What would you do?

[markharr]

This isn't a thread to bash on Trump or any other president. This is a discussion about what would you do if you were president.

The scenario is North Korea just launched an ICBM toward Guam which is a US territory and has US military bases. . There is no way to tell whether it is nuclear tipped or not while it's in the air.

[iWriteStuff]

This isn't a thread to bash on Trump or any other president. This is a discussion about what would you do if you were president.

The scenario is North Korea just launched an ICBM toward Guam which is a US territory and has US military bases. . There is no way to tell whether it is nuclear tipped or not while it's in the air.

Just a thought, but the missile would have to fly past South Korea, over the top of Japan, down past China, and parallel to the Philippines for a grand total of 3,430km before it finally reached Guam. Is there any reason we or one of our allies couldn't shoot it down? Seems like if not us, then one of those allies would have plenty of opportunities to do so before it got anywhere close to Guam.

guam.jpg (26.3 KiB) Viewed 1319 times

Personally, I don't think anything is very likely to happen. My guess here is that the whole event is being fabricated because

A) President Trump's popularity is dropping. Nothing is getting accomplished in D.C.
B) Kim Jong Un's actions have isolated him and his people. The economy is collapsing, people are starving, and he's running out of options.
C) Both leaders need a good distraction to keep from dropping even further. What better distraction than the threat of thermonuclear war?
D) Nuking North Korea would be like Russia nuking the Baja Peninsula in Mexico. It's close enough to our sovereign territory that we would have to respond, and not in a "Hey, comrade, nice shot!" kinda way. The same goes for North Korea, which sits on a peninsula directly to the south of China. They couldn't let a strike that close to their turf go unanswered, especially against one of their long-time allies.

In short, nuking North Korea would be suicide, would paint Trump as a desperate bully, and embolden our enemies to make a case to the international community that we are the biggest threat to peace in the entire world. Sadly, a non-nuclear "preventive war" option isn't much better. Which is why I think this is all posturing for the cameras, although dangerous posturing if suddenly someone starts taking the other seriously.

[markharr]

This isn't a thread to bash on Trump or any other president. This is a discussion about what would you do if you were president.

The scenario is North Korea just launched an ICBM toward Guam which is a US territory and has US military bases. . There is no way to tell whether it is nuclear tipped or not while it's in the air.

Just a thought, but the missile would have to fly past South Korea, over the top of Japan, down past China, and parallel to the Philippines for a grand total of 3,430km before it finally reached Guam. Is there any reason we or one of our allies couldn't shoot it down? Seems like if not us, then one of those allies would have plenty of opportunities to do so before it got anywhere close to Guam.

guam.jpg

Personally, I don't think anything is very likely to happen. My guess here is that the whole event is being fabricated because

A) President Trump's popularity is dropping. Nothing is getting accomplished in D.C.
B) Kim Jong Un's actions have isolated him and his people. The economy is collapsing, people are starving, and he's running out of options.
C) Both leaders need a good distraction to keep from dropping even further. What better distraction than the threat of thermonuclear war?
D) Nuking North Korea would be like Russia nuking the Baja Peninsula in Mexico. It's close enough to our sovereign territory that we would have to respond, and not in a "Hey, comrade, nice shot!" kinda way. The same goes for North Korea, which sits on a peninsula directly to the south of China. They couldn't let a strike that close to their turf go unanswered, especially against one of their long-time allies.

In short, nuking North Korea would be suicide, would paint Trump as a desperate bully, and embolden our enemies to make a case to the international community that we are the biggest threat to peace in the entire world. Sadly, a non-nuclear "preventive war" option isn't much better. Which is why I think this is all posturing for the cameras, although dangerous posturing if suddenly someone starts taking the other seriously.

The US barely has the technology to do that, and you think South korea or Japan do?

The missile was nuclear tipped, it hit a US military base. Articles of impeachment were just introduced for dereliction of duty. It is expected to pass with broad support.

[markharr]

I forgot to mention that there is an eight minute flight time for an ICBM from NK to Guam.

