I think he’s right. Korea would do just fine defending itself. Who is going to invade Korea?
China?
It doesn’t matter if Korea would do fine defending itself (and I don’t believe he knows enough about the situation to make a legitimate assessment). What matters is the message it sends for US allies. South Korea has been one of the closest allies to the US in Asia, and if Washington suddenly spit up with Seoul, what would that mean for Tokyo, Taiwan, and Israel?
And just what message is that ?
That China is contemplating on invading Korea, just because US withdraws? Claiming Korea is a a part of China? No.
And that alone is a good enough reason to withdraw 90% of the troops from Korea. Reason will prevail.
How does Israel fit into this picture, geographically-speaking?
Defend South Korea? Who’s going to defend the U.S. from North Korea’s growing weapons of mass destruction arsenal while it’s busy chasing non-existent weapons of mass destruction in the Middle East?
[quote]Recent weeks have seen growing alarm over North Korea’s nuclear program. This month, numerous senior U.S. military officials said that Washington believes North Korea has the ability to strike the western United States with a nuclear-tipped KN-08 intercontinental ballistic missile. “Our assessment is that they have the ability to put a nuclear weapon on a KN-08 and shoot it at the homeland. We assess that it’s operational today,” William Gortney, commander of the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) told reporters.
The Wall Street Journal reported that Chinese experts believe Pyongyang has already amassed twenty nuclear warheads, and could double that number within a year. That report came on the heels of a widely discussed report by the U.S.-Korea Institute at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS), which assessed that North Korea could drastically expand the size of its nuclear arsenal over the next five years.
Specifically, in its most dire forecast, the SAIS report suggested that North Korea could expand its nuclear arsenal from 10-16 nuclear warheads today, to as many as 100 warheads by 2020. The report’s mid-range forecast was that North Korea will have 50 nuclear warheads in five years’ time, while its low-end estimate is that Pyongyang will have just 20 bombs in 2020.[/quote]
Chump, like the rest of America’s politico class, seems oblivious to the threat from the DPRK’s growing weapons of mass destruction arsenal, one which, I might add, didn’t exist in 2003 when the War About Nothing was launched against Iraq.
Israel was included because it’s an ally of the US that is very, very dependent on its beefy cousin standing up for it in a fight. It’s only tangentially related, but my point was that nothing could undermine confidence in US support for allies like pulling out of South Korea would. Doing so would also basically be saying that we’re OK with South Korea (which is very friendly both with Beijing and Washington) to reallign itself under China’s sphere of influence. That would make Japan very very nervous.
Getting back to the actual topic of this thread, interesting article on alternet.org suggesting that of all the GOP candidates, Trump is the most progressive…
alternet.org/news-amp-politi … -candidate
…which is scary.
That’s U.S. policy – in a nutshell – towards the real evil in the Axis of Evil and its growing weapons of mass destruction arsenal. Ignore it and hope it goes away and if that doesn’t work declare it off topic whenever it rears its head.
I’m disappointed with his stance on Kim Davis. She should have been fined and fired, not imprisoned. While it’s true people would have paid her fine for her, it’s still money lost from the cause because cash is fungible. The argument that the fine would have no effect shows how spiteful and petty the judge who ordered the imprisonment is. He’s also playing right into her hands since this imprisonment will surely be taken as validation. Not that I have a problem with that, just pointing out how foolish the campaign against bakers and clerks is.
Nobody is accusing Trump of leading a nuanced and thoughtful campaign… His tirade against Wall Street is pretty hilarious. It’s almost as if he forgets he’s a billionaire himself.
But as for Kim Davis… She’s obviously very wrong in a legal sense; nobody really doubts this. She openly disobeyed the court and refused to do the job she was elected to do because the context of that job changed. A really good analogy for her refusal to issue wedding licenses to gay couples was: If there is a devout Muslim clerk in some Kentucky county who refuses to issue marriage licenses to Christians unless they first pay the jizya (the fine levied on non-Muslims), is that action defensible under the principle of religious freedom? The answer is obviously no. Ms. Davis is free to believe whatever she likes, but if it makes it unable to perform her job, she should quit and find a new one.
