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.
I think we are more in NATO to keep them from going at each others throats and to keep the chins from exercising hegemony over that part of the pacific. I also think that the SK military would love the chance to go in and wipe out the NK army and kime. But the chins don’t want a unified Korea because that would put them between two strong economies.
You're forgetting the Spanish-American War, allegedly fought to liberate a centuries-long Spanish colony in Cuba because the Spaniards were being mean . . . and which was also fought in the Pacific (the Philippines, Guam) as well.
With all due respect, why have you adopted the liberal mentality when it comes to foreign relations?
Why should the United States save Europe or any other country from their own stupidity?
Western Europe is made up of advanced industrialized countries with educated populaces.
They have the wherewithal to defend themselves from Russian and Muslim hordes if they choose to do so.
You think they care about the conservative American calvary to save them from their own stupidity and self-destruction?
Europeans hate American conservatives. They think we are all redneck yodels just like the American West and East coasts of the US.
Europeans believe the best foreign policy is appeasement and political correctness.
Why should the US underwrite this or defend it?
Look at their welfare states that are imploding.
According to your theory, we should have American conservative think tanks in the heart of Europe to save them from their own economic self-destruction as well.
What is the old conservative adage: “You can’t help those who won’t help themselves.”
This applies to foreign affairs as well to social policy.
North Korea is accusing the United States and South Korea of pushing the Korean peninsula to the brink of war if the two countries go ahead with planned military exercises this week. Tensions in the region remain high on Friday as sounds of artillery fire were heard in the North near the South Korean island that came under a deadly artillery attack from North Korea on Tuesday. VOA's Chris Simkins has more on the story. Just days after North Korea's artillery attack on South Korea's Yeonpyeong island, more artillery shell fire was heard coming from North Korea on Friday. A spokesman for the South's Joint Chiefs of Staff said no projectiles landed on South Korean territory. Tensions remain high as the top U.S. commander in South, Korea General Walter Sharp, visited the island to survey the damage.
Obama could not be reached for comment.
So you prefer leftist US Jews to right wing Israelis?
Good to know.
Plus no aid the Germans would have sent Mexico would have made it there--or at least not enough to be of sufficient help.
But there was another reason, one which I wonder no one thinks of in today's trouble with Mexico: that country would have had to pacify and assimilate a large Anglo-Protestant population. I wonder why they think they can do this now.
What is wrong is not our involvement in the Koreas, but the fact that we've been paying protection to those North Korean lunatics for decades while they've only grown more outrageous and dangerous, and we'll end up fighting them after all, now that they've got nukes.
Other than protecting millions of innocent people in Seoul from a lunatic with lots of weapons who's eager to kill and overrun them, and containing same lunatic to protect ourselves, I can't think of a single reason. If you're implying that maybe it's time to get on with the battle before it's to late, you might have a point.
I'd rather spend money on Americans than support the rest of the world with our money and our lives. Every country in the world should be able to defend itself and not rely on us.
We spent the first half of the last century fighting in Europe, the second half fighting in the Asia, now we are starting off in the near East, with whispers about Africa and South America. War after war is sinking us as it did the British empire. Time to protect America only. A strong defense and non-intervention is our salvation.
Navy? 708 vessels vs. 160. Air Force? Over 1,500 vs. 500. Granted, it's in the Air that differences in quality will mean the most, but the Norks can use what are basically suicide planes to keep the South on defense in the air for crucial hours or days before the ROKAF could focus all their attention on ground attack. Those hours or days would be crucial, probably decisive.
And all of this comparison ignores the fact that the artillery barrage starting a Nork invasion would probably be the largest artillery barrage since the world wars, if not bigger.
Bottom line: The ROK is already doing what it needs to do in order to defend itself, and it will not be enough. Anyone who says this is none of our affair can say that. But if they say it, they must also say that they are comfortable ceding the Korean peninsula to the Juche Fruit family. To say otherwise is completely unrealistic.
So you support spending money on dumb dumb projects???
Why do you think no aid would have reached Mexico?
Plus, religion had no bearing. The Southwest of 1917 wasn’t exactly booming population wise.
No, the assimilation was not possible due to the Second Amendment. The Mexican government knew that.
Could you back that up? I'm aware there are many protests against us in SK, but the ones I'm aware of are like the protests against us that occur regulary in Japan: Populated mainly by the same sort of fifth column commie bozos that lead our "peace" movements here. In other words, the SK chapter of the Kim Jong Il fan club.
