US carrier to join S.Korea anti-submarine drill

AFP via Yahoo.news ^ | 6/2/2010 | AFP via Yahoo.news

[Rummenigge]

Servus !

He is a marxist you say ? That’s more then just having read Marx, who wasn’t a stupid guy and agreed basically with his analysis of capitalism. Marx himself was not a guy that wanted to rise an ideology.

He just stated - for example - that money - as opposed to a common misunderstanding - does NOT work.

So if he just likes Marx that doesn’t mean desaster - if he was a fan of Lenin...

I don’t know a lot about Obama - I guess he’s been elected because people couldn’t stand the way g.w. did his job. To much hassle and uneasynes internaly and externaly - people wanted to see something harmonic.

Of course that’s fatal in a situation where you have to reinvent yourself - come back to the ground of real values and strongness - this takes uneasy but clever and today globaly effective actions - there’s no way back for isolationsm for the US.

I guess it’s important to have someone who has a grounded base of moral, is a hard bastard but can explain the masterplan. I haven’t seen that from either side in the last elections. There was no Rosevelt or Bush sen. to elect.

Mitt Romney ? Mike Huckabee ? Sara Palin ? John Mc. Cain ? Is that the primary league of the greatest party of the greatest country in this world ? We are in a crisis. And I mean we because I DON’T want to discuss what’s going on in the country we both live in - at least over here I know a bit more about the local politics so I can focus on the few things running straight ahead.

[driftdiver]

Gates just recommended reducing the number of carriers.

[driftdiver]

“There are tens of thousands of American boys standing as human tripwires along the DMZ who are extremely vunerable to conventional attack and defenseless against atomic attack should a crazed regime launch either kind.”

We have 28,000 troops total in country. The SKs control most of the DMZ.

Who in the world isn’t defenseless against an ‘atomic attack’?

[MNJohnnie]

By beeing a military superpower you keep a good credit rating even though you are completely broke.

Better look closer to home boyo, you nation is even more broke. Love how arrogantly ignorant you Euros are. Here you are busy lecturing us when your own house is crashing down in ruins around you even as we speak,.

[nathanbedford]

1) 28,000 by my arithmetic constitutes "tens of thousands."

2) the bulk of our troops are up at or near the DMZ.

3) By virtue of concealed and protected artillery and a great discrepancy in numbers, the North Koreans would enjoy initial successes and cause grave casualties even by a conventional attack.

4) I imagine it will be small comfort to the mothers if our troops are killed by an atomic blast to know that anybody could have been killed by atomic blast. Perhaps one of them might ask, "why was he there, what was the purpose, what was the military value, how did he protect the security interest of the United States? Why did my government deliberately make my son hostage to one of the most deranged dictators on earth who murders his own people by the tens of thousands and who is in possession of an atomic bomb and who has threatened to use it?"

[nathanbedford]

To explain American politics to someone in Germany who is exposed only to the German press is almost impossible. I often recite the fact that in the bookstore in Prien there is a huge table on display of contemporary nonfiction books. On more than one occasion I examined the table and found over a score of books and not one of them supportive of America and they were all vehemently anti-Bush. My kids are exposed to Fahrenheit 9/11 and Columbine in gymnasium here as though they were being treated to the very gospel itself. There is simply no balance in reporting of American politics.

Some time ago I published a vanity which Conservative Underground republished in this month's edition. If you read it I think you will begin to see what I am talking about and I ask whether you see yourself in the last paragraphs.

Here is the article:

FROM A HIGH TECH LYNCHING TO IMPEACHMENT

Vanity | Nathanbedford

Posted on Thursday, October 04, 2007 10:56:08 PM by nathanbedford From High-Tech Lynching to Impeachment

Someday historians will acknowledge the direct causal relationship between the attempted high high-tech lynching of Clarence Thomas and the impeachment of Bill Clinton.