Now let’s talk why she was jailed: she cannot legally be removed from her elected post, except by the state legislature, which is in recess. And she is entirely unwilling to quit gracefully. The federal judge recognized that levying a fine on her would be a one-time punishment that would pass, and she could continue breaking the law and orders from several courts. Break the law, pay a fine, continue breaking the law. That’s what we’d call a repeat offender. So he held her in contempt of court. This is important to note: She is not in jail for being Christian, for disapproving of private citizens’ sexual preferences, or for failing to supply licenses when she should have. She is in jail because she flagrantly disregarded the justice system of Kentucky and the United States and coerced her subordinates into doing so as well. They by all reports wanted to issue licenses but were being prevented by her.
Davis is free to leave jail any time she likes. All she has to do is stamp some papers, or decide to quit a job that she refuses to do. I sympathize with the way that she feels like a victim (even though I don’t agree), but she should promote her cause by starting a non-profit or becoming a televangelist or something more productive than refusing to do what she is being paid to do. The courageous thing for her to do is to resign.
I’m afraid that’s groundless and may be a myth based on and propagated by Korea’s self interest, and that’s exactly what China wants. Presently, North Korea is a joke and South Korea’s strength is disproportionally superior. We all know that.
Which makes US troop in South Korea symbolic and unnecssary.
If US pulling out would make South Korea realign with China, then what does it say about Korea’s true intention currently anyway? An ally of US, oh really? Based on what common interest then?
Furthermore, if US pulling out would make China want to invade Korea, then the conventional wisdom about the entire China’s so-called "core interest "story is nothing but BS. In reality though, China is not capable of invading Korea. So the realignment with China scenario is an excuse. An excuse, likely invented by S.Korean, to not want to reconcile with Japan, which in turn is an excuse to conceal the ambition of surpassing Japan in national prestige.
Either way, keeping US troops in Korea is a scheme of diversion that benefits China and the two Koreas.
Pulling out of Korea and redeploying in Taiwan would easily make the “ally commitment” worry a non-issue.
Also Japan is not likely to worry about Korea more than Taiwan, in today’s world.
That’s U.S. policy – in a nutshell – towards the real evil in the Axis of Evil and its growing weapons of mass destruction arsenal. Ignore it and hope it goes away and if that doesn’t work declare it off topic whenever it rears its head.[/quote]
When did I “declare it off-topic?” Show me that. Stop taking a quote out of context and then using it to put words in my mouth. That’s a low-level troll technique.
You can talk about the weather for all I care. Or the Hubble Space Telescope.
How is North Korea a joke? Tell that to the South Koreans who died on the Yeonpyeong islands in 2010.
The US has a very strong vested interest in staying on the Korean peninsula and to think otherwise shows a confounding ignorance of US strategic goals and concerns. South Korea has been designated major non-NATO ally status – putting it on par with Japan, Isreal, Austrlia and Afghanistan. Obama has called it one of Washington’s most important allies. The country helped the US out in two of its most troubled (and misguided) military campaigns: Vietnam and Iraq. South Koreans have a very positive view of the US and its military, according to polls (for whatever that’s worth). The two are economic friends as much as military friends and are major trading partners.
If the US pulled troops from South Korea, Seoul would have to look elsewhere for support in the face of an unpredictable and bellicose neighbor sworn to the eradication of the South Korean government. There is no way, in any realm of paranoid delusional thinking, that withdrawing US troops from South Korea makes sense to anyone.
North Korea is a joke in the sense that it is not capable in achieving those grandiose plans that it claims it’s going to do, such as wiping out US or S Korea. It won’t cross the border. It won’t win politically. It can’t do anything except repeatedly resorting to ineffective terrorist-ish acts, despite claiming lives. Still, US stationing in Korea has not and will not cause these agitations to stop at all. US withdrawal will not cause it to aggravate either. Speaking about the present situation, what is the US troop there to do anyway?
Every year, someone on that peninsula fabricates geopolitically insignificant events, in retrospect, only to waste valuable airtime and limited attention span. It’s really a show to demand attention (a show put up by someone(s) in the defunct 6 party talks.) If anybody is really wanting a unified Korea, or a sustainable, peaceful, agreeable solution, it would have happened already. Besides the victims who perished in the terrorist acts, it seems like all two Koreas and China rather prefer prolonged stalemate. Russia couldn’t care less, so, WHY, and WHY should the US indulge in the myth that Korea still needs US troops there?
