EXTORTION v INCOMPETENCE?

[BLUEHAWK]

Hi Hardcore -
Well, all true what you said, the way you said it.

I gotta believe that the greatest majority of any people anywhere simply would prefer to live peacefully, going about the mundane activities of life as best they can. In that way everyone is and has always been pretty much identical. Would very many Americans be willing to state that our own southerners and northerners are as different as fire and water? If they did say so, how is it possible that they would be correct? Are we not a UNITED States? At the human core we are all the same. Only our governments differ.

Governments and economics sure do get themselves all worked up over a lot of other stuff though, don't they. The only "Pukes" I've ever noticed throughout recorded history are either criminals or power-mad government officials. And, for that whole time we've been allowing 5% of us to terrorize everybody else. THAT is why we gotta have peace. This war thing hasn't served us very well.

I haven't a doubt in my mind or heart that both peoples DO most sincerely desire and long for peace in Korea (and everywhere else!). Sometimes, as in Korea today, their own and other governments just won't LET it happen.

If the United States Navy were positioned surrounding Korea, Mr. Kim Dong Illness would NOT be allowed to do anything of the sort like invading the South. If we were not timid about this rule against that hideous man and his accomplices, and would act on it at the time, there could be a chance. Committing suicide-by-US Navy is definitely NOT a good way to die. Since we do have this power, why not use it? If getting rid of tyrants is an honorable moral cause, then why not set them up to be gotten rid of legally and out in the open, without any fabricated and complex justifications. Seems like that is what our President's father did about Kuwait some years ago, and a WHOLE bunch of other major allies joined in. Their mission was to get the Iraqi army out of Kuwait. They did that. Knowing then what we know now about the Baathist regime in Iraq all along, it would have been just as acceptable to have gone to Baghdad at the time instead of now.

I can see it clear as a bell in my mind... set up the Treaty, let everybody know what the cost will be if there is any violence against the South, and then wait it out. That seems to be a better idea than waiting NOTHING out like we're doing. In fact, it could be said that our waiting stance has helped create the problem.

I honestly do not believe that the South would agree that this would be a forced reunification. From what I have been seeing there are plenty of people on both sides who desperately WANT their country back together.

This is not appeasement! It could mean an end to a 50-year tragedy which has not improved one iota in the meantime.

What are the alternatives? Go to war against North Korea? If we're gonna come to that conclusion, then we had best reinstitute the draft here at home and increase the defense budget. Piddling around with this idiotic armistice any longer is just getting to be absurd when there are other possibilities nobody seems willing to try.

The only "deadly foes" involved are the GOVERNMENTS involved! The Korean people could care less, North or South, that is a pretty sure wager; radical fanatics notwithstanding. They have theirs, and we have ours, and they're all cuasing way too much suffering for everybody else. Koreans want peace, or at minimumn an end to this endless conflict and danger. To think that a country such as ours is, and claims to be, would allow itself to be stalemated and potentially impoverished by a selfish arrogant faulty regime on 50% of a tiny penninsula with a civilization thousands of years older than ours is just plain crazy.

Kim Jong Il will not be transformed, nor will his buddies who also benefit from that regime. We know that. If Israel can take out Iraq's nuclear capability with one accurate missile strike, then America can take out North Korea's, tomorrow. How could China do anything but object superficially and be exceedingly grateful behind closed doors... and owe us a big one.

Give 'em one warning with a time limit. Either come to the table and stay until there is a Treaty reunifying Korea, dismantle the production of fissile material immediately, join the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, voluntarily take down the artificial border separating the sides, or else.

What the hell do any of us truly know. The decisions have already been made, and we're just gonna have to live with it... not a one of us would disagree that what we most want and need is peace, and what we least want or need is war. Then, why so much emphasis on war?

[Seascamp]

Blue,

It is my belief that the roots of the Korean solution are to be found in DC, Tokyo, Seoul and Beijing. Once everyone has a common vision, agreements made, etc., I believe things have a chance to de-escalate and maybe wiser minds will prevail, maybe. As to an experiment in communism, that?s unworkable. I do business with the PRC all the time and the last thing I would call them is orthodox communist but more or less free market economy communists of a sort, a dichotomy in terms for sure, but they seem to make it work after a fashion. The more they grow and press forward the more likely an agreement among the Capitals named can be achieved and the less likely they will be interested is seeing the South Korean industry be nationalized by Kim and co. or whatever communist organization comes about. And horrors of horrors, no one and I mean no one trusts the Korean Communists to get their grippers on the south?s industrial infrastructure as that would be a disaster of global proportions and a instant escalation or the regional arms race, big time.

