Posted on 04/06/2013 1:19:10 PM PDT by DanMiller
Not much relevant to modern times but this was the most popular TV show going in S Korea ~ it really, really gets to Koreans.
Lots of swordchopping. BTW, it focuses on the 7th century so most of it is made up ~ but the writer's drag in all the current fears and aspirations of what does seem to still be a divided country.
If the west left the far east alone in the 1800’s and not practice gunboat trade policy and opium trade, Qing Dynasty of China would not have fallen and its leaders disgraced amongst the Chinese to they point the want to modernize as fast as possible to meet the Western threats. Chinese modernity would not involve Chinese reformers tinkering with facism and communism. With Qing weaken and Japan forced to open to trade, Japan would not have modernized and forcibly colonize Korea (who no longer can be protected by Qing China). Western greed and bullying would not have unhinged the far east nations who may be backwards but wanted to be left alone. Consequences is China became Communist, Japan became militaristic till end of WW2, Korea is divided with Communist holding the north and now desperate to survive pursue nukes and nuclear blackmail. If the West had followed the philosophy of our founding fathers (trade not empire building) and Christian values (not Darwinism which argues it is natural for the strong to bully the weak, and draw generalities of which race is weak and inferior to whites) many of the problems we face today may not occur.
![North Korean Nuclear Threat Kabuki Theater](http://i.imgur.com/yhmcpu7.jpg")
Wouldn’t it also be as likely that North Korea would send a nuclear device in a shipping container hidden in other cargo or on a ship equipped with a short range launch system where they would have greater assurance of a successful attack?
That EMP Scenario worries the crap out of me. I'm well-prepped for 1-2yrs, but that event will take us, Canada and Mexico back to the mid-1700s.
Leave it to ☭scumbag to make it even worse.
1950’s mess was a UN mission
Now we seem to be alone.
There many possibilities and those are certainly among them. While such an attack localized at a port on the East or West coast would be very bad, an EMP attack affecting all of CONUS would be far worse and far more difficult to recover from. None of The Above would, obviously, be best. What, however, can and will our own Dear Leader do to increase the probabilities of None of the Above?
I see the next “Stimulus” program taking shape.
“EMP Hardening.”
That should be good for $200 billion.
Lots of jobs Americans won’t do, too, so the new immigration bill and the extra 1 million work visas will arrive just in time.
Could, shoulda, woulda. The proposition that if our predecessors had made better decisions without benefit of the historical hindsight we have is specious.
If only they had thought of the future instead of the now.
And what does that say about the current powers that be, spending future generations into debt slavery to buy votes today?
Every generation inherits a mess from the previous generations and leaves one for the next. Welcome to life on Planet Earth.
As I recall, an important US official stated that Korea was not inside the US defense sphere; we weren’t interested in it. That is what provoked the invasion. I think it was the secretary of defense.
This is what bothers me about having incompetent people at any level of government. One poorly chosen statement can cost thousands of lives. There should be a special school for officials. It should teach them to never speak to the press, period. Only official, sanctioned sources should ever speak to the press.
It was that, although the United States and the ROK did most of the heavy lifting and General MacArthur was the Supreme Commander -- although he spent most of his time in Tokyo enjoying the comforts he had as the "Emperor of Japan" and rarely visited Korea more than for a few hours.
It became, at least cosmetically, a UN mission because Russia -- in pursuit of its efforts to have mainland China seated in place of Taiwan -- was boycotting the UN and hence did not veto the Security Council resolution requesting help in Korea from member states.
General MacArthur, like all the rest of us, was flawed. At seventy and the most senior of all serving U.S. officers of flag rank, he often ignored the "advice" coming from his juniors on the Joint Chiefs of Staff as well as occasionally from President Truman. He referred to General Eisenhower as the "best clerk I ever had." He did seem to think highly of General Ridgeway, who ultimately replaced him.
However, General MacArthur was in many respects a military genius as his Inchon invasion demonstrated. He also recognized the threats of Mainland China and Russia. He was largely responsible for the absence of Russia from Japan as he managed its very successful rehabilitation -- compare the position of Russia in Europe at the same time.
It was Dean Acheson and he was the Secretary of State.
Maybe the Senkaku islands have something to do with this?
The thought had occurred to me that the Korea mess could be a useful diversion to take attention away from China's adventures in the South China Sea. Might that possibility encourage China at the last moment to march in and stomp on the fingers of the Kim Regime as it is about to push the nuke button? China would certainly get praise internationally for doing so, and it seems possible. However, it's still just a poorly formed thought and I don't know what might be in the heads of any of them.
I am concerned that the powers-that-be in the United States may not have substantially more hard information, and that's very worrisome.
Thanks for the feedback and thoughtfull analysis. I still remember the Clancy novel involving the Spratlys.
There is much truth in some historical fiction. Have you read W.E.B. Griffin's novels on WWII and the Korean Conflict? He is getting on in years and his later novels don't seem as good. However, the WWII and Korean Conflict novels present many real characters -- General MacArthur, his G2, General Willoughby and many others -- as other non-fiction reading has suggested to me that they were.
Griffin spiced his novels up with fictitious characters and with real characters disguised as fictitious characters -- he turned war correspondent Maggie Higgins, for example, into Jeanette Priestly, also of the Chicago Tribune -- but their interactions with the real people involved seem to have been quite in character and realistic.
I've been thinking about writing an article about the intersections of history and historical fiction but haven't yet got around to it.
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