To do what, exactly?
Existing defence treaty with S.Korea is not itself a reason for deployment to continue indefinitely. It’s not a rationale at all. It is merely the result of a presumption that dates back to the Korean war, and the reasons are no longer there. S. Korea today is 100% capable of dealing with North Korea militarily by itself. Its strength surpasses North Korea disproportionally. We’re talking about a state in OECD with the latest US military warez. Just how many more exercises showcasing photos of US and SKorea personnel pointing to a distant horizon are needed?
The reason of US acting as a counterweight against possible China or USSR intervention is gone, period. The US stranded in Korea benefits at least one power - China. Removing itself from Korea, US looses nothing. Who’s going to invade South Korea, seriously?
Here’s what I agree on: North Korea is probably not a real threat – at present. Having a defense agreement isn’t in itself a good reason to keep troops there.
Here’s what I’m very confounded by: How US troops in Korea could possibly help China.
Here’s where we disagree: The point isn’t whether or not North Korea would win a war. It’s about regional stability. Both China and the US prize stability very highly (though they differ on their definitions of “stable”), and the US wants to keep the Korean peninsula from going to war, even if it’s a given that South Korea would wipe the North away. From the Korean peninsula, it can also project its power all across East Asia.
Just as the notion of a North Korean invasion of the south is uncredible, so is the idea of a South Korean invasion of the north. We know that Pyongyang doesn’t have the capability at present to make and launch a working nuclear device, but if there were no overbearing threat of intervention from a powerful army stationed right next door, there is nothing to prevent it from trying to develop that capability.
In short, keeping the US military in South Korea keeps that peninsula stable; on top of that, having bases there is a linchpin of US strategy in Asia.
Would it be as effective to have a big military presence in Taiwan? Probably. But this is not possible in the current political climate. The US would not put bases in a country it doesn’t recognize, nor is there any indication that the Taiwanese people even want this to happen, and most importantly of all, stationing troops here would very likely escalate tensions with Beijing. By all counts, this idea is wishful thinking that is completely removed from the reality of the situation.
It does, tremendously. It helps China by draining US resources, diverting US attention, and finally providing China and N.Korea good talking point for propaganda.
One division of conventional ground troop US-Army on the continent makes no difference, given S.Korea already is far more massive than the N. Whatever that division you think it could do, the same task could be done by existing S. Korean army.
Korea pennisula is stable not because of that one division of US army, but because South Korea’s Military Strength and GDP surpasses N. many times, and because S Korea was accepted in the UN as a sovereign state, which nobody else can claim as their territory. You claim that the peninsula would be unstable without one division of conventional US army . That’s not true.
Barely one division. What do you want it for, beside China using it as an excuse to keep N Korea on live support as a tool for extortion?
That’s the party line anyway. Wouldn’t want to detract from efforts to make Iranophobia the national focus.
[quote]A long-suppressed report prepared by the Department of Homeland Security for the Defense Department concludes that North Korea could deliver on its threats to destroy the United States with a nuclear electromagnetic pulse attack.
The report remains blocked from release to the American public.
However, a copy obtained by Peter Vincent Pry from sources within DHS finds North Korea could use its Unha-3 space launch vehicle to deliver a nuclear warhead as a satellite over the South Pole to attack the U.S. from the south.
Pry, executive director of the congressional advisory Task Force on National and Homeland Security, pointed out that the U.S. “has no early warning radars or interceptors” to stop a missile from the south.
Pry also was the staff director to the congressionally mandated EMP commission, which concluded that the damage from either a natural or man-made EMP event on the nation’s unprotected electrical grid would have a cascading impact on life-sustaining critical infrastructures as well as electronic components and automated control systems.
Along with the electrical grid system, the critical infrastructures include telecommunications, banking, finance, petroleum and natural gas pipelines, transportation, food and water delivery, emergency services and space systems.
