November 17, 2006

Where Diplomacy Needs To...

... be discarded, to some extent and be replaced by the U.S.'s asserting ourselves.

At the conclusion of actual combat in the Korean War, the U.S. signed a treaty with South Korea that has seen American troops over there ever since, their mission to protect the SKs in the event of an invasion by their northern neighbors (the NKs), who view both Koreas as being the same country and believe that SK should also fall under the thumb of communism. In short, the Ills in Pyongyang have long wanted their piece of the ROK.

I haven't a clue as to how much money it costs the U.S. taxpayer to maintain what? Thirty thousand or so troops in perpetual presence over there? I know it's got to be at least a few bucks more than dinner at the Four Seasons, Superbowl tickets, a new suit or even ten million times the amount of money I'll "own", collectively, in my entire life.

Which is why this kind of ticks me off.

South Korea will not join a U.S. plan to intercept North Korean ships suspected of carrying arms cargo out of fear of raising tensions with its neighbor, officials said on Monday.

South Korea officials have said interdicting North Korean ships could lead to military clashes between the two countries that are technically still at war.

Okay, fine. So why the hell are we there?

"To protect them".

Great. They obviously haven't got much faith in our ability to do that, or they wouldn't worry so much about making Kim Jong Illness angry.

Add on the fact that their "grateful" citizens spend an awful lot of time expressing hostility toward the United States. They don't even want us there. Maybe they'd rather be lickin' boot for the "Dear Leader".

Washington has been pressing Seoul and other governments to take a tough stand toward Pyongyang. However, South Korea, which fears instability in its heavily armed neighbor to the North, has remained committed to engaging Pyongyang.

If they want to go against us thus, we need to pull the plug on the treaty, begin withdrawing our troops, and then -- and then see if they still want to give us an argument.

We need to do this everywhere we provide protection -- "You don't like the way we take care of business? Okay, fine. We're gone, do your own thing...."

My bet is that some tunes will be changed, posthaste.

Posted by Seth at 11:51 PM | Comments (12) |

October 09, 2006

Briefly, On NK, Nukes and Diplomacy

I rarely have anything to say about this topic, because I perceive only profound stupidity in the entire quagmire of so-called "diplomatic relations" between Kim Jong Il and the rest of the world.

Here we have a tinpot communist dictator who starves his people and contributes absolutely nothing to the rest of the world other than malevolence and blackmail-based demands for aid he wouldn't need if he didn't isolate his country from the rest of the world in order to run his pitiful little "kingdom" unimpeded.

Here we have a whole bunch of stupid diplomats and politicians, including our own, who continue this idiotic pavane with that insane little shit, who has already demonstrated that he's about as contemptuous of diplomatic overtures as are most Arab leaders, only potentially more dangerous than most of those -- here's an Asian Ahmadmanjihad who doesn't even bother to employ pseudo-theological motives in his reasoning, he actually hasn't a leg to stand on in support of his maniacy. He just yips and yaps like an attention starved chihuahua, and all the great powers of the world and all the world's media shower him with the attention he craves, plead with him almost to the point of licking his backside, to accept bribes to stand down his nuclear weapons programs.

Here we have his latest nuke test, and the U.S. proposing sanctions in the event the little shit doesn't want to re-enter talks already proven a useless waste of time.

I don't generally waste bandwidth blogging about this situation because it's simply too assinine to bother. We, and at least five other countries that could be injured by the irresponsible whims of Kim Jong Illness, could more than handily wipe him off the face of the earth once and for all, eliminating the problem, and use the freed-up diplomatic assets to address issues that require infinitely more consideration involving nations whose very existences are of far more import to the rest of the world.

Posted by Seth at 12:36 PM | Comments (10) |

September 14, 2005

My Trading Partner, Mine Enemy

Yesterday morning, at a conference in Orlando, I attended a keynote speech delivered by Colin Powell, and I went away feeling vastly privileged to have been there. Our former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs and Secretary of State is profoundly youthful for 68 years of age and his speaking skills are, for lack of a better word, awesome.
He made us laugh with his great sense of humor and at the same time made many good points on many topics, but most of those are for another post -- I'm attempting to obtain a transcript, at which time I will share some interesting highlights on a verbatim level.

There was only one part of his speech, near the conclusion, with which I did not agree, and that concerned China.

General Powell cited Beijing's ongoing weapons buildup and even made reference to their goal of bringing Taiwan back into the fold, as it were, but he emphatically stated that he did not believe we would eventually have to go to war with what he termed{dating himself and the rest of us who've hit or exceeded the half century mark} "Red China." His reasoning was that going to war with China's largest trading partner when their economy is booming and still growing would be counter-productive.

In my opinion, he couldn't be more wrong in that one regard.

China feels it needs more "space," and I can't think of any of their neighboring countries who would be willing to sell them any real estate on the scale they would require. Therefore, they would have to resort to more aggressive acquisition methods, and the only ones that come to mind involve military options. If China were to invade another country for the purpose of acquiring more territory under any pretext, the United States would inevitably spearhead the defense of that country. In that, General Powell was absolutely right while making an unrelated point, that America is always first on the scene when other nations are in trouble. {Despite whining from certain Euro countries and our very own liberals over our Iraq enterprise, my addition here, not Powell's} the retired statesman rightly said that the rest of the world expects that of us.

China feels it still owns Taiwan, and has made much ado about getting it back. The United States maintains a standing promise to Taiwan that should China attempt to reclaim it using their military, we will protect Taiwan.

The only times America has gone back on her word in such events were under Democrat administrations, Kennedy over the Bay of Pigs, Carter over the ousting of Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi by Khomeini's insurgency. This will not happen under a Republican administration, which, thanks to the far left anti-American accusatory debacles of today's liberal Democrats, will be enjoyed into the next presidency, hopefully for two terms and maybe the one after that as well.

But I digress.

Because of America's global protective policies cited above, Beijing is well aware that in order to realize any ambitions of expansion or any plans for the reclamation of Taiwan, they will have to take out the United States first.
There is little doubt that in their minds, taking over America would eliminate any use for us as a trading partner, since they would have the goose that lays the golden eggs right there in their hand.

This is not paranoia, it is theory based on the diatribes of modern totalitarian states. Their logic is utterly convoluted by our standards, and while the American left and a good portion of the right are in many ways incapable of thinking outside the realm of established western sensibilities, I assure you that policy makers in many exotic regions are not.

China has been steadily and consequentially building up her war machine since the mid nineties, at the very least, and drafting resolutions that, as far as Beijing is concerned, make their taking back of Taiwan legal.

With a tip of my sombrero to Kira Zalan , there is an article(introduced as purported rather than confirmed, but every inch reflective of previous doctrine we've all heard from Beijing) translating a speech by China's defense minister, Chi Haotian. To read the speech, go to Comment 9 in "Comments" replying to the linked post. But first read the post, it further demonstrates my point regarding the totalitarian mindset in Beijing, and unrelated to this Hard Astarboard post but useful to know, how Yahoo!'s Hong Kong subsidiary burned a Chinese journalist.

The Chinese Dragon, as the Washington Times Op Ed so succinctly puts it, is indeed awakening, and in my not so humble opinion, war will eventually follow.

Posted by Seth at 07:37 AM | Comments (2) |