Why shouldn't we go...

Post #380,026 by folkert 8/30/13 12:56:02 PM 8/30/13 12:56:17 PM Reply	Why shouldn't we go... Recently we've been jumping in and dropping military peeps in a few places lately... since you know... about 1950. Why stop now? And Yes... you know what I mean... and please think before you respond. -- greg@gregfolkert.net PGP key 1024D/B524687C 2003-08-05 Fingerprint: E1D3 E3D7 5850 957E FED0 2B3A ED66 6971 B524 687C Edited by folkert Aug. 30, 2013, 12:56:17 PM EDT Expand All History
Post #380,031 by mmoffitt 8/30/13 1:32:53 PM Reply	I'm not saying we shouldn't. I just pointed out that our old, reliable, often more articulate lapdog at 10 Downing Street couldn't manage to come when we called this time. That had to PO BO, don't you think? The 1950's were a remarkably quiet time for us warmongering Muricans. We fixed that in Southeast Asia in the next decade though, and haven't looked back since. So, I agree. We should go and go whole hog. What's a few more thousand dead Brown bodies laying around anyway? Plus, think of all the jobs at the bomb and missile factories this will generate. And the shareholders of War, Inc.? It'll be fabulous when their enhanced wealth trickles down to us commoners. Yep, all in all, it is a good idea. Let the missiles fly! Hallelujah!
Post #380,034 by boxley 8/30/13 2:27:56 PM Reply	bring back the draft, get rid of excess employables Any opinions expressed by me are mine alone, posted from my home computer, on my own time as a free American and do not reflect the opinions of any person or company that I have had professional relations with in the past 58 years. meep
Post #380,035 by Another Scott 8/30/13 2:48:50 PM Reply	You forgetting Korea perhaps? :-p And a few other, smaller things - http://en.wikipedia....1950.E2.80.931959 Korea was a big deal. MacArthur wanted to make it an even bigger deal... Cheers, Scott.
Post #380,051 by Ashton 8/30/13 10:24:39 PM Reply	'MacArthur wanted to make it an even bigger deal... ' Concise.. and, You Bet! Dunno what a couple generations since 'have been taught' in retrospect, nor if modrin-schooled folk really graduate HS with just a few factoids ever mentioned. Mac Arthur ("Old soldiers never die.." quip at West Point, post-firing), brilliant strategist (Inchon Landing--pincer)/megalomaniac: had so blatantly in-subordinated HST, that his firing was a self-inflicted Necessity. Via hubris. Had he proceeded all the way to Chinese border, and against massed-millions/thus the spectre of our using ""tactical""-nukes.. Indubitably Chinese-via-USSR counter-nukes would follow. Etc. As I say, hope those born ~~70s were exposed to more history than Unix-level simplicities--somewhere along the way. (All a dry-run for our ascending to --> Empire/World-Cop/Oil-opportunist with polished, sanctimonious propaganda oil-ing the path.) ..not that there's anything Wrong in a rich predator who smiles a lot.