So if I were to buy stock in a workable concept, it would be that the US, PRC, Japan and South Korea reach an agreement on what would be acceptable on the Korean peninsula, wait out Kim and just let North Korea come to the conclusion that they would be infinitely better off to get in with the other four and be part and key in the agreement making process. I have no issue with some areas of Korea having Communist representation but I have a huge problem with them getting their hands on South Korea?s industrial might. I fear that would just be a huge cup of hemlock for the region and for the Pacific Rim in general. I believe that would be an act of giving the extortionists an AK 47 in exchange for a peashooter, big mistake for absolute certain.

Scamp

[HARDCORE]

Well said gents! A varience of opinion is healthy thing, don't you think?

VERITAS

[BLUEHAWK]

Seascamp -

There's honor in how you envision the solution, for sure and no doubt. And, I fully realize that what you are saying resembles the tack our government is supposedly taking. I only hope that State and Defense don't slug this one out like they did Iraq, ending up with a relatively meaningless compromise in which the Hawks win again.

I hope and pray that it is a successful strategy.

If I trusted the Chinese government one iota, then I'd have more confidence in the plan. I don't and will never trust them, I've got maybe only 20 years or so of life remaining as it is. Even if all the parties do get to the table, I'd be watching my back long after the Treaty was signed. Korea is a pimple on China's rear-end, but they would dearly LOVE to have it be one of their protectorates again. The Chinese NEVER give or give up anything without a real big price... and since everybody is going around calling America the "sole remaining super power", I am dead sure the Chinese would take exception to that claim, and undermine it in extremely subtle ways; one of which would be to have concealed from us the price we will end up paying. Another way the Chinese can enhance their own national security is to do little or nothing to aid American diplomacy, let us take the heat (like most nations do) in 120 other countries where our troops are stationed, watch us use our wealth up and then step in if we become too weakened to resist. One of the traits that makes me proud to be an American, with all our faults, is that we usually try to be generous and trustworthy.

One question to you, and Hardcore (or anyone else) then:

- HOW LONG should North Korea be waited out before they are given an absolute deadline?

[Seascamp]

Blue,

My only hope in this scenario is that the PRC is slowly moving toward a more open, less orthodox communist society. I wouldn?t go so far as to say pro west but a lot less anti-west would be appropriate. Without their influence in the North Korea situation, I think our options range between do very little and super mega grim stuff. In terms of my business relationship with the PRC, they know the rules and abide by them and none of that has come to any grief at all. But on the other hand, I?m not sure I trust them Red Party Bubbas at all. Great hosts, but that was probably what the fattened up thanksgiving turkey thought on the way to the chopping block.

Scamp

[BLUEHAWK]

Scamp,
Though I was a college man (not much of one frankly) in the late 60s, I did not actually read the COMMUNIST MANIFESTO until I was about 50 years old. It was the only thing I cared to peruse off my girlfriend's bathroom bookshelf at the time. I was mainly interested in learning about how the authors had talked about the so-called inevitable failure of all other political systems. Well, we now know that particular aspect of their theory was faulty...communists have the same problems everyone else does with greed, corruption and the like, plus they made the fatal error of aetheism. This weird form of Republican Democracy Federalist United States thing we've had going here survived the inevitable.

So, one day Tricky Dick up and goes to China on an official State visit. We'd been through the "Boxer Rebellion" unpleasantness. Americans had saved China's butt during WW II over "The Hump" and Burma. Our people lost several tens of thousands of lives trying to keep them out of Korea, and that ended in a stalemate. Later on we got real sure there was gonna be a "Domino Effect"; indochina would become communist we thought, and we gave up a few more thousand lives in vain. Vietnam became communist. China stayed that way. So, we started playing ping-pong.

In the interest of opening new markets, it all got going nicey nicey between ourselves and them... we who had made a generation of our own citizens miserable about communists under every desk, we who had executed people for treason, we who had held our noses over Stalin during a world war, and we who finally witnessed a Berlin Wall come down. So, with GATT-NAFTA under full steam a lot of our industry disappeared from these shores for the sake of a "Global Economy" and an "International Community". China got Most Favored Nation status and sits with us on the Security Council. Anyhow, we don't hear much about RED China anymore.

Mr. Scamp, I do believe they're puttin' it to us, in that slow and easy way that one wakes up to one morning and wonders what the hell just happened. I hope things go well for you over there. Let us all know when and if it starts not looking so good, okay? I'll do the same.

