"min10011" <min10011@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:wIKG9.192410$gB.38901841@twister.nyc.rr.com...
>
> "G. Rush" <g01drush@yahoo.com> wrote in message
> news:2gKG9.11838$31.3609@nwrddc03.gnilink.net...
> >
> >
> >         Korea has been divided for fifty years. Nearly 100% of modern
> Korean
> > nationhood. Don't you think that it's a long time for a country to be
> > divided and be dependent on foreign protection.
>
> The duration of the division is a testament to the wiliness of the North
> Koreans and the fact that this situation is not about these two small
> countries but about the larger contest between competing ideologies and
the
> powers that back them.  As for the foreign (i.e. US) protection, do you
> realize that most of Western Europe also depends to some extent on the US
> for protection?
>
> >
> >         Well if Korea could beat the thugs in the first place, they
> wouldn't
> > require help. And yet fifty years later the problem of thugs still
exist.
>
> No question that South Korea would defeat North Korea in war.  What most
> non-Koreans simply cannot understand is that the primary objective of
every
> Korean in the world is to see a peaceful reunification.  North and South
are
> one people divided by ideology.  Just as in the American Civil War, the
> final objective is to restore a divided nation and not to punish or
destroy
> an enemy.
        Yes, while you wait for reunification, the North Korean people
suffer. If it was a foreign power torturing, starving and oppressing the
North Korean people, would South Korea idly sit by and do nothing? I hope
not. And the point of the American Civil War was that it HAD to be fought to
preserve the nation. Of course Americans wanted peace, but sometimes war is
the only option.

> > > If US forces were to leave, Koreans would not beg to have them return.
> >         US would not beg Koreans to let them stay either. The main point
> of
> > US presence is deter Kim Jongil from launching an attack against South
> > Korea.
>
> That is not the main point of the US presence in South Korea.  It is an
> important point, but only to the extent that war would severely disrupt
the
> American economy and catastrophically destabilize the politico-economic
> balance of East Asia.
        War in the Korean peninsula will not severly disrupt the American
economy and would not affect the politico-economic balance of East Asia. The
South Korea needs American troops because no foreign investment would flow
into South Korea otherwise. With the aggressive North, American presence
assures foreign investors that it is safe to invest in South Korea.