It's also interesting how you guys always say that these foreigners don't like us...
(a) As if we have policies of power projection so we will be liked by schoolteachers and factory workers in foreign lands, rather than for what those policies do for us.
(b) As if you guys would be happy to support these defence efforts if the grateful citizens started sending us Valentine cards, flowers now and then and named all their kids after George Washington and John Adams.
Would we want foreign countries interfering in our internal affairs with carriers operating off our coasts?
Um...are you actually proposing that one country THAT IS STILL AT WAR WITH US attacking another is an "internal affair" we're interfering with? You're really thinking that would be the same as, say, China putting an aircraft carrier off Florida during one of our elections and telling people to vote Dem? Really?
that’s a very interesting reasoning about why wilson got involved in wwi against the wishes of the people
Wilson also repeatedly warned that America would not tolerate unrestricted submarine warfare, as it was in violation to American ideas of human rights. Wilson was under great pressure from former president Theodore Roosevelt, who denounced German "piracy" and Wilson's cowardice.
In January 1917, Germany announced it would destroy all ships heading to Britain. Although Wilson broke off diplomatic ties with Germany, he still hoped to avert war by arming merchant vessels as a deterrent. Nevertheless, Germany began sinking American ships immediately.
In February 1917, British intelligence gave the United States government a decoded telegram from Germany's foreign minister, Arthur Zimmerman that had been intercepted en route to his ambassador to Mexico.
The Zimmerman Telegram The Zimmerman Telegram authorized the ambassador to offer Mexico the portions of the Southwest it had lost to the United States in the 1840s if it joined the Central Powers. However, because Wilson had run for re-election in 1916 on a very popular promise to keep the United States out of the European war, he had to handle the telegram very carefully.
Wilson did not publicize it at first, only releasing the message to the press in March after weeks of German attacks on American ships had turned public sentiment toward joining the Allies. On 2 April 1917, Wilson asked Congress for a declaration of war and four days later all but six senators and fifty representatives voted for a war resolution. The Selective Service Act that was passed the following month, along with an extraordinary number of volunteers, built up the army from less than 250,000 to four million over the course of the conflict. General John Pershing was appointed head of the American Expeditionary Force (AEF) and led the first troops to France On April 6th 1917, America declared war on Germany
Oh yeah, what we got going today is working really well for America huh?
You bet.
Because it gives us a forward operating base in Asia.
It’s really that simple.
lol...
That might have flown in the 1950s, but not today....
China will totally back and would overwhelm *anything* you could cram into SK.
Only way to stop them would be to nuke them...And if that were the case, there would be no need to have an old school, "Forward operating base"...
This aint the 1950s...
These were the incidents that precipitated war - but these specific incidents underlined the larger strategic picture: that Germany had zero respect for the USA and was prepared to act with extreme aggression toward American interests without a second thought. This is why Wilson wanted to do anything he could to avoid confronting a victorious Germany down the road. He could theoretically have kowtowed to Germany instead.
I have traveled and worked all over Asia, actually all over the world.
I have worked with Koreans.
You develop relationships with these people and they will tell you how they really think.
They will come here and get their MBAs, do business with us, and they love that, because that gives them prestige and wealth, but after a few drinks, the contempt comes oozing out. Many think we are a source of all their problems, including their relations with the North. They think we are stupid and uncouth. It doesn’t matter if the president is Republican or Democrat. The feelings were there before George Bush became president and remain with Barack Obama.
There was an incident a few years back when hundreds of thousands of Koreans protested us. It wasn’t a small group of American hating Commies. I think it was one those cases of American servicemen raping local women or somebody getting somebody killed.
I was in Asia during 9/11.
There was the official line, the mainstream media line, and there was the man on the street.
The man on the street thought we got what we deserved.
American conservatives better get this and get it quick: We Americans only have each other. Nobody is going to EVER bail us out. If Mexico invaded tomorrow, the world would unite behind Mexico. I truly believe this.
Liberals need to get this also, instead of worrying about what the world thinks.
The world doesn’t give a damn about us.
They only care when they need to be bailed out of a crisis of their own making and need our money and military.
As for Korea, we never declared war with them. It was a UN police action that got us involved.
The NK aren’t bombing our islands or sinking our submarines.
They are insane, but not that insane.
Thank you for that bit of reality.
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