Maybe on that day my Plan B, or a much better plan, might come in handy. I'll keep perfecting my humble one just in case.

[HARDCORE]

BLUEHAWK-

The time was when our defeated enemies remained suspect for a respectable period of time! Nowadays, however, the gun barrel is still smoking when the first kisses are exchanged!

I find it simply amazing that the utter bastard of yesterday, is now the bed partner of this morning? Now what in the hell are people supposed to think when we portray (villainize) a nation and it's leadership on Monday noon, whip their asses by twilight Tuesday, romance their populous on Wednesday at about 13:20 hours, and then send a massive check in aid first thing on Friday morning!

In the meantime, our troopers are still bleeding, some in country are up in revolt, the public is now being told that yesterday's hostiles (or users) are today's repatriated, born again amigos, and all is again well with the world? Until tomorrow morning that is, at about 0:920 hours, when the scenario starts anew in some other neck of the woods!

"Hey, I have no problem with this - Stomping on bad guys and all of that good stuff!" But again, when one war after another is kept in overlapping sequence, one has to wonder where the bad guys end, and the good guys begin? There are some good guys out there somewhere, aren't there Mr. President?!

VERITAS

[BLUEHAWK]

Yup Hardcore, musta been somethin' REAL unusual in that wine Tricky and Mao toasted China's success with back then...

You bring up a good point, about guns still smoking when the lip locks get started. Seems to me, and has BEEN seemin' to me for a long long time, that we've become predictably inconsistent, strange bedfellows and all. I believe that tendency is gonna hurt us, real real real bad... and already is. It could be the "Achilles Heal" of the American dream, above all else.

In 1965 or thereabouts I was stationed on a stateside flight line where most days we were checking out pilots and crew chiefs on the old C-123 Provider. Things were going along fine, daily routine stuff. One day a new NCO showed up in our hangar, wearing interesting shoulder patches (the USAF is not famous for it's shoulder patches), with the letters MAAG on them. Naturally, we wanted to know about it. That is how we began to learn about what was happening in Vietnam just then. Some other guys like him started coming through too, and so we reasoned that they were assigned to our flight line from Vietnam to help us train people who were going into battle. Nobody had told us this from higher up, it just sorta happened. Thing is, these guys were all telling stories about the new Rules of Engagement with an enemy... which didn't sound too good to us or to them. Something didn't sound quite right. It was quite a shock to most of us, who were nearly all under the age of 20, and had never once before ever in the slightest way had a single sliver of a doubt about the call-to-arms or the honor of our government. From that day to this, I've had to be on the look out... and have not yet experienced one elected administration I felt was totally trustworthy since. It's a shame really.

Ya know, it just could be that America is starting to run out of money, out of credit, and low on credibility... if the Prez and his American Enterprise Institute sycophants keep up in their ambiguous haughty manner very much longer, if they keep up this saber rattling about North Korea, Iran, Syria, Liberia, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Lebanon, Palestine, Columbia, Afghanistan, Pakistan etc., if they keep withholding vital information from us... there ain't gonna BE any number of brave and valiant troops able to drag their butts and ours out of a true catastrophy.

Thank heaven for Patriot Files... we're all passing the word as we see it, and as it is.

[HARDCORE]

"THE WORD AS WE SEE IT", and therein lies the key to this site. Everyone has an oppinion and those opinions should and must be heard, as "Only in diversity, comes wisdom and knowledge!

VERITAS

[Seascamp]

Sure Blue,
I?ll keep ya posted. I like your pragmatic, humorous and factual style of communication. Just one thing though, I?m no particular fan of the Chinese Communists at all and if I have portrayed another image, then I have not properly communicated. But look on the bright side; if it weren?t for the PRC, we wouldn?t have anything to buy at Wal-Mart, LOL.
Oh, I worked in the former Soviet Union for a while and got the Communist Manifesto right from the horse?s mouth as it were. My host was Intourist and they were a very thinly veiled branch of the NKVD. So anyway, they took me to the construction site every morning, picked me up later on, then hosted some vodka slammers, salt and black bread, spun some spin, told tall tales, tucked me in only to repeat the cycle the next day. After three months of that I was ready to finish the contract and get back with the ?lying capitalist running dogs?, boy howdy, LOL. It was fun and it was real but not real fun. My lasting impression is that the Guest House (also part of the Intourist infrastructure) worker bees were fixated on my socks and fruit of the loom jockey shorts. Zow, those kept turning up missing until I only had two sets left and had to do a hand wash every evening. I suppose that was an object lesson in ?wealth redistribution? or something along those lines.

Scamp