Post #380,073 by mmoffitt 8/31/13 3:48:14 PM Reply	Hardly. My dad was a Korean War Vet. But when one considers the TV Show based upon the war lasted longer than the war itself and you compare/contrast with Viet Nam, well, I think I might be forgiven for glossing over the Korean War in what you surely know was a satirical post. ;0)
Post #380,139 by rcareaga 9/2/13 11:52:01 AM Reply	Korea: easy to forget I swear, I was about fifteen—that would be 1967—before I pieced together the odd fragmentary reference here and there and first began to realize that another Bad Thing (apart from Vietnam, awareness of which by this time was quite impossible to avoid) had gone down on the far side of the Pacific Ocean. You would have looked in vain for any reference to the conflict in any of the high school history textbooks I saw during that period, and while I overheard (as background noise) plenty of adult males reminiscing about "the war" during the latter fifties/early sixties, there was nothing to explicitly differentiate the "police action" from the struggle against "the Japs." I grant that my infant sensibilities were un-nuanced, and that prior to age fifteen I had neither the inclination nor the attention to spare (distractions of personal circumstances: poverty and domestic turbulence) for the broader outside world. Obviously the Korean conflict wasn't a secret, but it was something no one seemed to want to talk about. This might seem odd to someone ten or more years younger than me, since in the seventies a popular television series was set in this milieu, and awareness of the late "police action" presumably entered mass culture as a commonplace. Just my .02 won. kordially,
Post #380,142 by a6l6e6x 9/2/13 12:47:38 PM Reply	Yes, twas only a UN police action, they say. 36,576 US dead. I was 10, a newly minted immigrant when the war started, and given my background very aware Soviet ambitions. It was table conversation at home. I still remember the dark days of the Pusan Perimeter. Taught the Russkies not to skip UN Security Council meetings. Alex
Post #380,143 by Another Scott 9/2/13 12:52:07 PM Reply	My vague recollections from those times... I may be misremembering, but my recollections of the late 1960s - 1972 or so was a bit different. Growing up outside of Atlanta, the bits of politics I picked up were strongly anti-communist. There would be off-hand rants about Truman not "winning" in Korea and tying the military's hands so they couldn't win. And similarly in Vietnam. We did duck-and-cover drills occasionally at school (being close to a big Lockheed plant, there was an expectation that we would be hit fairly soon when the USSR inevitably attacked). We watched the national news every evening, hearing the never-ending story about the quagmire in South Vietnam. And then there was the '72 mid-East war that was another instance where the nukes were rattled on several sides without us knowing about it. All of this was rolled together into a story that someone was keeping us from winning and imposing our self-evidently right views on how the world should be run with the USA in the vanguard. There was little if any nuance. The dirty hippies yelling about Nixon's and Kissinger's crimes were sore losers or misguided idealists who didn't understand how the world works or just a couple of steps away from joining the Manson Family or the Red Brigades (or later the SLA) and killing us all in our beds. Lots of people wanted to forget Korea because it didn't fit with the narrative of the US single-handedly saving the world as in WWII (while conveniently ignoring the Red Army's role). It also (objectively) showed that internationalism led by the UN could actually impose a peace, and those who hate the UN couldn't have that... It was easier to forget it, or to make it a minor player in a larger story about the leftists destroying America. Or something. If any specific bits of Korean war history were mentioned, it was invariably MacArthur's landing at Inchon. As if that showed that he was a genius in all aspects of the war and would have "won" if Truman hadn't fired him... Others have a more nuanced view - http://en.wikipedia..../Battle_of_Inchon American forces achieved a strategic masterpiece in the Incheon landing in September 1950 and then largely negated it by a slow, tentative, 11-day advance on Seoul, only twenty miles away. By contrast in the Baltic region in 1941 the German forces achieved strategic surprise in the first day of their offensive and then, exhibiting a breakthrough mentality, pushed forward rapidly, seizing key positions and advancing almost two hundred miles in four days. The American advance was characterized by cautious, restrictive orders, concerns about phase lines, limited reconnaissance, and command posts well in the rear, while the Germans positioned their leaders as far forward as possible, relied on oral or short written orders, reorganized combat groups to meet immediate circumstances, and engaged in vigorous reconnaissance. In my case, before I was a teenager, there was the consistent nagging feeling that the situation wasn't good. Why couldn't we "win" these wars any more? How long will we keep fighting? What's the point of perpetual stalemate? Why do we support so many dictators around the world? Will I be drafted? And on and on. FWIW. Cheers, Scott.
Post #380,150 by a6l6e6x 9/2/13 1:32:27 PM Reply	Re: the narrative of the US single-handedly saving the world Also, the Korean war was not really won. There was an armistice with nearly the old border as the DMZ (demilitarized zone, ha!) in place. No signed peace treaty to this day. Alex
Post #380,151 by Another Scott 9/2/13 2:02:28 PM Reply	Indeed. As the Kims remind us every 2-3 years... :-/
Post #380,188 by boxley 9/3/13 9:03:07 AM 9/3/13 9:27:38 AM Reply	knew folks who were over there edit added link at a young age read "Lat parallel" by martin russ. Very in depth look at the static war from a marine's view point http://www.amazon.co...nal/dp/0880642378 Any opinions expressed by me are mine alone, posted from my home computer, on my own time as a free American and do not reflect the opinions of any person or company that I have had professional relations with in the past 58 years. meep Edited by boxley Sept. 3, 2013, 09:27:38 AM EDT Expand All History

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