You have eight minutes.

This is a real world, and very plausible scenario. NK threatened to launch an ICBM towards Guam last night.

http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/20 ... -guam.html

[iWriteStuff]

The US barely has the technology to do that, and you think South korea or Japan do?

The missile was nuclear tipped, it hit a US military base. Articles of impeachment were just introduced for dereliction of duty. It is expected to pass with broad support.

Really? Can't do it?

US conducts successful intermediate range missile intercept test
ul 11, 2017, 8:42 PM ET

The United States has for the first time successfully carried out an intermediate-range missile intercept test using the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system, the U.S. Missile Defense Agency said Tuesday.

An intermediate-range ballistic missile target was air-launched by a U.S. Air Force C-17 aircraft over the Pacific Ocean north of Hawaii. That missile was detected and tracked by a THAAD system in Kodiak, Alaska, which ultimately intercepted the target.

This test marks the 14th successful test of the THAAD system and the first test of an intermediate-range missile -- rather than a short or medium-range -- missile. The test is different than the Intercontinental ballistic missile intercept test conducted on May 30, which targeted a missile at a much higher altitude.

http://abcnews.go.com/International/us- ... d=48575867

It would seem as though you are only trying to frame the argument so as to make it appear that our only option is to preemptively attack a sovereign nation. There are many options, and we are not helpless to defend ourselves.

BTW: FDR was not impeached for dereliction of duty even when he knew the Japanese intended to attack Pearl Harbor.

Pearl Harbour memo shows US warned of Japanese attack
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldne ... ttack.html

[markharr]

The US barely has the technology to do that, and you think South korea or Japan do?

The missile was nuclear tipped, it hit a US military base. Articles of impeachment were just introduced for dereliction of duty. It is expected to pass with broad support.

Really? Can't do it?

US conducts successful intermediate range missile intercept test
ul 11, 2017, 8:42 PM ET

The United States has for the first time successfully carried out an intermediate-range missile intercept test using the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system, the U.S. Missile Defense Agency said Tuesday.

An intermediate-range ballistic missile target was air-launched by a U.S. Air Force C-17 aircraft over the Pacific Ocean north of Hawaii. That missile was detected and tracked by a THAAD system in Kodiak, Alaska, which ultimately intercepted the target.

This test marks the 14th successful test of the THAAD system and the first test of an intermediate-range missile -- rather than a short or medium-range -- missile. The test is different than the Intercontinental ballistic missile intercept test conducted on May 30, which targeted a missile at a much higher altitude.

http://abcnews.go.com/International/us- ... d=48575867

It would seem as though you are only trying to frame the argument so as to make it appear that our only option is to preemptively attack a sovereign nation. There are many options, and we are not helpless to defend ourselves.

BTW: FDR was not impeached for dereliction of duty even when he knew the Japanese intended to attack Pearl Harbor.

Please pay attention. NK just launched an ICBM at US territory. That is a preemptive attack on their part, not ours.

There are plenty of other threads where you can debate whether we should launch preemptive attacks. In this threat I presented you with a real world scenario that is very plausible and I am asking what you would do as president in that scenario.

[iWriteStuff]

Please pay attention. NK just launched an ICBM at US territory. That is a preemptive attack on their part, not ours.

There are plenty of other threads where you can debate whether we should launch preemptive attacks. In this threat I presented you with a real world scenario that is very plausible and I am asking what you would do as president in that scenario.

Asked, answered, answered again, and explained why your scenario is unlikely in the first place. I've provided evidence (which you ignore) that we can defend ourselves. You don't like any of my answers, obviously, so impeach away.

[markharr]

Also,

I would argue that NK has already launched a preemptive attack towards one of our allies multiple times,and that Trump has already show restraint but as I said, that is a debate for another thread.

https://www.cnbc.com/2017/07/03/north-k ... ports.html

[markharr]

Also,

I would argue that NK has already launched a preemptive attack towards one of our allies multiple times,and that Trump has already show restraint but as I said, that is a debate for another thread.

https://www.cnbc.com/2017/07/03/north-k ... ports.html

This is a real world scenario. There is no proof that South Korea, China or Japan have the capability to shoot down an ICBM. Only the US. In fact there is only proof that South Korea and Japan at the current time don't have that capability as there is debate about us giving it to them. They also haven't shot down ICBM's that have already been launched toward Japan and neither has china so why would you assume they would do it in this scenario?

