South Korea reels as US backpedals

Asia Times ^ | Jul 24, 2010 | Peter Lee

[Rabin]

As United States Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Secretary of Defense Robert Gates this week met in Seoul with their Republic of Korea , the defining crisis that was supposed to highlight the relevance and effectiveness of their relationship, instead cast an ugly shadow over the event.

The United States failed to organize a vigorous international backlash against North Korea for its sinking of the South Korean frigate Cheonan, and has now exhibited disconcerting second thoughts about its own response.

[Rabin]

Joint US-ROK naval exercises, designed to build on UN condemnation with a massive show of united force and resolve, have instead turned into an embarrassing fizzle….

[doc1019]

Now, Obama, how are you going to blame this on Bush? Nothing like having a wuss a President.

[driftdiver]

Well this will embolden chia head.

[doc1019]

No doubt

[AU72]

But, but I heard tonight on the ‘Fox Allstars’ that Obama’s muscular response to the NORKS was good ‘Gunboat Diplomacy’.

[hinckley buzzard]

The pantywaist Usurper stabs another ally in the back. What filth contaminates the White House.

[ClearCase_guy]

North Korea, China, and Iran are watching and they all like what they see.

[Vendome]

Frickin Dork.

[J Edgar]

Why the surprise? The Usurper is a Communist Ideologue, and a Muslim/Islam believer.

[YHAOS]

"The United States failed to organize a vigorous international backlash against North Korea "

A vigorous backlash against North Korea would have been the destruction of half of its total naval force. Too late now. Prepare for the next provocation. It will surely come.

[OCC]

Mr. Hillary Rodham Clinton dropped the ball back in 1994 and the Norks have been playing us for suckers ever since. We gave them an inch and they took 100 miles.

[okie01]

Now, the ROKs know how the UK and Israel feel.

And we also discover who might be calling the shots for the Obama administration's foreign policy: Red China must've agreed to buy another trillion of our debt.

Appalling. If you're a ROK. Or an American.

[bruinbirdman]

"Perhaps a bigger headache for the United States is the perception that it knuckled under in the face of vehement Chinese objections to Yellow Sea exercises."

". . . it is difficult to view the saga of the wandering naval exercise as anything other than a defeat."

All is going as planned (remember, calling Obama policies "mistakes" is abeting the administration).

The Obammunist is sending another message to his comrades.

yitbos

[Brilliant]

He doesn’t need a “how.” He just does. Everything is Bush’s fault. Nevermind that while he blames the bad economy on Bush, he can’t identify a single policy that Bush had that’s different from his. What was it that caused this bad economy, Obama?

Was it the Bush tax cuts, which you renewed?

Or was it the massive Bush deficits, which you quadrupled?

Or perhaps it was the runaway spending, which you continued?

Or the TARP program, which you expanded?

Or maybe the Wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, which you are still waging?

Or the Bush energy policy, which never passed?

Or Bush’s affordable housing policy, which you supported?

As far as I can see, the only thing that Bush did that Obama has not was that Bush vetoed stem cell research, while Obama signed it. If the Dems think that our economic problems can be traced to that, then I have this question for them: Why didn’t the economy perk up when Obama signed stem cell research into law?

The guy is an empty suit.

[Rabin]

72, Shucks ya say ‘Fox Allstars’ may not all be stars.

When black is white, trounced is victory, and a trillion buck lemon is fantastic, sorta, then rubber duck is a Gun Boat ….

Thanks R.

[Spok]

While Obama vacations and despairs his plunging popularity, the wolves are gathering at the gate. Like Stalin in 1941, he’s surrounded himself with fawning weaklings, without so much as a Zhukov in reserve.

[Rabin]

oki “who might be calling the shots”

Well that is another matter. Our Chinese (treasury) friends have come a long way since the Hong Cong “hand over”. Their “purchase” of US securities uses fiat (hyperbolic printing) instruments. China is in a self consuming mode, and even more bankrupt than we will shortly be.

Cheers, I guess. Rab

[conservativeimage]

ping

[nathanbedford]

It is difficult say whether America is handcuffed more by the fact that North Korea is in possession of the bomb or more by the sheer pusillanimity of the Obama administration. A third possibility exists, Obama, as an American hating leftist who regards the role of America as the great bulwark against encroaching communism to be illegitimate, sees no reason to advance that role.

If your name is Obama and you are a committed leftist, you likely view the Korean conflict the way leftists are known to have viewed the conflict in Vietnam, as the wrong war at the wrong time in the wrong place against the wrong foe. Mainly, it's all wrong because the foe is the wrong foe. A Manchurian Marxist sees no need to take on a communist country on behalf of a "fascist" (and "racist") South Korean state especially at the risk of antagonizing China, a near superpower leftist state.

Why would the man who commenced his foreign policy by apologizing for America's role in the world, act now congruent with that role which he criticized all his career and lately apologized for?

Two observations are in in order. First, since North Korea is in possession of a bomb, our options are limited. That is even more true because our policy has been misguided and left American soldiers at a near the DMZ as a tripwire. The harsh truth is that many of these soldiers would be lost in a nuclear attack or from an attack by biological or chemical weapons. Even a conventional attack would create great American casualties. An conventional artillery barrage alone would likely cause grave damage to the city of Seoul. So our military options are limited and we are not dealing with a rational foe but one who might very well act irrationally. One can question the utility of a tripwire when dealing with an irrational foe. Therefore, the key to containing North Korea lies in Beijing. Either American foreign policy will be successful in enlisting the Chinese to curb the Koreans or our policy ultimately will fail in Korea and possibly lead to war worst and the further proliferation of atomic weapons and the missile means to deliver them at best.

So far, Obama has shown no stomach whatsoever to deal with China on realistic terms. So long as China can use Korea as a lever against America, China has no incentive to cooperate. China will not cooperate as long as it feels that it is more to gain than to lose geopolitically. Obama has shown them no down side.

Second, our impotence vis-à-vis North Korea will only be replicated geometrically vis-à-vis Iran when that country gets the bomb. We will be dealing again with a potentially irrational adversary and we will be at best in a Mexican-standoff position. There will be no China potentially available to curb Iran, rather, Iran will be proactively writing new rules for the Persian Gulf and turning America's nominal allies like Saudi Arabia against us while it gains control over a great percentage of the world's petroleum. In this situation the stakes are not limited to face. They include the stuff, petroleum, without which our nation simply cannot survive. They involve hundreds of millions of potential Islamic terrorists now armed for bomb, another existential threat.

I figure these problems can be solved if we make one more apology and really mean it this time.

[tet68]

he’s surrounded himself with fawning weaklings, without so much as a Zhukov in reserve.

It’s his Ezhov/Beria I’m worried about.