Posted on 07/12/2011 6:56:03 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
South Korea has joined the only other two countries in the world that have dropped the name of the forthcoming film Captain America and replaced it with the subtitle, The First Avenger. The other two countries are Russia and Ukraine. According to the New York Times, “Although that country [South Korea] is one of Hollywood’s top-performing territories, resentment about the continued presence of the United States military runs deep.”
For years now I have intended to write a column about the most glaring case of international ingratitude of which I am aware. The Captain America story has finally pushed me over the edge.
For decades, there have been anti–U.S. demonstrations in South Korea. And each time I wonder the same thing: Do these people have any idea what that living hell known as North Korea is like? Do these people understand that the United States is the reason they are so free and prosperous, completely unlike their fellow Koreans who had the horrible luck not to be liberated by America? Do these people know how many Americans died to enable them to be free?
Whenever I confront someone who claims that America’s wars abroad were fought for economic gain or to extend its alleged imperialist empire, I ask the person about the Korean War: What imperialist or economic reasons were there to fight in that country?
The answer I most often receive is, “Frankly I don’t know too much about the Korean War.” And it’s a good thing for the critics of America’s wars that they don’t know much about the Korean War. If they did, they would either experience cognitive dissonance or have to severely modify their position on America.
Just five years after a war-weary America celebrated the end of World War II, Americans were asked to fight the successor evil to Nazism — Communism — in Korea, a country most Americans could not identify on a map. In an earlier version of what happened in Vietnam, the Soviet Union and China backed a Communist attempt to take over the southern half of the Korean peninsula — the northern half had been Communist since the end of World War II — and install a Stalinist tyranny over the non-Communist southern half.
Over 36,000 Americans died in America’s successful attempt to keep South Korea from becoming Communist. And another 92,000 were wounded.
So, forgive me for the contempt I feel for South Koreans who demonstrate against the United States and for the two-thirds of South Koreans who, according to a 2002 Gallup-Korea poll, view the United States unfavorably. Whenever I see those anti-American demonstrators or read such polls, all I can think about are the tens of thousands of Americans who died so that South Koreans would not live in the Communist hell their fellow Koreans live in.
Younger South Koreans want American troops to leave their country? Do these young people not know that on planet earth no other country suffers the mass enslavement, mass incarceration, mass death, or the deadening of the mind and soul that North Koreans endure because of the psychopaths who run that country?
And if they do know all this about North Korea, how do they explain why South Korea is so different?
Here is a suggestion: The South Korean government should conduct a national plebiscite on whether America should withdraw its troops from that country. Before the South Korean people vote, the United States should make it clear that if it withdraws its troops and North Korea later invades the south, we will send no troops to die again for South Korea; but we will vote to condemn North Korea’s aggression at the U.N.
If a majority of the South Korean people want us to leave, we should.
The beauty of such a plebiscite is that if a majority of the South Korean people wants American troops out, we have no moral obligation to stay there. And if a majority wants us to stay, the South Korean Left and other ingrates in that country should shut up.
I have been to South Korea and I live in a community with many Koreans. I have always admired their industriousness, work ethic, and strong families. But South Korea is surely the most ungrateful country in the world. And that is all the more remarkable — because it is also the luckiest.
— Dennis Prager is a nationally syndicated radio talk-show host and columnist.
I thought that was Pakistan?
I’m pretty sure they spend a fortune on defense because they sell some of it.
Of course we should. They are a wealthy First World nation. Let them pay for their own damned defense. Also Germany, etc.
Why in the world do we still have troops in place to defend against attacks that are NOT going to come? In case you hadn't noticed, the Red Army is unlikely to attack from East Germany into West Germany.
South Korea spends plenty on defense. Their government is now conservative after kicking the leftists out. We have drastically reduced our forces there. They want to face down the North more than Obama does. Boo hoo if they are xenophobic and if they have leftist bastards demonstrating just like every other country.
Drumming up anti South Korean sentiment is possibly the worst idea Dennis Praeger ever had. Just maybe he is being a bit “ungrateful”.