[Silver]

Also,

I would argue that NK has already launched a preemptive attack towards one of our allies multiple times,and that Trump has already show restraint but as I said, that is a debate for another thread.

https://www.cnbc.com/2017/07/03/north-k ... ports.html

I don't think you know what "preemptive attack" means. To be more exact, it is the word "attack" that seems to have you confused. A missile falling innocently into an ocean is not an attack. The US does war games all the time in which missiles are fired, and that's apparently OK with you. If tiny little sovereign country of North Korea does it, it's bad? If you're going to let the propaganda that passes for news upset you so much, perhaps you should take a break. What you are describing is not real-world or plausible. It is posturing for the Military Industrial Complex to have an excuse to kill more brown people. Look at the pattern. We couldn't attack Saddam until he was brutally savaged in the media. Same with Qaddafi. Same with Assad. Same with the "Nips" and "Krauts" in WW2. Don't be so easily manipulated. You're a child of the covenant and you have the most correct book on earth. Surely you can recognize that Ether 8 secret combinations have found the combination to getting you all riled up. However, if you just have to find scenarios in which to use the military and kill some people, why don't you wargame an attack on the Gadiantons in NYC and Washington, DC, and London?

[markharr]

The point of this thread is to show that like the movie war games, there are no good options.

We painted ourselves into a corner long ago. Since that time we kicked the can down the road to a point where there is nowhere left to kick it.

You could argue that we shouldn't have gotten involved in the 50's but since we did we should have finished the job. If you are going to go to war commit to it fully and at least finish the job. We got involved because it was US policy at the time that it was unacceptable for the Korean peninsula to go communist. I personally believe that history has proven that it was the right policy as since that time millions have suffered and died under a brutal dictatorship in North Korea while south Korea has prospered, and has received the gospel through missionaries. It was foolish of us to handcuff our generals in the Korean war and we should have finished the job.

[markharr]

This is the most recent study I could find.

From 1948 to 1987, 710,000 to slightly over 3,500,000 people have been murdered, with a mid-estimate of almost 1,600,000 in North Korea.

I think it's safe to assume that at minimum hundreds of thousands more have died in the thirty years since then.

https://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/SOD.CHAP10.HTM

There is no option that doesn't end in death and suffering.

[Silver]

The point of this thread is to show that like the movie war games, there are no good options.

We painted ourselves into a corner long ago. Since that time we kicked the can down the road to a point where there is nowhere left to kick it.

You could argue that we shouldn't have gotten involved in the 50's but since we did we should have finished the job. If you are going to go to war commit to it fully and at least finish the job. At the time we got involved because it was US policy at the time that it was unacceptable for the Korean peninsula to go communist. I personally believe that history has proven that it was the right policy as since that time millions have suffered and died under a brutal dictatorship in North Korea while south Korea has prospered, and has received the gospel through missionaries. It was foolish of us to handcuff our generals in the Korean war and we should have finished the job.

If I'm beating up my next door neighbor with the intent to kill him because he is starving his children to death, should I finish the job? If a still small voice tells me to seek another way to help his children, should I ignore it and finish the job? If I am a carpenter and my only tool is a hammer, does everything start to look like a nail?

Many seem intent on calling Kim Jong Un crazy, but if he were really crazy why hasn't he already attacked us. Words have meaning. "Crazy" means what? Mentally incapable of making proper decisions or something like that. Then if Kim is crazy, why hasn't he already sent a submarine, for example, to the coast off of Los Angeles and fired a missile into Hollywood?

