Posted on 11/26/2010 8:45:17 AM PST by Kaslin
This writer was 11 years old when the shocking news came on June 25, 1950, that North Korean armies had crossed the DMZ.
Within days, Seoul had fallen. Routed U.S. and Republic of Korea troops were retreating toward an enclave in the southeast corner of the peninsula that came to be known as the Pusan perimeter.
In September came Gen. MacArthur's masterstroke: the Marine landing at Inchon behind enemy lines, the cut-off and collapse of the North Korean Army, recapture of Seoul and the march to the Yalu.
"Home by Christmas!" we were all saying.
Then came the mass intervention of a million "volunteers" of the People's Liberation Army that had, in October 1949, won the civil war against our Nationalist Chinese allies. Suddenly, the U.S. Army and Marines were in headlong retreat south. Seoul fell a second time.
There followed a war of attrition, the firing of MacArthur, the repudiation of Harry Truman and his "no-win war," the election of Ike and, in June 1953, an armistice along the DMZ where the war began.
Fifty-seven years after that armistice, a U.S. carrier task force is steaming toward the Yellow Sea in a show of force after the North fired 80 shells into a South Korean village.
We will stand by our Korean allies, says President Obama. And with our security treaty and 28,000 U.S. troops in South Korea, many on the DMZ, we can do no other. But why, 60 years after the first Korean War, should Americans be the first to die in a second Korean War?
Unlike 1950, South Korea is not an impoverished ex-colony of Japan. She is the largest of all the "Asian tigers," a nation with twice the population and 40 times the economy of the North.
Seoul just hosted the G-20. And there is no Maoist China or Stalinist Soviet Union equipping Pyongyang's armies. The planes, guns, tanks and ships of the South are far superior in quality.
Why, then, are we still in South Korea? Why is this quarrel our quarrel? Why is this war, should it come, America's war?
High among the reasons we fought in Korea was Japan, then a nation rising from the ashes after half its cities had been reduced to rubble. But, for 50 years now, Japan has had the second largest economy and is among the most advanced nations on earth.
Why cannot Japan defend herself? Why does this remain our responsibility, 65 years after MacArthur took the surrender in Tokyo Bay?
The Soviet Empire, against which we defended Japan, no longer exists, nor does the Soviet Union. Russia holds the southern Kurils, taken as spoils from World War II, but represents no threat. Indeed, Tokyo is helping develop Russia's resources in Siberia.
Why, when the Cold War has been over for 20 years, do all these Cold War alliances still exist?
Obama has just returned from a Lisbon summit of NATO, an alliance formed in 1949 to defend Western Europe from Soviet tank armies on the other side of the Iron Curtain that threatened to roll to the Channel. Today, that Red Army no longer exists, the captive nations are free, and Russia's president was in Lisbon as an honored guest of NATO.
Yet we still have tens of thousands of U.S. troops in the same bases they were in when Gen. Eisenhower became supreme allied commander more than 60 years ago.
Across Europe, our NATO allies are slashing defense to maintain social safety nets. But Uncle Sam, he soldiers on.
We borrow from Europe to defend Europe. We borrow from Japan and China to defend Japan from China. We borrow from the Gulf Arabs to defend the Gulf Arabs.
To broker peace in Palestine, Obama began his presidency with a demand that Israel halt all new construction of settlements in East Jerusalem and the West Bank.
Today, as his price for a one-time-only 90-day freeze on new construction on the West Bank, but not East Jerusalem, "Bibi" Netanyahu is demanding 20 F-35 strike fighters, a U.S. commitment to a Security Council veto of any Palestinian declaration of independence, and assurances the U.S. will support a permanent Israeli presence on the Jordan river. And the Israelis want it all in writing.
This, from a client state upon which we have lavished a hundred billion dollars in military aid and defended diplomatically for decades.
How to explain why America behaves as she does?
From 1941 to 1989, she played a great heroic role as defender of freedom, sacrificing and serving mankind, a role of which we can be forever proud. But having won that epochal struggle against the evil empire, we found ourselves in a world for which we were unprepared. Now, like an aging athlete, we keep trying to relive the glory days when all the world looked with awe upon us.
We can't let go, because we don't know what else to do. We live in yesterday -- and our rivals look to tomorrow.
Maybe we should try non-interventionism before we go completely broke being the world's policeman. We are pretty close now when we have to borrow from China, a potential enemy.
Non intervention doesnt work.
Some one has do defend the south 40.
We dont need to be agressors, but...we need to have a presence to dissuade the other guy from aggression.
Wow I am sure to be flamed for this but I am surprised by the near unanimity of opinion here that the US should intervene in Korea again.
There have always been wars and always will be wars. The US protected much of the world from agressor states in the 20th Century. We’re broke now and can’t do it any more.
And to those who suggest that advocating a policy of non-intervention in foreign fueds do not understand our history - non-intervention was US policy until Wilson and FDR made it otherwise.