Liberal partisans such as Nina Totenberg, feminists disguised as reporters, contrived to enrage much of the world against Clarence Thomas for alleged offenses which, in the wake of Clinton's sordid grotesqueries and felonies committed during the Monica Lewinsky affair, can in comparison be considered to be but trivialities. What exactly did Thomas do to Anita Hill? She testified for the first time years after the alleged facts, that he (1) exclaimed that there was a "pubic hair" on his coke can and that he (2) had seen the movie Long Dong Silver. She also alleged that Thomas repeatedly (3) asked her out, (4) bragged of his sexual prowess, and (5) said that he had satisfied women with oral sex.

What Bill Clinton did a couple of years later was so egregious that it renders these unsubstantiated allegations merely frivolous, a fey neuroses of a bizarre era: Bill Clinton, in contrast to Thomas, sodomized a young intern in the Oval Office with a cigar and masturbated into the presidential sink; Bill Clinton repeatedly talked dirty to his young intern over the telephone while they mutually masturbated ; Bill Clinton suffered his young intern to fellate him while she was crouched under the presidential desk. I wonder what Nina Totenberg's reaction would have been had she learned that Bill Clinton had committed the atrocity of asking Monica Lewinsky out on a formal date?

Liberals say that the matter of sexual harassment is all about redressing the imbalance of the power relationship between men and women, between master and servant, and between boss and employee. Of course, the relationship of Clinton and Lewinsky fit this template perfectly. But the Clintons did not stop there, they tag-teamed women who complained of sexual mistreatment (even actual assaults) by Bill Clinton and compounded his original crimes. Gennifer Flowers was made to lie publicly to protect Bill Clinton, to sign a perjurious affidavit denying their relationship, thus establishing a Clinton modus operandi and had her apartment ransacked for her pains, or perhaps for her favors. Kathleen Willey was intimidated professionally by ominous strangers. Juanita Broderick was admonished by Hillary Clinton, the implication clear that Broderick was to remain silent about her rape by Bill Clinton. Other women whose silence and lies could not be assured by intimidation were vilified, publicly humiliated, and discredited as "sluts and nuts".

the record revealed many other of outrageous conduct that should make anyone who has even the most cavalier concern for women's rights righteously indignant. The Nina Totenberg's of the world never turned a hair.

Even from the perspective of time it is hard to believe how the liberals succeeded with the Thomas hearings in convulsing a nation over such relatively frivolous charges which were very likely untrue, explicitly denied, and otherwise uncorroborated. For three days the nation sat transfixed before its television sets absorbing a drama played out in the Judiciary Committee of the United States Senate.

As a result of these proceedings it is possible, if not likely, that four or five leftist women were added to the United States Senate as Democrats: Murray, Moseley-Braun, Mikulski, Feinstein, and Boxer. Indeed, 1992, the year following the hearings, became known as the "Year of the Woman." The ripple effect from these proceedings extended beyond politics and beached again in the judiciary as Bill Clinton appointed to the Supreme Court an extreme feminist, an arch advocate for the ACLU, and, in my view, a bloodthirsty abortionist, Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

It is not a stretch to assert that the election of Bill Clinton was clearly advanced by the contrived hysteria surrounding the Clarence Thomas hearings. Clinton's famous sales pitch, "vote for me and you get her - two for the price of one", referring to Hillary Rodham-Clinton, was simply echoing the drumbeating on behalf of Clinton and Rodham by the mainstream media press who had dubbed Hillary, "the smartest woman in the world" in the run-up to The Year of the Woman.

Polls taken during the course of the hearings of Americans who actually watched the proceedings on television and drew their conclusions from what they saw, revealed that Americans believed Clarence Thomas and they did not believe Anita Hill. Polls taken months and years later, after the mainstream media had its relentless way with the public, reflected precisely the opposite sentiment.