Is Kim a righteous man? No, but there are wicked men all over the world. Is it really the job of the US to attack them all? Which take priority and why? How can we afford to attack them with $20 trillion in debt? Attacking wicked men all over the world for the last 60 years hasn't worked. Maybe it's time to try something else. Like charity.

[iWriteStuff]

The point of this thread is to show that like the movie war games, there are no good options.

We painted ourselves into a corner long ago. Since that time we kicked the can down the road to a point where there is nowhere left to kick it.

You could argue that we shouldn't have gotten involved in the 50's but since we did we should have finished the job. If you are going to go to war commit to it fully and at least finish the job. We got involved because it was US policy at the time that it was unacceptable for the Korean peninsula to go communist. I personally believe that history has proven that it was the right policy as since that time millions have suffered and died under a brutal dictatorship in North Korea while south Korea has prospered, and has received the gospel through missionaries. It was foolish of us to handcuff our generals in the Korean war and we should have finished the job.

Your argument says, in essence, that because you can't see any good options then therefore we are left with only bad options; ie: bomb North Korea off the face of the earth, just like we "should have done in the 50's". We were not allies with China then (and we killed more Chinese in that fight than they killed of ours). You think we can just "finish" a war on their border and they will thank us for it?

If you want to dismiss the fact that this whole thing is probably a major distraction from falling popularity polls for Trump and Un (which you have), then at least consider that the geopolitical reality is much changed from the 1950's. This is what China said this morning:

"If the U.S. and South Korea carry out strikes and try to overthrow the North Korean regime and change the political pattern of the Korean Peninsula, China will prevent them from doing so," it said.

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-08-1 ... ime-change

You're asking for a war with China as well as North Korea. You're also asking for preventive war, which Eisenhower tells us is "an invention of Hitler". You are asking for WWIII. I've tried to show you that there are alternatives. We can defend ourselves, or use our military installations in South Korea to do so. Our allies in Japan would gladly accept some defense technology, or we could use one of our many bases there to defend ourselves too. If that fails, our Navy is all over the Pacific Ocean and also equipped to defend us using the THAAD system.

But you are of the position that the only remedy is a military overthrow of North Korea. Please, wake up. That is not a righteous war and there is nothing in the doctrine of "justifiable war" to defend an invasion or bombing of North Korea.

[Silver]

This isn't a thread to bash on Trump or any other president. This is a discussion about what would you do if you were president.

The scenario is North Korea just launched an ICBM toward Guam which is a US territory and has US military bases. . There is no way to tell whether it is nuclear tipped or not while it's in the air.

OK, I'll play. If I were president, I would order all troops out of South Korea. They were supposed to be a deterrent, right? They were supposed to stop the Kim clan from doing anything wrong. Well, that obviously didn't work. It didn't work. It just didn't work so we might as well end the occupation. I mean for over 60 years US troops have been there draining our national treasure and for what?

I would also end all sanctions against North Korea for the same reason -- they don't work. The only thing they accomplished was to starve a bunch of innocent people to death. They're dead just like if we had bombed them to death, although it's a longer and more painful process to die by starvation.

I would then ask religious/charitable organizations to rush in food and medical supplies to the poor people of North Korea.

I would ask all returned missionaries who served in South Korea to think of ways of doing business with North Korea so their economy could be revived.

Let me think on it. I will try to provide some more great ideas.

[markharr]

The point of this thread is to show that like the movie war games, there are no good options.

We painted ourselves into a corner long ago. Since that time we kicked the can down the road to a point where there is nowhere left to kick it.

You could argue that we shouldn't have gotten involved in the 50's but since we did we should have finished the job. If you are going to go to war commit to it fully and at least finish the job. We got involved because it was US policy at the time that it was unacceptable for the Korean peninsula to go communist. I personally believe that history has proven that it was the right policy as since that time millions have suffered and died under a brutal dictatorship in North Korea while south Korea has prospered, and has received the gospel through missionaries. It was foolish of us to handcuff our generals in the Korean war and we should have finished the job.

