Uechi-Ryu.com

Well, despite the liberal damnation of Bush's handling of North Korea and Madeline Albright's "brain dead" stament to the effect that:
'We didn't have any tests of Nuclear weapons during the Clinton Presidency, therefore our strategy of 'constructive engagement" worked"

The US was played like a fish and Pyongyang never had any intention of deviating from their goal of becoming a Nuclear Power.

The problem is; North Korea is like a boy who has found and picked up a large Pistol like those of his neighbors.

He has been sitting and trying to figure out how to make the biggest BANG possible with just the 5 rounds in the weapon for a very long time.

Now he has cleaned the rust of the weapon and it will function.

That's why Mature Folk are obliged to keep such weapons away from proven immature egomaniacs. has not the South prospered on its own? Did not a North Korean defector state "you in the South should reunite the country by force"?

The "KoreanWar" has never ended.

Korea, once a united nation, has suffered a in total suppression of indigenous rule and thought thru the Imperialism of Japan, and the injection of Stalinism by force into North Korea . Only in the South has Korea been allowed to reclaim a Korean heritage.

Japan should not have engaged in Empire building in the area.

Being a slave can seriously affect one's view of the world in later years..

The Soviets should never have created and backed this regime.

The Chinese could have let the UN occupy the Peninsula and swallowed their newborn pride in their military clout in their "sphere of influence"..

As a parallel: WE created the monster Saddam. We are paying a heavy price to remedy that mistep.

. As an aside, the problems in Iraq, Iran and their neighbors go well back into the time of the Creation and Dissolution of the Ottoman Empire.

But that's another story.

The Creation and Dissolution of Empires have bloody consequences.

Who then gets to quiet the crazed little kid with his new bangtoy in the East..

How about Japan, China and Russia?

They literally created this insane situation, and now they should sit down together and figure out how to calm the little madman, or forcibly put him in detention.

The Korean people have a deep history and great love of country that has been mostly erased by the continuing exploitation of the peninsula by foreign powers and foriegn ways of thinking since 1910..

For once, the US cannot be blamed for the situation.

We can only be blamed for insufficiently resisting the expansion of Stalinist influence and thought, which we know now is a shallow and deadly way of thinking and rule into the Peninsula.

It is my shallow thought that the Korean people were doing well on their own before their country was crushed and divided.

Unforttunately Korea should have been left united when we had the power to make it so, but we were justifiably tired of War

But, as noted in Brady's Powerful Little Novel "The Marines Of Autumn" US veterans no interest in being dragged back into warfare, let alone a bloody little conflict in Korea.

The veterans of WWII had seen enough war--and, in some significant part , it was these veterans who were tapped to go out again and fight in Korea, along with a rag tag bunch of untried units and draftees.

I cannot unmuddle the bloody recent history of the land of the 38th Parallel, but I doubt I will change my mind as to who should engage in finding a solution, which means: ANYTHING but the US alone handling the matter..

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"All Enlightenment Gratefully Accepted"

John am I incorrect in beleiving the US has a military presence(stationed troops) in South korea ?


while I agree with your post generally , Isnt this just another example of the cost of the cold war , playing war via smaller nations ....

although necessary , How can the US say it had no part in that ?

all the suerpowers have to take responsibility for the fun and games , left alone a natural process would of occured and such states would have developed or self annihilated by now .

No different to Israel , Iraq , Afghanistan ......

I do beleive China has to take the lead in this , but other powers must be carefull pointing the finger , China must be treated abve all else as an allie , already I have seen finger pointing which will only encourage them to thumb there noses at the west , and to side with there troubled younger brother .



Absolutely agree , worst thing in the world would be for the US to have another front .

It needs a joint effort , hopefully a peacefull one , in Fact all operations need more widespread support , but that means everyone playing as a team .

I beleive the US maintains a "trigger" force in the South averaging about 40,000 men.

I have a book on the subject.

I may have been ranting a bit, and did not mean to overlook the US force in the south which has continually manned the DMZ close along the 38th Parallel for over 50 years.

Many of my friends served in this force.

It was a prefered posting in my age group to being posted to Vietnam.

The North's power in the air and on the ground has nevertheless forestalled any US use of force North of the DMZ.

Anyone wounded in or along the extensive fortifications in the DMZ canot look forward to a "Medevac Dustoff" as helicopters are not allowed in the DMZ, and the wounded must be carried out.

I will try and get a TOE for US Forces in the South.

Provocations in the DMZ are not generally publicized.

It is, of course, hard to forget the "chopping up" of US servicemen in the infamous "tree clearing"incident some years ago. I am sorry I can not give more detail just now.

A good "state of the art" of matters in Korea novelized was Larry Bond's "Red Phoenix".

For I moment I did forget our continued and risky presence on the Ground.

I beleive our ground forces, although small, would give a deadly accont of themselves as the small number of Abrams deployed might be a hard nut for NK armor to crack.

JT

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"All Enlightenment Gratefully Accepted"

John I do agree with your point , the US is stretched rather thin at the moment , this situation could not of occured at a worse time , there needs to be another solution . The North Koreans have been contained and prodded and now there at a point where they can take that stick and lash back .

for the first time WMD are the real issue (India,Pakistan,Israel, ,Iraq,Iran) can this be stopped militarilly ? , how long before a rouge state manages to slip one under the radar .

Your so committed to other venues , the most serious threat is the one that possibly cannot be dealt with by force .

these are troubling times .

From what I hear about the country which is not much,

I would think economic sanctions would finish their government.

I don't know who their friends or allies are however.

I have a couple great old history books on the Korean Conflict as it was called from my father in law who served there on the front line for three tours.
He was one tough dude.

F.

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Sans Peur Ne Obliviscaris
www.hinghamkarate.com

Fred:

Point taken, sanctions might effect the people of the DPRK , but I don't think they would affect the Regime.

When the DPRK was suffering, from severe famine, the Regime kept power.

Saddam's Regime kept power in the face of sanctions, although we know his military was severly degraded by Desert Storm.

We know also that he was not able to reconstitute his military in the face of enforced sanctions.

The DPRK does not need to 'reconstitute' its military and has already remained impassive to the plight of its people during a period of severe famine.

Sanctions would take a good deal of time to affect the DPRK, and the military would be the last to be affected.

Backing the DPRK's paranoid regime into a corner may not be a good idea should they possess nuclear weapons even given the fact that Sanctions might degrade the infrastructure of the DPRK to the point that it might not be able to carry on any meaningful conventional military campaign.

A parallel:

In the case of the decision to implement Iraqi Freedom it was apparently determined that, despite the degradation of Iraq's conventional war machine:

1. it was not worth taking the risk of leaving Saddam to decide whether or not he or would not use WMD, as of the date of Iraqi Freedom , assuming he possessed them.

2. if Saddam did not, as of the initial date of Iraqi Freedom, possess WMD, that he had the potential to obtain them (soon) and that he would use them once obtained.

3. if neither premise 1 or 2 applied, it was a both a " good idea" and an attainable goal to displace Saddam, occupy Iraq, and establish a political process and regime to our liking .

Should we then therefore apply this decision making process to the DPRK or pressure others to do so?

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"All Enlightenment Gratefully Accepted"