After Clinton attained the White House, a coalition of Democrats passed The Violence against Women Act over the opposition of minority Republicans. That pernicious statute federalized domestic violence and distorted our precious presumption of innocence. If there is a saying of the law, "hard cases make bad law", surely there is a corollary, "mass psychosis makes for bad laws." Even the ACLU was led to criticize the excesses of the statute. The Clintons and the Democrats shamelessly exploited the feminist pathology as the national psychosis played out in the Clarence Thomas hearings. They rode it into the White House. But irony had yet a card to play. In addition to the Violence Against Women Act, the Democrats contrived a law which made evidence alleging incidences of sexual-harassment admissible if a defendant in such a lawsuit might have previously engaged in sexual "harassment" against a third unrelated party. The theory behind the law: once a cad always a cad; so evidence of bad behavior on one day is proof of bad behavior on another day. Bill Clinton signed this bill into law. With the stroke of his own pen, he ensured that his own real sexual offenses against Kathleen Willey, Gennifer Flowers, and especially, Monica Lewinsky would become the stuff of Paula Jones' lawsuit.

When the Monica Lewinsky scandal erupted, I was struck by the dichotomy between the reactions of folks here in Germany and back home in America. Later, I was to be struck by a similar dichotomy in reaction to the invasion of Iraq. The unanimity of opinion in Germany was striking. Germans simply could not believe America had lost its mind over a trivial matter like sex and they certainly could not believe that the world's only superpower would overthrow its government over a few bumps and tickles. Ultimately, the German view would come to prevail in America and the case in impeachment against Bill Clinton would not lie in the Senate. The assault on Clarence Thomas also failed, but no one ever said he got any bumps or tickles in compensation for his ordeal. To the contrary and unto this day he is denied by the left even the decency of an acknowledgment that he has by every standard conducted himself utterly free of taint. Justice Thomas' only compensation would be the quiet inner satisfaction that comes from a righteous life, a "Normal Christian Life,"

I did not share the German view then and I do not hold it now. I believe that Bill Clinton committed high crimes and misdemeanors in trying to fix a civil trial (for money and reputation), that he conspired to fix a court case (with Monica Lewinsky, Betty Currie), that in furtherance of that conspiracy he suborned perjury (of Monica Lewinsky, Betty Currie), conspired to hide evidence, hid evidence (gifts hidden under the bed), and actually committed perjury (too notorious to require recounting). These were all felonies and as such they qualify as "high crimes and misdemeanors" under the constitutional standard for impeaching a president. Further, the president is the chief law enforcement officer in the land and by committing a string of felonies he breached his constitutional duty to see to the faithful execution of the laws-which misfeasance constitutes additional impeachable offenses. One need only consider the brouhaha over the alleged misrepresentations made to Congress by Attorney General Gonzales, or the ordeal of Scooter Libby, to understand the gravity of the real offenses committed by Clinton.

As the Lewinsky impeachment drama played out and it became apparent that Slick would slither around impeachment, those of us who had a memory span larger than a gnat and so recalled the hysteria of the Clarence Thomas hearings, were utterly dumbfounded. I can recall explaining to my German friends and neighbors that the Monica Lewinsky affair was not just about sex but about the very real and important felonies I have described. One could tell from the expression on their faces that they had never heard this information before yet they received it quite skeptically, even begrudgingly. I challenge any reader to lay out Bill Clinton’s crimes to your apolitical American friends and neighbors. I bet you will get the same reaction today of surprise, indifference, and even hostility from most Americans. Like the vines of Angkor Wat, time has shrouded Clinton's crimes.

It is a sure bet that few of them will remember the Clarence Thomas hearings, their context and aftermath, much less will they be aware of the chain of causation which led from the near high tech lynching of Clarence Thomas to the impeachment of William Jefferson Clinton.

[driftdiver]

‘1) 28,000 by my arithmetic constitutes “tens of thousands.” “

Sure in a loose interpretation. Tens of thousands could also mean 80,000 and generally gives the reader the impression the number is higher rather than lower.

“the bulk of our troops are up at or near the DMZ.”

Depends what you mean by “at or near”. I’ve spent considerable time in South Korea and traveled extensively throughout the country. Few US troops are at the DMZ. There are quite a few within 50 miles of the DMZ since Seoul is within that range. The entire country is within about 30 minutes of a SCUD flight time.

