I heard a Korean guy on NPR last night say the most apalling thing

[Cali Coug]

Originally Posted by SeattleUte

Last night on NPR a Korean guy was ranting about how intolerable the 30,000 U.S. servicemen occupying Korea were. He made some points that seemed valid and for a while he had a sympathetic ear from me. There is such a thing as the ugly American. Then he said, "It's as bad as when the Japanese were here." About this I'm speechless. I don't know what to say about such collosal ignorance other than to say hearing things like this makes me think we should be like Norway and retreat into isolationism, learn to power our cars by burning manure, coal or whatever, and let the miserable world outside Western Europe, Canada, Australia and Japan fuck themselves. I don't really feel that way, but hearing things like that conjures up those kindds of dark thoughts in me.

I'm not entirely sure why we are still in South Korea. We can't do squat with 30,000 troops to stop an invasion from the North. In fact, a stupid mistake by a North Korean on the border there that kills an American could get us involved in something we don't really want to be involved in. According to Jane (the leading defense analysis group), North Korea would capture Seoul in less than 3 days if they wanted to take it. We would be powerless to stop the onslaught of the North Korean army with our 30,000 troops. Our thousands of missiles in the area would help slow them, but we don't need 30,000 people to operate those.