The Marmot’s Hole

3 Comments

1. usinkorea
   Posted November 14, 2003 at 2:15 pm | Permalink

   I usually don’t like comments like this, but with Korea not wanting to risk a life in Korea, Japan thinking of not sending people, and other nations and organizations pulling people out of Iraq, I wonder if the United States should not follow their advice….

   It was not long ago most of American society felt this way. We didn’t want to get involved in “the European war” when Hitler was taking it over. It took Japan to break the isolationist tendancy in America.

   There is still a real current in American politics that doesn’t like actions like Somolia, Bosnia, or Kosovo or for that matter South Korea.

   Maybe we will see a return to the “not our blood” mentality in the US.

2. Ancorenalpha
   Posted November 14, 2003 at 10:54 pm | Permalink

   “We didn’t want to get involved in “the European war” when Hitler was taking it over. It took Japan to break the isolationist tendancy in America.”

   It took Japan to do this in the nation’s PEOPLE, at least. The government and military were waiting for the chance to be able to do something, but were afraid due to that whole “popular support” thing. They could clearly see that, were Germany to have conquered Europe as it was quite possible for it to do, then we’d have some serious problems of our own to contend with. They just had to wait for something severe enough to get people to pull their heads out of the sand.

   The thing is, if the US does pull out, the country will collapse to feudal infighting and eventually break down into little pieces that will be “gobbled up” by the surrounding countries. At that point, it will no longer be Iraq. If one of the other countries nearby is powerful enough, it might be able to assume control of the nation and turn it into a sort of puppet-state. This is equally bad.

   The fact is, the current situation sucks, but we’re stuck with it now. SOMEONE has to do something to rebuild, and it looks like the U.S. is the only one with the determination to do so. The countries of the UN originally kept harping on the US to allow others to help with the reconstruction, but isn’t it amazing that, once other countries (though not all of the UN) start losing lives there, they cease to be as zealous and start contemplating pulling out of something that wasn’t their business to begin with.

   The U.S. has established its presence in quite a few places, and to just ‘pull out’ would create a power vaccuum that other nations would take advantage of. It looks like we’re “stuck” with these problems in other countries, unless of course someone should just decide to pull out and watch the chaos begin. Not my particular choice, however.

3. usinkorea
   Posted November 15, 2003 at 11:24 am | Permalink

   I didn’t mean pull out of Iraq.

   The thing about American isolationism in the past is that
   it was not strict limitation of all foreign engagements.
   It was a matter of acting only in what the American people
   considered its strict national interest.

   The majority of Americans still believe Iraq is in our
   national interests, but you can’t say that about South Korea
   and probably Japan as well. I think you could add Bosnia
   in that list too.

   Last year, a group in Chicago did a survey, before the
   anti-Americanism in Korea made the news in the US in late
   2002, and some 45% of the people saying they would not support
   going to war in South Korea if North Korea invaded and
   the UN supported intervention.

   This shows the ignorance of the American people about
   the nature of our current commitment in SK.

   There is no way the American people would say “Get out
   of Korea” AFTER and invasion, because the hundreds to thousands
   of US body bags caused by the North would steel the US
   resolve.

   But SK should be very worried about such a survey.