Your argument says, in essence, that because you can't see any good options then therefore we are left with only bad options; ie: bomb North Korea off the face of the earth, just like we "should have done in the 50's". We were not allies with China then (and we killed more Chinese in that fight than they killed of ours). You think we can just "finish" a war on their border and they will thank us for it?

If you want to dismiss the fact that this whole thing is probably a major distraction from falling popularity polls for Trump and Un (which you have), then at least consider that the geopolitical reality is much changed from the 1950's. This is what China said this morning:

"If the U.S. and South Korea carry out strikes and try to overthrow the North Korean regime and change the political pattern of the Korean Peninsula, China will prevent them from doing so," it said.

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-08-1 ... ime-change

You're asking for a war with China as well as North Korea. You're also asking for preventive war, which Eisenhower tells us is "an invention of Hitler". You are asking for WWIII. I've tried to show you that there are alternatives. We can defend ourselves, or use our military installations in South Korea to do so. Our allies in Japan would gladly accept some defense technology, or we could use one of our many bases there to defend ourselves too. If that fails, our Navy is all over the Pacific Ocean and also equipped to defend us using the THAAD system.

But you are of the position that the only remedy is a military overthrow of North Korea. Please, wake up. That is not a righteous war and there is nothing in the doctrine of "justifiable war" to defend an invasion or bombing of North Korea.

You said have our allies shoot it down not the US. And China state media has already said they would remain neutral if NK strikes first. In this scenario NK strikes first.

Since you now say you would shoot it down with our THAAD missiles, here is the new scenario.

You were successful, US aircraft designed to detect radiation detected no radiation at the impact site however, North Korea declared that shooting down their missile was an act of war. Intelligence is now telling you that satellites have detected North Korea fueling and arming an ICBM and they expect it will be ready to launch in 20 minutes.

[gardener4life]

The point of this thread is to show that like the movie war games, there are no good options.

We painted ourselves into a corner long ago. Since that time we kicked the can down the road to a point where there is nowhere left to kick it.

You could argue that we shouldn't have gotten involved in the 50's but since we did we should have finished the job. If you are going to go to war commit to it fully and at least finish the job. We got involved because it was US policy at the time that it was unacceptable for the Korean peninsula to go communist. I personally believe that history has proven that it was the right policy as since that time millions have suffered and died under a brutal dictatorship in North Korea while south Korea has prospered, and has received the gospel through missionaries. It was foolish of us to handcuff our generals in the Korean war and we should have finished the job.

I wanted to comment on this. Whether or not it was right or wrong for us to get involved in the Korean War during the 50s...a lot of good came out of it. And the people who served in the Korean conflict were the best people. My neighbor who died last year was one of those people and one of the most stalwart members of the church I'll ever know and very honest. I want to be more like him. I think he'd be pretty interested in our news right now and he'd want to go protect those people.

I just wanted to make this point.

On another thread I wrote a response to this but basically did you know that South Korea is over 30% Christian?! That's freaking amazing. If we'd never gone to Korea this would be less than 1%. Even Hong Kong is probably less than 1%, China is practically nothing. Even Japan has Christianity less than 1% and we'd tried really hard there for years! Mongolia is almost nothing too. South East Asia we barely got admitted to preach the gospel in Vietnam recently; and Christianity was mostly banned for like forever so that's probably the lowest of anywhere. With all their neighbors not into Christianity that absolutely is the hand of the Lord trying to help those people.

So for South Korea to be 30% christian, isn't that a miracle? Granted that's not an LDS quote. But it's a start. it's a foundation to build on.

So did Korea suffer during the war? Yes, but here are some reasons that good came out of it. (Bear in mind this wasn't updated recently; I think this is like a few years old data.)

http://www.mormonnewsroom.org/facts-and ... outh-korea

South Korea
Latter-day Saint servicemen first brought the Church's teaching to Korea in 1951, during the Korean War. Among the first Korean members was Ho Jik Kim, converted while earning a doctorate in the United States. Kim became an influential leader in the Korean government and paved the way for missionaries to enter Korea.

