put the fear of God into them commie heathens! Let em' think the US is incapable of any more military action if they want to, after all, everyone has an opinion.
 
Tom, I'm not sure what you expect from the military. If you are fighting in two wars, of course it somewhat prevents you from being able to fight another war. The fact that the US is less likely to pre-emptively strike another country should win acclaim from the left. Their old argument is that we are involved in illegal pre-emptive wars, now the argument seems to be that we aren't able to launch enough of them simultaneously because the military is strained.

Here's my googlation of 'damned if you do, damned if you do not' via Korean:

You criticize you, it criticizes.
 
Bryan: I'm incorporating Max's comment on the Rice quote by reference.

My problem isn't with the military, it's with the Bush administration's use of it. It's a problem if an overextended military requires replacing credible threats of force where needed with jawboning.

(That is a great Googlation, BTW.)
 
Even the Marine Corps enlistment numbers are down, which is almost unheard of, and it's not out of fear of having to go into combat in Iraq, it is the reason for having to go into combat there that has dropped the numbers. That speaks louder than any political pundit/analyst or any bunch of surveys that can be generated. These numbers have to be reflecting in military morale in general and it is safe to say this same general feeling is impacting the numbers and commitments in the Reserves and Guards. At best, the US now could put out a small brush fire in some 3rd world hot spot but no more. Since N. Korea is strapped for cash and in my opinion would sell nuke material to genuine terrorists, the short, dull sword of the US only emboldens them. Street sense, common sense tells us this. Iran is confident too, and why not? Israel and Iran may darn well end up in a war and nukes could fly. This is poor, long-term strategic planning on the part of Bush & Co.
 
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