cube_rat
Thinks s/he gets paid by the post
- Joined
- Jul 12, 2005
- Messages
- 1,466
Launched 3 missiles today after the space shuttle took off.
dunno if anyone can tell you what's up...
Cute Fuzzy Bunny said:Crappy little country thats about as low on the economic scale as you can go. Most of the people there are starving to death.
Their very best bet is to look as scary as possible and then exchange a disarmament treaty with the US for some money and some food.
Keen negotiators. At one point when the US was negotiating with them some decades ago, every time the two groups would leave the room the Koreans had a couple of guys go in and saw off a little bit more of the US negotiators chair legs...
Oh yeah, and their leader is a nut job.
I like it. We could make the same points by substituting the word "Japan" for the words "South Korea".Eagle43 said:Let's try something innovative. Move all troops out of South Korea. Let them deal with it, all by themselves. We've only been there since 1952 or so. Lots of the South Koreans demonstrate against the U.S. ; they call us the ugly American. Let's agree, leave, and take our dollars with us. As to the North and their missiles, Let the (im)potent United Nations deal with it, without U.S. money or assistance. Korea doesn't have any oil, so who cares. Let's sit this one out.
Nords said:I like it. We could make the same points by substituting the word "Japan" for the words "South Korea".
And a lot of overseas military families would be a lot happier, right, FlowGirl?
mikew said:I have heard it actually costs less to keep troops in Japan than in the US because of the money we get from the Japanese govt.
... but China might indeed find it beneficial for North Korea to be a continued pain in the neck for us (and others).The key is China.
Cool Dood said:Doesn't the constitution have something or other in it about the federal government not having a standing army?
Cute Fuzzy Bunny said:Yep, the founding fathers wished to, as a nation, largely keep our noses out of other countries businesses to avoid the lure of changing from being a republic to an imperial republic. Militia to provide for the common defense, but no standing army. Then even if you wanted to stick your nose into someone elses business...ya got no army to do it with.
So much for that plan.
mikew said:I have heard it actually costs less to keep troops in Japan than in the US because of the money we get from the Japanese govt.
bpp said:. . . Japan has the second-largest military in the world. . .
samclem said:?? by what measure ?? They have beefy military expenditures (by some accounts, second highest in the world), but this does not translate into commensurate combat capability.
retire@40 said:Right now, this country would be part of Japan, Nazi Germany, the Soviet Union or some other nation if we didn't have a standing army, so if you are correct about what our founding fathers wished, I'm glad that wish didn't come true.