Posted on 02/23/2003 10:27:09 PM PST by Thud
February 24, 2003
U.S. Approach on North Korea Is Straining Alliances in Asia
By Howard W. French
Seoul, South Korea, Feb. 23
"... To the dismay of Washington, Mr. Roh [South Korean President-elect] has spoken in recent weeks of establishing an economic community with North Korea, stepping up trade, aid and investment there, ruling out economic sanctions and military strikes against the country and even of personally "guaranteeing" North Korea's security.
... "It is better to struggle than to suffer deaths in a war," Mr. Roh said in a speech to the Federation of Korean Trade Unions. "Koreans should stand together, although things will get difficult when the United States bosses us around."
A senior South Korean diplomat said: "It looks like Roh is prepared to throw the alliance away and make common cause with North Korea. We don't understand why he seems to trust North Korea so completely."
While Japan looks nervously at North Korea and is beginning to explore ways to augment its alliance with the United States, South Koreans and experts in this country's affairs are contemplating the end of the five-decade-old alliance between the countries, at least as it has existed, with 37,000 American troops on the front lines here.
"The Japanese are on the spot because the U.S. alliance with South Korea is defunct, and there is no point in insisting on it any more," said Robyn Lim, a regional security expert at Nanzan University in Japan. "The U.S. alliance with Japan is integrally linked with the U.S. alliance with South Korea. Indeed, since the Korean War, the American presence in South Korea has been as much about protecting Japan as it was about South Korea."
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
This is definitely the end of our alliance with South Korea. When the time comes to take out North Korea's nuclear capability, we should take out the whole regime by destroying the railroad tunnels and bridges which hold that mountainous country together. Sure they'll starve, and flood China and South Korea with millions of refugees. But that will be their problem, not ours.
Our government's duty is to us, not to foreigners. North Korean nukes in terrorist hands will kill us at home, not South Koreans or Chinese. If the South Korean army wants to avoid this, it can. If not, we'll either eliminate North Korea ourselves or wait for its nukes to be used by terrorists on our cities.
as in this guy is a commie symp, just like the democrats are here in the USA. They would sell our security and sovereignty down the toilet for a blow job from a two dollar whore... and so would this guy in South Korea.
NOW we pay the price for clintongs oral sex in the oval office... and some day soon, South Korea will pay their price tag for this guys capitulation with the comrade's to his north...
Live and learn... or not learn and repeat...
Bye bye capitalism, freedom and democracy. They will be lucky if they dont' get nuked and invaded anyway...
Japan will not sit still for this. Who can blame them?
We need to get our boys out of that region ASAP
The answer to your first question may be found in this article: http://www.strategypage.com/strategypolitics/articles/20030129.asp, whose pertinent portions state:
"... North Korea's transportation infrastructure consists solely of railroads and coastal shipping. Road traffic requires oil but North Korea doesn't produce any, lacks the hard currency to buy more than a little and so relies almost entirely on free Chinese oil. The rail system's continued viability is questionable at this point. Its collapse would be the regime's final end. Millions would starve in a few months given their weakened condition and the absence of stocks, and millions more would flee to the South and China.North Korea's rail system is also its wartime weakest link. The country is so mountainous that precision-guided bombing of its many unconcealable railroad bridges and tunnels would irrevocably collapse the rail system in less than a month, even if we are then invading Iraq ..."
The answer to your second question is that I believe the public statements by South Korean president-elect Roh reflect what he truly believes and will do once inaugerated. This story is not my only source of information.
I just figured that was the Korean spelling
Sometimes it's good for people to see what would happen if they got what they want.
Personally, I'd like to see our troops out of there, but I'll defer to the more level heads who are running our country now to make that decision. The thought of sacrificing the blood of our troops to save the skins of an ungrateful people just makes me sick.
Actually, this article is pretty much right on the money, and doesn't say anything that isn't common knowledge.
The president-elect said he would replace the current armistice agreement with a treaty between the Koreas in order to ensure peace on the Korean Peninsula.
The DPRK will not agree to a peace treaty until the last U.S. soldier has left South Korea, a position they have held for some time.
Mr. Roh, a liberal labor lawyer with almost no international experience,
This is the most flattering way I've ever heard Mr. Roh described, but it is accurate. He is a very liberal thinker, and has many opinions about America and the North Koreans that are far out of sync with reality.
ashington would have little confidence in Mr. Roh, who has said he would never support the use of force against North Korea.
This is a very telling position. The DPRK is lucky to make it three days without threatening to destroy South Korea. They refer to the government as 'illigitimate American puppets' and openly plan for using force to reunify the peninsula. Roh's position is part fantasy, part cowardice. He truly believes that North Korea can be bought off, risk free.
many complain that the talk of an American withdrawal is fed by the petulance of a United States that is not accustomed to Asian allies articulating a strong vision of their own security interests.
South Korea doesn't have a strong vision of their own security interest. After half a century of looming war, they have grown numb to the threat, and blind to the danger that North Korea really poses.
Therefore, there is one place that needs those soldiers in the theater:
Move the 37,000 troops to Taiwan.
Take that, China. Time to change your plans and ambitions on the island. We're going to defend a free nation against your hegemony.
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