DHS conducted the study after the spring 2013 nuclear crisis with North Korea in which the communist government’s leadership threatened a “preemptive” nuclear strike on the U.S. and then released videos depicting a nuclear attack on Washington. . . . In its December 2012 test, North Korea was able to launch a satellite, Cooper and Pry told WND, that could have been a nuclear weapon capable of orbiting the Earth and detonating on command over the United States or anywhere else.
In his interview with WND, Pry said Pyongyang in April 2013 had launched a satellite that was tracked orbiting over the U.S., first in the middle of country and then over the eastern most populated corridor between Boston and Washington.
Pry said that if the satellite were a nuclear weapon exploded above the middle of the U.S., the EMP effect on the vulnerable grid system would have been nationwide.
In its numerous underground nuclear tests, North Korea has been testing low-kiloton nuclear weapons that Pry said was a “super EMP” device designed to emit a large number of gamma rays, a form of electromagnetic energy.
In an interview with WND, Pry said the revelations in the suppressed DHS report are only the latest indications of North Korean intentions aimed at a possible nuclear EMP attack on the U.S.
He said the prospect is the latest in a series of recent North Korean actions. Pry referred to the revelation of a Soviet-era nuclear-capable ground-to-air SA-2 missile that was discovered on a North Korean ship detained in the Panama Canal in July 2013 after leaving Cuba, only 90 miles from U.S. shores.[/quote]
[quote=“Hokwongwei”]but if there were no overbearing threat of intervention from a powerful army stationed right next door, there is nothing to prevent it from trying to develop that capability.[/quote]Wrong logic.
One division of US army on the continent is not the reason why North Korea is weak and a joke. It does not prevent anything. N. Korea simply does not have the economic capability to develop that military capability you suggest it might “try to develop.”
One division in Korea will for sure NOT be used to “project across Aasia” given today’s circumstances. The Koreas and China want that division to be stuck where it is now. But, the centre of gravity has shifted south. Korea is really the outskirt, geo-stratigically insignificant, given the stalemate it is. So the projection you claim is a false reason.
I do observe the two Koreas and China together coalescing to create an impression that the peninsula requires the world’s attention.
It doesn’t. Both Koreas are sovereign states and they cannot invade each other. China cannot claim them either. Russia doesn’t care.
[quote=“sofun”]Wrong logic.
One division of US army on the continent is not the reason why North Korea is weak and a joke. . . . [/quote]
NORAD isn’t laughing:
[quote]April 30, 2015 7:33 p.m. ET
The Pentagon is moving the headquarters for the North American Aerospace Defense Command (Norad) back into Cheyenne Mountain near Colorado Springs, Colo., a decade after having largely vacated the site.
Why the return? Because the enormous bunker in the hollowed-out mountain, built to survive a Cold War-era nuclear conflict, can also resist an electromagnetic-pulse attack, or EMP. America’s military planners recognize the growing threat from an EMP attack by bad actors around the world, in particular North Korea and Iran.
An EMP strike, most likely from the detonation of a nuclear weapon in space, would destroy unprotected military and civilian electronics nationwide, blacking out the electric grid and other critical infrastructure for months or years. The staggering human cost of such a catastrophic attack is not difficult to imagine.
The primary headquarters for Norad, which provides early warning and command and control for the defense of the U.S. against nuclear attack, has for a decade been at nearby Peterson Air Force Base. Critical Norad operations are being moved back into Cheyenne Mountain, and the Pentagon recently awarded a $700 million contract to Raytheon to upgrade electronics through 2020.
At an April 7 Pentagon news conference, Norad Commander Adm. William Gortney noted that Norad is going back underground “because of the very nature of the way that Cheyenne Mountain’s built. It’s EMP-hardened.” He explained that North Korea now has mobile intercontinental ballistic missiles, the KN-08, armed with nuclear warheads, that can strike the U.S. While the KN-08 is inaccurate, it could be used to launch a high-altitude nuclear EMP attack.[/quote]
[quote=“Winston Smith”][quote=“sofun”]Wrong logic.
One division of US army on the continent is not the reason why North Korea is weak and a joke. . . . [/quote]
NORAD isn’t laughing:[/quote]
Kim is.