The first official missionaries arrived in Korea in 1954. They learned to speak the language, and they taught many young students. The Korean Mission was created on July 8, 1962, with seven branches (small congregations) of the Church.

The Book of Mormon: Another Testament of Jesus Christ was printed in Korean in 1967. The first stake (diocese) was created in Seoul, South Korea, on March 8, 1973. Membership increased to 9,000 in 1975, and by 1983, it had reached almost 29,000.

A temple was announced for Seoul on April 1, 1981, and was dedicated December 14, 1985. When the 1988 Olympic Games were held in Korea, the Brigham Young University Folk Dancers performed at the opening ceremonies, viewed by an estimated audience of 1 billion people worldwide.

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in South Korea. As of April 2013, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church) reported 85,628 members, 16 stakes, six districts,and 128 Congregations (83 wards and 45 branches), four missions, and one temple in South Korea.

[ajax]

This isn't a thread to bash on Trump or any other president. This is a discussion about what would you do if you were president.

The scenario is North Korea just launched an ICBM toward Guam which is a US territory and has US military bases. . There is no way to tell whether it is nuclear tipped or not while it's in the air.

OK, I'll play. If I were president, I would order all troops out of South Korea. They were supposed to be a deterrent, right? They were supposed to stop the Kim clan from doing anything wrong. Well, that obviously didn't work. It didn't work. It just didn't work so we might as well end the occupation. I mean for over 60 years US troops have been there draining our national treasure and for what?

I would also end all sanctions against North Korea for the same reason -- they don't work. The only thing they accomplished was to starve a bunch of innocent people to death. They're dead just like if we had bombed them to death, although it's a longer and more painful process to die by starvation.

I would then ask religious/charitable organizations to rush in food and medical supplies to the poor people of North Korea.

I would ask all returned missionaries who served in South Korea to think of ways of doing business with North Korea so their economy could be revived.

Let me think on it. I will try to provide some more great ideas.

Yep, pretty much. Stop provocating.

But the Empire with worldwide imperial reach needs to eat.

[markharr]

OK, I'll play. If I were president, I would order all troops out of South Korea. They were supposed to be a deterrent, right?

A deterrent to prevent the north from invading the south. An effective yet expensive deterrent

They were supposed to stop the Kim clan from doing anything wrong. Well, that obviously didn't work. It didn't work. It just didn't work so we might as well end the occupation. I mean for over 60 years US troops have been there draining our national treasure and for what?

Nope, see previous answer.

I would also end all sanctions against North Korea for the same reason -- they don't work. The only thing they accomplished was to starve a bunch of innocent people to death. They're dead just like if we had bombed them to death, although it's a longer and more painful process to die by starvation.

Fair enough Wouldn't stop people from starving in labor camps

I would then ask religious/charitable organizations to rush in food and medical supplies to the poor people of North Korea.

Already been tried. Not allowed by North Korean law. Kim Jung Un doesn't want his people to know that they don't have it better.

I would ask all returned missionaries who served in South Korea to think of ways of doing business with North Korea so their economy could be revived.

Let us know how that works out. In the meantime thousands more die in labor camps.

Let me think on it. I will try to provide some more great ideas.

[ajax]

Maybe we should reconsider "silver linings" of the Korean war. We really ought to be ashamed.

Trump’s “Fire and Fury” Wouldn’t Be the First for North Korea
https://www.libertarianinstitute.org/da ... rth-korea/

Leave it to Donald Trump to threaten to rain “fire and fury” on the North Korean people the same week the world observed the 72nd anniversary of the U.S. government’s vindictive atomic bombings of Japanese civilians. In case anyone missed the message, Defense Secretary James “Mad Dog” Mattis warned that the Kim Jong-un regime’s actions risk the “destruction of its people.” He wasn’t talking about Kim’s cruel communism.

We know what Trump and Mattis mean, even if many conservatives twist themselves like pretzels to transform the threatened savagery into something more benign. Trump and Mattis were referring to America’s nuclear arsenal.