“By virtue of concealed and protected artillery”

Their artillery is not all that well concealed or protected. However any first strike tends to have the benefit of surprise. They have a lot of artillery but the air force would probably destroy most of that fairly quickly. The chem and bio are the weapons which would probably cause the most chaos.

“Why did my government deliberately make my son hostage to one of the most deranged dictators on earth “

Because someone has to fight for our freedom. I’ve been there when tensions were high. I’ll pray for your son but the situation is hardly what you describe. I assume he volunteered and was not drafted. Our national defense is made up of many small parts. South Korea is one of those parts.

[nathanbedford]

‘1) 28,000 by my arithmetic constitutes “tens of thousands.” “

Sure in a loose interpretation. Tens of thousands could also mean 80,000 and generally gives the reader the impression the number is higher rather than lower.

Rubbish. Tens of thousands accurately reflects the number 28,000 it does not give a false impression. There is no reason in logic for any reader to believe that it is more than 28,000 men or to believe that it is less than 28,000. The only thing the reader is entitled to believe is that there are at least 20,000, after that no representation can be said to have been made and no inferences can legitimately be drawn. The rest is a confection of your own.

Their artillery is not all that well concealed or protected

Their artillery and troops and establishments are dug deep into caves commanding Seoul.

However any first strike tends to have the benefit of surprise. Hence our casualties.

They have a lot of artillery but the air force would probably destroy most of that fairly quickly

We simply disagree. I believe they are too well dug in. I do accept the chemical and biological artillery attack would do terrible damage to our troops. Conventional artillery would probably obliterate Seoul.

Because someone has to fight for our freedom....Our national defense is made up of many small parts. South Korea is one of those parts.

This is to argue your point but with a tautology. The issue is whether it is the smart place to put troops and whether it is the smart way to fight for freedom and whether we are drawing the most cooperation possible from our allies. You address none of these questions. And that is after all the point of my reply.

Is it to ask "what are we doing there?" The same as to say, "the Emperor has no clothes?" I am asking but nobody is answering.

[NeoCaveman]

Is it to ask "what are we doing there?" The same as to say, "the Emperor has no clothes?" I am asking but nobody is answering.

We are out of money and the Emperor has no clothes.

[driftdiver]

Rubbish, we do not have tens of thousand of troops at the DMZ. Period end of story.

“Their artillery and troops and establishments are dug deep into caves commanding Seoul.”

And every single one of them is well mapped. Our military is more than capable of taking out their artillery.

“I believe they are too well dug in. I do accept the chemical and biological artillery attack would do terrible damage to our troops.”

Sure, I was at a briefing where a 3 star wished us Merry Christmas and oh by the way they expected 75% causalities if the NKs came across. NK has the 4th or 5th largest army in the world. They are poorly equipped and trained. Its likely that millions of SKs would die in a full blown exchange involving the chem/bio agents.

“Is it to ask “what are we doing there?” The same as to say, “the Emperor has no clothes?” I am asking but nobody is answering.”

We are there because we instigated a war to stop the spread of communism. Through our support a strong democracy and capitalistic economy has been created. We are also there because it helps to project our power into that part of the world.

Perhaps you support the traditional political strategy of telling people we’ll support them and then abandoning them to their fates when its politically expedient.

[nathanbedford]

We are a democracy and as such we are actually sensitive to casualties. If you look at the history of the Vietnam War, the anxiety before Gulf War one, and the growing opposition to the war in Iraq, all revolve around our intolerance for casualties.

Putting aside the obvious point that America will not tolerate huge casualties in a surprise strike across the border, which both of us agree will occur, why, why are troops used as a tripwire? Why are they not withdrawn hundreds of miles away we or across the water?

Even the history of the Korean War (I do not know how you concluded that we "instigated" that war) demonstrates that the logistics of the peninsula worked invariably against which ever army found itself over extended. So when the the North Koreans initially got as far as Pusan they were over extended and we punched behind them at Inchon. When the Americans got beyond the Chosin reservoir up toward the Yalu, they were over extended and vulnerable and driven back. Finally, Ridgway was able to exploit the second incursion by the Chinese Communists and the North Koreans and throw them back to the 48th parallel because they could not logistically sustain their position.