And as for South Korea’s “cheap products” they are damn good and South Korea like Taiwan is an important economic ally in Asia.
We have troops in Japan because Japan is an incredible strategic asset for us to be stationed in, and because we want the japanese to stand up to Communist China, North Korea, etc.
We really will be finished when conservatives join hands with leftists on foreign policy.
This is, at best, a vastly over-simplified explanation of the war, especially of how it started.
In particular, there is little or no evidence the Chicoms had much at all to do with the decision to go to war. They did not apparently care very much about what was happening in Korea till the UN forces moved right up to their border and MacArthur began making saber-rattling noises about pursuing the Norks into Manchuria.
Just finished a history of the Korean War, and it's much more complicated than this summary. To be fair to Dennis, it isn't possible to put a summary of the causes of the war into a single sentence.
We can do all the “defending’ we need to do from Guam.
North Koreans believe(have been told) the famine is worldwide. Everyone suffers from it. When the defectors make it to SK, they are astonished at the stocked shelves in stores. Many believe the stores aren’t real. It takes them about a year to acclimate to the idea that the immense abundance they see is true.
If the NK soldiers come across the line, they will be unable to resist looting. They are not motivated by patriotism or hatred of the enemy any more. They want to eat.
This dude was nearly apoplectic. He said he was considering going AWOL and if he was joking about it there was no way to tell. He wouldn't even tell anyone why he hated it so bad over there, but he was an odd dude anyway, so no one ever pressed him about it much.
It wasn’t North Korean troops that were the problem in the Korean War, it was hundreds of thousands of Chinese Communist troops. And you think China wouldn’t love South Korea just as it covets Taiwan?
Wake up folks, Southg Korea has a CONSERVATIVE PRO WESTERN government now, it is an essential economic asset and ally of the United States and the West.
And I dont care what they call the movie. WE CAN’T GET OUR OWN MOVIES TO BE PRO AMERICAN!
Defend what from Guam after you leave everywhere to be conquered? Oh, I see, we can defend Guam. Brilliant.
North Korea has a fertility rate of 2.02 and its median age is 32. Its annual population growth rate is .54% or more than twice the South's.
The same argument applies to the Japanese. Let them defend themselves. We should tell the Chinese we're pulling out of Japan, and that Japan has our blessings to build up their own military and acquire their own nukes.
“I thought that was Pakistan”
BINGO. Praeger’s list of most ungrateful countries could easily first list:
France
Russia
Japan
Egypt
Pakistan
Afghanistan
The list could be endless.
They have to do what is in their best interests. The PRC is right there and we’re an ocean away - and elect a$$-hats like Obama.
I suppose Hong Kong’s semi-autonomy is pretty reassuring to South Korea.
We also don't want Japan to develop their own nuclear weapons. And we were instrumental in getting Article 9 into the Japanese constitution that essentially relegates Japan's military forces to a defensive role.
Actually, I think FRANCE should be listed several times!!
There is relatively little left in Germany. The heavy mech units are long gone. What is there is primarily logistics support for the wars in the Middle East.
I totally agree with this. It is past time that we left the rest of the world to sort out their own messes.
The South Korean government should conduct a national plebiscite on whether America should withdraw its troops from that country. Before the South Korean people vote, the United States should make it clear that if it withdraws its troops and North Korea later invades the south, we will send no troops to die again for South Korea; but we will vote to condemn North Korea’s aggression at the U.N.
If a majority of the South Korean people want us to leave, we should.
While I’ll agree that it’s an overreaction to a movie title, I am find with letting South Korea deal with their own defense, as well as Japan.
While the loss of our ports in Japan would be a strategic handicap, the idea that the U.S. is waging a war against communism these days seems a bit passe. We’re waging a war against virtually half the world over idealogical and economic differences, of which communism is just a part.
World War II is over. I’d much rather pull in our troops and revenue from foreign countries and build out our military at home with a huge invasion potential, so that if we ever need a port or an airfield abroad, we can simply take it, hold it, and defend it. The world is a small place these days - I feel like we should brush up on our force projection from U.S. territories rather than foreign ones wherever possible.
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