Trump promised “fire and fury like the world has never seen.” No one would expect him to know this, but the North Korean people have seen their share of fire and fury at the hands of the U.S military. It happened almost 70 years ago, when Harry Truman, another president who went ga-ga over generals, unleashed America’s savage vengeance during the Korean War. It’s called the “forgotten war,” but even when it wasn’t forgotten, few Americans realized how brutally the United States treated people that posed no threat whatever to Americans.

How many know that, quoting historian Bruce Cumings, “far more napalm was dropped on Korea [than on Vietnam] and with much more devastating effect, since the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) had many more populous cities and urban industrial installations than North Vietnam…. By late August [1950] B-29 formations were dropping 800 tons a day on the North. Much of it was pure napalm. From June to late October 1950, B-29s unloaded 866,914 gallons of napalm.” It was also known as “jellied gasoline.” Regarding its effect on the human body, Cumings quotes the survivor of a “friendly fire” attack on Americans: “Men all around me were burned. They lay rolling in the snow. Men I knew, marched and fought with begged me to shoot them…. It was terrible. Where the napalm had burned the skin to a crisp, it would be peeled back from the face, arms, legs … like fried potato chips.”

Cumings adds:

George Barrett of the New York Times had found “a macabre tribute to the totality of modern war” in a village near Anyang, in South Korea: “The inhabitants throughout the village and in the fields were caught and killed and kept the exact postures they held when the napalm struck — a man about to get on his bicycle, 50 boys and girls playing in an orphanage, a housewife strangely unmarked, holding in her hand a page torn from a Sears-Roebuck catalogue crayoned at Mail Order No 3,811,294 for a $2.98 ‘bewitching bed jacket — coral’.” US Secretary of State Dean Acheson wanted censorship authorities notified about this kind of “sensationalised reporting,” so it could be stopped.

Thus the war that is also known as a “limited police action” was anything but. Cumings writes that “From November 1950, General Douglas MacArthur ordered that a wasteland be created between the fighting front and the Chinese border, destroying from the air every ‘installation, factory, city, and village’ over thousands of square miles of North Korean territory.”

Gen. MacArthur presented his own impressions of the early results at a congressional hearing in May 1951 after Truman fired him:

The war in Korean has already almost destroyed that nation of 20,000,000 people. I have never seen such devastation. I have never seen, I guess, as much blood and disaster as any living man, and it just curdled my stomach, the last time I was there. After I looked at the wreckage and those thousands of women and children and everything, I vomited. If you go on indefinitely, you are perpetuating a slaughter such as I have never heard of in the history of mankind. [Quoted in Napalm: An American Biography by Robert M. Neer, 2013.]

Air Force Chief of Staff Curtis LeMay, in an oral history quoted by Cumings, said that “over a period of three years or so … we burned down every town in North Korea and South Korea, too.” (Quoted in Cumings’s preface to the 1988 edition of I.F. Stone’s The Hidden History of the Korean War:1950-1951.)

“To think,” Cumings writes, “that the American Air Force could have dropped oceans of napalm and other incendiaries on cities and towns in North Korea, leaving a legacy of deep bitterness palpable four decades later, and that this was done in the name of a conflict now called ‘the forgotten war’ — as memory confronts amnesia, we ask, who are the sane of this world?”

Americans know nothing of this, but you can bet the people of North Korea know it. They may be ruled in the harshest dehumanizing way by Kim Jong-un, but they still have their humanity.

This devastation was wreaked by so-called conventional weapons. No nuclear weapons were used, as they had been only a few years earlier in nearby Japan. But this is not to say their use was not contemplated.

The Truman war council discussed using atomic bombs just two weeks after the war started, Cumings writes. “At this point, however, the JCS [Joint Chiefs of Staff] rejected use of the bomb because targets large enough to require atomic weapons were lacking; because of concerns about world opinion five years after Hiroshima; and because the JCS expected the tide of battle to be reversed by conventional military means. But that calculation changed when large numbers of Chinese troops entered the war in October and November 1950.”