Knowing this history, it is clear that our troops are on the line, or near the line if you prefer, not for a military purpose but because they are a tripwire. I believe they are tripwire because the capital, Seoul, cannot be moved and is vulnerable to artillery and incursion and therefore the troops are kept up close as a political trip wire on behalf of Seoul.

In order to sustain an argument that our troops are there to further freedom, you must convince us that they will prevail in a battle fighting in the wrong place at great disadvantage and that the amount of casualties will not lose us the war at home. Further you must convince us that freedom cannot be better and more cheaply protected offshore or down peninsula.

Finally, you must acknowledge the real risk to our troops from a maniac with an atomic bomb.

You have not even tried to convince anybody that wealthy and Democratic South Korea is willing to carry its own weight or even participate with an ally in our war against terrorism or in the Iraq war or Afghanistan to any degree that is commensurate with our sacrifice and our risk on their behalf. Two of the wealthiest nations in the world are Japan and Korea. They have been getting a free ride from us since 1945 in 1950.

If we adjust our commitments to these countries after half a century of bloody treasure is certainly not to renegg on our treaty commitments. Japan and Korea are grown up countries now.

I salute your service in Korea. Perhaps it was rendered when the threat of world communism as a coordinated threat was real. It is no longer the same threat, although I believe there is a real and substantial danger from the left. But the considerations have changed, the technologies have changed, the wealth of our protectorates has changed, the need has changed, and our ability to be strong everywhere all the time has certainly changed.

I see no acknowledgment of these new realities.

[driftdiver]

‘In order to sustain an argument that our troops are there to further freedom, you must convince us that they will prevail in a battle fighting in the wrong place at great disadvantage and that the amount of casualties will not lose us the war at home. Further you must convince us that freedom cannot be better and more cheaply protected offshore or down peninsula.”

There’s nothing I “must” do. I am intimately aware of the situation and have done more than read a book. I’ve been there, seen the DMZ, seen the NK spy boats just off shore, seen the spies, walked thru the mud and ice and rain.

If we were not in SK then the communists would have taken control.

We have not had a policy of isolationism for decades and use our troops to project our power into places we think its appropriate.

The South Koreans love America but are fighting the same enemy we are. The socialists/communists are active there just as they are here. Do you judge all Americans using Cindy Sheehan or Michael Moore as a guage? no, that would be insane.

BTW a ‘tripwire’ is a military purpose. Go back and read your books.

[nathanbedford]

You are quite correct, you "must" not answer anything unless, of course, you wish to convince a reader of this thread or have the country accept your point of view. That is the way it works in a democracy. You seem to be more inclined to parade your service rather than to respond to questions seriously and honestly raised, many of which which were raised before you intruded on my post. Indeed, it seems you have made an art form of not answering. You seem rather to be inclined to indulge in personal slight ("go back to your books"). Below appears a list of the questions and issues which you have evaded:

South Korea just reported bumper GDP growth. It has one of the most thriving economies in the world. How many dollars have they contributed to the international war against terrorism?

(Unanswered)

How many troops have they committed to the in Iraq and Afghanistan?

(Unanswered)

There are tens of thousands of American boys standing as human tripwires along the DMZ who are extremely vunerable to conventional attack and defenseless against atomic attack should a crazed regime launch either kind. What do we gain by maintaining the troops there?

(Unanswered)

What is the down side if South Korea falls to an anschluss by North Korea?

(Unanswered)

Do we lose a gallant ally?

(Unanswered)

Would the takeover of the entire Korean peninsula threaten American security?

(Unanswered)

Would it make the Japanese more or less friendly inclined to the United States as their protector?

(Unanswered)

Would it stir the Japanese to defend themselves?

(Unanswered)

Would the North Koreans be more capable of making mischief like disseminating atomic weapons if they were in possession of the whole peninsula?

(Unanswered)

Time is running out on America's ability to be the Lord protector for unworthy or ungrateful allies. Even if we conclude that it is in America's security interests to maintain a 60-year-old posture of conventional defense in a world of nonconventional warfare, will we long be able to sustain the expense?

