No good deed goes unpunished.
;)
Thoughts?
Yeah North Korea and China would be only too happy to absorb the economic plum that is South Korea.
South Korea ran something like a 300% duty on US cars until they got their auto industry running. Ungrateful merchantilists like the rest of Asia.
50+ years later and we are still there protecting them? I think during 50 years they could build their own military and stop relying on welfare from the US. We need to bring our troops home and stop spending that money.
Japan can make sure they stay on their God forsaken penninsula.
What an excellent (and yet alarming) column. Thank you for posting it.
I have to admit that I had no idea how badly many South Koreans think of our military.
Do they really think their military alone could stop a North Korean invasion? Do their think of our military as an “occupying force”? Do they have any idea just how bad things are in North Korea and do they understand that they’ll end up just like the millions of other North Koreans - starved and oppressed?
I think Prager’s idea is a great one. South Korea ought to hold a national plebiscite based on only one thing - do you want us to leave, Yes or No?
We are in S.K. not for the Koreans but for the Japanesse. Defense of Japan starts in S.K.
I love Dennis Praeger but I can’t believe he wrote such an irresponsible article.
South Korea is now facing down the North with MORE resolve than the Obama administration favors.
In any war, South Korea will be ravaged. They are an incredibly important front against North Korea and Communist China.
It’s only natural that long periods of foreign troops on these nations’ territory leads to resentment. The Japanese want us out at least as badly, and they have been far less committed to their own defense. Has Praeger ever heard of how they hate us in Okinawa? Should we abandon japan?
A gross overreaction to a story about a movie title in South Korea.
And yes of course it’s sickening that South Korean and other nations’ leftists are as suicidal as our own. The left has always been the enemy of every nation it infests.
South Korea is profitable because they do not have to spend any money on defense. We provide it for them. In return, they dump their crappy Hyundais in our market and the sheep by them.
I thought that was Pakistan?
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.
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.
that have dropped the name of the forthcoming film Captain
Korea and replaced it with the subtitle,
The First Japanese-Occupied Peninsula Avenger.
Visited Seoul about 12 years ago. Saw several very large handwritten screeds pasted graffiti-like onto signs, lots of verbiage in Korean. Asked my host what it meant? “Yankee go home.”
When our military is under such budget pressure, departure from South Korea should be an easy line item. Ungrateful the the South Koreans are. Let them defend themselves.
This is such a non-issue.
My second tour to Camp Casey in 1988 was less enjoyable, the people .. particularly those in Seoul .. were far less friendly. I spent a lot more time on-post, even though we could now use dollars downtown and the pass privileges were a lot more lenient.
My final tour to Camp Casey in 1994 was very unpleasant. Other than the Korean nationals, KATUSAs, and the very old people, it didn't seem like anyone was friendly with Americans and, except for specific purchase trips, I pretty much remained on Camp Casey for my entire tour.
After my first tour, I recommended to anyone who asked that a one-year tour to Korea was the best kept secret in the Army. After my last tour, my attitude was that we should let the North have the South, even for just a little bit, so that they would wipe out all of those anti-American student ***holes that infested the country.