Then Truman publicly threatened to use all weapons at America’s disposal. “The threat was not the faux pas many assumed it to be,” Cumings writes, “but was based on contingency planning to use the bomb. On that same day, Air Force General George Stratemeyer sent an order to General Hoyt Vandenberg that the Strategic Air Command should be put on warning, ‘to be prepared to dispatch without delay medium bomb groups to the Far East…. [T]his augmentation should include atomic capabilities.'”

Cumings notes:

The US came closest to using atomic weapons in April 1951, when Truman removed MacArthur. Although much related to this episode is still classified, it is now clear that Truman did not remove MacArthur simply because of his repeated insubordination, but because he wanted a reliable commander on the scene should Washington decide to use nuclear weapons.

Of course, what were then called “novel weapons” were not used in Korea. Yet, Cumings writes, “without even using such novel weapons — although napalm was very new — the air war levelled North Korea and killed millions of civilians. North Koreans tell you that for three years they faced a daily threat of being burned with napalm: ‘You couldn’t escape it,’ one told me in 1981. By 1952 just about everything in northern and central Korea had been completely levelled. What was left of the population survived in caves.'”

Let’s remember that the war never formally ended, and repeated calls by the North Korean government for a peace treaty and nonaggression pact have largely fallen on deaf American ears.

We don’t know if victims would be able to tell if they’d been nuked or napalmed. What we do know is that Trump seems willing to commit the most monstrous crime in our names. Let’s hope it’s empty bluster.

[markharr]

While Ajax and silver were searching for a diplomatic solution the ICBM crashed in the ocean. Radiation detectors detected radiation in the water around the crash site. North Korea just launched three more ICBM's. One headed for Guam, two headed for Hawaii.

[Silver]

OK, I'll play. If I were president, I would order all troops out of South Korea. They were supposed to be a deterrent, right?

A deterrent to prevent the north from invading the south. An effective yet expensive deterrent

They were supposed to stop the Kim clan from doing anything wrong. Well, that obviously didn't work. It didn't work. It just didn't work so we might as well end the occupation. I mean for over 60 years US troops have been there draining our national treasure and for what?

Nope, see previous answer.

I would also end all sanctions against North Korea for the same reason -- they don't work. The only thing they accomplished was to starve a bunch of innocent people to death. They're dead just like if we had bombed them to death, although it's a longer and more painful process to die by starvation.

Fair enough Wouldn't stop people from starving in labor camps

I would then ask religious/charitable organizations to rush in food and medical supplies to the poor people of North Korea.

Already been tried. Not allowed by North Korean law. Kim Jung Un doesn't want his people to know that they don't have it better.

I would ask all returned missionaries who served in South Korea to think of ways of doing business with North Korea so their economy could be revived.

Let us know how that works out. In the meantime thousands more die in labor camps.

Let me think on it. I will try to provide some more great ideas.

mark,
Once all the US troops have been pulled out, the Kim clan will no longer feel threatened. With conflict off the table, they will react differently. Or, at a minimum, you don't know how they will react. It is very much worth trying because as for the current methodology, I have 60+ years of history that proves what we're doing doesn't work. You have only speculation about what new ideas won't work. You can argue against pulling troops out, but leaving them in place hasn't worked. Only insanity would demand that we just keep doing the same thing but expect different (better) results.

You admit that having our troops there is expensive. Great. Who benefited from those expenditures? What is the relationship between those who benefited and Gadiantons?

[ajax]

Are you asking the same in reverse? Namely, "What would you do if your enemy, who's already destroyed your nation once, parked thousands of troops on the border, and rushed Naval ships and bombers within striking distance?"

[markharr]

What benefit has there been from the US presence in South Korea?

What possible good has come out of that expense?



And no, that wouldn't exist if the US wasn't there to shore up the border.

[markharr]

Are you asking the same in reverse? Namely, "What would you do if your enemy, who's already destroyed your nation once, parked thousands of troops on the border, and rushed Naval ships and bombers within striking distance?"

I would give up my nuclear weapons program, and submit to their demands of human rights for my people.