(Unanswered)

Do we create an area of vulnerability rather than a bulwark against the barbarians?

(Unanswered)

Do we weaken America in the long run by draining the treasury to no purpose or for counterproductive efforts?

(Unanswered)

Are there ways that we can get our allies to pick up the burden especially in places like South Korea, Taiwan, Poland?

(Unanswered)

Could we talk plainly to both the South Koreans and the Japanese and tell them that the free ride is over and the threat from North Korea to both nations is existential?

(Unanswered)

Are there enough commonsense conservative Japanese and Koreans to shoulder a fair share of their own burden?

(Unanswered)

America's options around the world are diminishing at a rapid pace, the only question is, is our president ahead or behind that power curve, does he welcomed or resist the erosion of America's power and the consequent threats to world peace?

(Unanswered)

Putting aside the obvious point that America will not tolerate huge casualties in a surprise strike across the border, which both of us agree will occur, why, why are troops used as a tripwire?

(Unanswered)

Why are they not withdrawn hundreds of miles away we or across the water?

(Unanswered)

Even the history of the Korean War (I do not know how you concluded that we "instigated" that war) demonstrates that the logistics of the peninsula worked invariably against which ever army found itself over extended.

(Unanswered)

Knowing this history, it is clear that our troops are on the line, or near the line if you prefer, not for a military purpose but because they are a tripwire. I believe they are tripwire because the capital, Seoul, cannot be moved and is vulnerable to artillery and incursion and therefore the troops are kept up close as a political trip wire on behalf of Seoul.

(Unanswered)

In order to sustain an argument that our troops are there to further freedom, you must convince us that they will prevail in a battle fighting in the wrong place (Unanswered) at great disadvantage(Unanswered) and that the amount of casualties will not lose us the war at home. (Unanswered)Further you must convince us that freedom cannot be better and more cheaply protected offshore or down peninsula. (Unanswered)

You have not even tried to convince anybody that wealthy and Democratic South Korea is willing to carry its own weight or even participate with an ally in our war against terrorism or in the Iraq war or Afghanistan to any degree that is commensurate with our sacrifice and our risk on their behalf.

(Unanswered)

Two of the wealthiest nations in the world are Japan and Korea. They have been getting a free ride from us since 1945 in 1950.

(Unanswered)

If we adjust our commitments to these countries after half a century of bloody treasure is certainly not to renege on our treaty commitments. Japan and Korea are grown up countries now.

(Unanswered)

I salute your service in Korea. Perhaps it was rendered when the threat of world communism as a coordinated threat was real. It is no longer the same threat, although I believe there is a real and substantial danger from the left. But the considerations have changed, (Unanswered) the technologies have changed, (Unanswered) the wealth of our protectorates has changed, (Unanswered)the need has changed, (Unanswered) and our ability to be strong everywhere all the time has certainly changed. (Unanswered)

I see no acknowledgment of these new realities.

(Unanswered)

When you choose to engage me in honest discussion and not exploit my time to parade your service in Korea as a substitute for actually thinking, and agree to refrain from injecting personality, I will be happy to continue this discussion, not otherwise.

[driftdiver]

“When you choose to engage me in honest discussion and not exploit my time to parade your service in Korea as a substitute for actually thinking, and agree to refrain from injecting personality, I will be happy to continue this discussion, not otherwise.”

Rubbish you don’t want to hear the answers. Go back and read your books, don’t let reality intrude.

[Rummenigge]

So I conclude: I am just to stupid to see the fact that michael moore is a moron because I am german and therefore you can’t explain why the washington consensus seems to be broken and the gops latest best candidate was a 80 year old ?

[nathanbedford]

No, I take the opposite position and I assume that if you thought that was my meaning the problem is a breakdown in language.

My observation is simply that the press and the culture in Germany is such that it is impossible to form a realistic assessment of American politics if one is not exposed to other sources. The fact that you are On Free Republic indicates that you are a man of wider ken.