The founders were clearly against foriegn “entangling alliances” as expressed in Washington’s Farewell Address.
Can't have too much of a build up in Guam - remember, it might cause that island to tip over.
A little LESS Hyundai's and a lot more SUBMARINES, tanks and Ships..
OH!. and some nuclear missiles, cruise missiles, and drones.. too..
Well that is always a concern.
We have top level mathematicians running the numbers...
I believe Hyundai is the largest ship builder in the world at this point.
They have the smarts and the means.
I was thinking the same thing. It didn’t take him long to jump to his usual anti-semitic rant!
We only need to have a PRESENCE to dissuade bad actors.
We dont have to attack
It worked pretty well for 50 years except when liberal idiots like clinton and Obama signaled that we wont do squat.
Want to Build nukes mr Il? How can we be of assistance?
Want to commit acts of war Mr Il?
Thats fine, I wont say a peep.
Obama emboldened these turds when he said NOTHING in response to them sinking that SK ship and taking the lives of 50 men.
Now The NORKS are at it again. Who could blame them?
Obama gave them the green light.
(1) It did not begin with Wilson. It began with Teddy Roosevelt and his Great White Fleet in 1907 - a deliberate show of American naval strength and of the USA's ability to project military power worldwide.
(2) Roosevelt did not do this just to show off, in some kind of vacuum. He did this because The Great Race had ended and France as well as Britain had huge colonial empires - empires supported by powerful navies. Moreover, both navies had an aggressive new competitor in Imperial Germany.
America was now confronted with three proto-superpowers and could not afford to isolate itself.
(3) Wilson did not enter World War I because America was immediately threatened or because he just felt like engaging in adventurism and meddling abroad. He entered WWI because he wanted England and France to win and Germany to lose, knowing that if Germany won there would be only one power besides the US, not 3 - and that one remaining power would be a power that America had no historic alliance or ties with.
(4) Buchanan does not seem to realize that having no global presence and backing down from every confrontation invites more problems for the US in the long term than engagement.
A country that will not stand up for its friends will not stand up for itself - isolationism is weakness, not strength. It signals cowardice and vulnerability.
(5) We can afford to project power globally - it's a far more essential expenditure for our national survival than the crippling load of entitlements we pay.
We need aircraft carriers more than we need Social Security.
Dont be shocked if the Chicoms try to retake Taiwan on Obamas watch
What the hell is the purpose of a "protracted cease-fire" that lasts sixty freaking years? This is really no different than a massive public-works project where those who are involved in the design and construction of the project have a vested interest in ensuring that it never gets completed.
Most of the folks you call “the Jews” are critics of the Likud administration in Israel.
Why Are We Still in Korea?
To control the worlds Kimchi supply!
It is so easy to spend other people's money isn't it? Please keep your hands out of my wallet. If you want to spend your own money to pay for policing the world on the other hand, of course, you are free to do so. Deal?
If it comes to war, those armed forces will shoulder 99% of the casualties and the South Korea people will undergo hardships that Americans of 2010 cannot comprehend.
South Korea is not shirking its part. But they are asking for our help.
lol.... I always like to guess who wrote an article, just based on the headline. I guessed Buchanan, and I won my bet again!
Pat is right, again.
Why the hell is the US paying for the defense and spilling the blood of our boys for foreigners, foreigners that don’t even like us.
Koreans hate Americans. They are always protesting us. You just don’t ever hear about it on the US news.
I always laugh when conservatives say we need forward bases abroad when we as a country refuse to protect our territorial integrity and national sovereignty.
Get this: Cslifornia is lost and sooner or later, so will Texas, Nevada, Arizona and New Mexico because we have allowed the Mexicans to fight a war of attrition against us without firing a shot in return.
In fact, both parties support an illegal occupation of the United States that will destroy this country through the demographic shift in 30 years.
So, please explain again why we are at war for other foreigners when we don’t even defend our our territory, our law, our culture, our language, and our national sovereignty?
It is ridiculous.
We spend $600 billion for national defense and none of that goes to protect our own borders.
But hey, let us run and protect the Koreans who hate our guts because they can’t get along with their own freaking people.
Would we want foreign countries interfering in our internal affairs with carriers operating off our coasts?
I wouldn’t.
Not to mention the Germans' nearer-term provocations such as a return to unrestricted submarine warfare, and the Zimmerman note that promised aid to Mexico if they invaded the US....
It's my money. I am taxed at the top of the scale.
You know that commonly cited statistic from the National Taxpayers Union that 5% of citizens pay 60% of the taxes? That's me.
I'm very likely carrying you in some fashion as we speak.
Please keep your hands out of my wallet.
LOL! As long as you keep your hands of my wallet when you retire by forgoing Social Security.
If you want to spend your own money to pay for policing the world on the other hand, of course, you are free to do so. Deal?
I'd rather have my taxes used to defeat our enemies abroad as opposed to my front lawn.
Certainly more than I'd like to see them used to subsidize heathcare and education bureaucracies.
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