Why shouldn't there be Japanese spy planes looking at NK?
Because in doing so you are violating their air space, hence violating their territorial sovereignty, hence an Act of War. Imagine NK were doing the same thing over Japan and the US. The Japanese are now scared shitless because their granpas did crazy stuff all over Asia (kill 6 million people) and now Kim Jong-Il wants to return the "favor". Let's not forget the Japanese put the Koreans in concentration camps and just outright slaughtered them during WWII and even before. So there is a lot of hate that is going to boil over some day.
They've made a number of reckless threats lately.
If you are defending yourself it is not a threat, it is a warning. Obama saying that it will take military action against NK is a threat. If you're flying planes over sovereign territories you are breaking International Law (again, as observed by the UN). If the representatives of those countries tell you to stop doing so or it will take action against them it will be deemed a defensive action and there is nothing the UN can say about it because it is in their own charters.
They are a repressive communist dictatorship who are acquiring nuclear weapons who just happen to a stones throw form Japan and you are questioning Japan's actions?
No, I am questioning everyone's actions, now and in the past. If you break the laws do not fucking complaint when one (or both) of the sides goes apes and decides to build WMDs. The laws are supposed to be the same for everyone.
You are actually citing "sovereignty" when the country in question is launching long range missiles getting nukes and has the human rights track record it has? THANK GOD people like you don't run things otherwise we'd have been invaded and speaking russian long ago.
But that's not reason enough to go into any country. Our human rights record is not the best or worst in the world. We've acquired a stockpile of WMDs Attila and Genghis Khan would drool over in envy. Does it give anyone the right to attack the US? No.
Exactly. It went too far and corrected itself regarding McCarthyism. I told you we weren't saints. It's unfortunate we did what we did to prevent the spread of communism.
"Corrected itself"
Got some balls. Dude (McCarthy) wipes his ass with the Constitution, begins a persecution of US citizens based on political affiliation and this guy says it "corrected itself". Talk about fucking painting the Mona Lisa with your index finger.
Really now? So the democratically elected government and its people just wanted to be taken over by the communists? It was OK for them to invade a sovereign country? You seem to use "sovereignty card" very conveniently.
No, I'm saying the puppet regime may have wanted the US there, but the South Koreans didn't. Look at what WikiPedia has to say about South Korean's affiliation and willingness to fight for your "democratic" regime: "Within days, South Korean forces, often of dubious loyalty to the Southern regime, were in full retreat or defecting en masse to the North.[...]Many of these South Koreans later fought for North Korea. Many South Koreans deserted after the battle. However, North Korea's hope for a quick surrender by the Rhee government and the reunification of the peninsula evaporated when the United States and other foreign powers intervened with UN approval.". Dude, it tool the NKs days to get in Seoul. The Rhee regime (American puppet) had very, very little popular support. So, at most, you had a dictatorial regime, that of Rhee, which had very little popular support, asking a foreign power to intervene to keep him in power. The NK army cannot be considered foreign if your soldiers have no qualms whatsoever about jumping the line and fight for the other side.
It was huh? The UN invaded a sovereign country (SK)?
Yes, the UN sanctioned/approved the war. The UN was a much pro-capitalist body of power back then. The Soviets were in full boycott mode at the time and inexplicably chose not to veto the UN's act of war against North Korea. Had the Soviets vetoed the act of war there wouldn't have been a war.
Yeah, they'd love to be one country. That much is true. However, they'd like to be one free democratic country. NOT one repressed staving country ruled by a twisted dictator.
Yes, this we agree on, but that is a decision North and South Koreans have to make without US or Russian or Japanese involvement. The only thing standing in between Korean reunification nowadays, INEXPLICABLY, is the UN.
If the world is less progressive, less free, less productive, OUR standard of living here in the USA will diminish. Capitalism, with regulation, IS progressive. If communism did flourish it would have affected this country thus affecting me and you.
History proves you wrong dude. Our economic prosperity (which is what I think you keep referring to when talking about standard of living) was much better while totalitarian communism was around and got progressively worse when communism (almost) dissappeared. So... technically you still haven't answered the question. Please do. How did you benefit personally from the fall of "communism"?
How old are you Slapper? I'm not asking this to be condescending or insulting. I grew up and was an adult during the cold war. It's not a good feeling knowing that at any minute i might be vaporized and 100's of millions of people might die. (I live by a air force base) I agree with the first part of your paragraph. But that's not because communism existed back then and now that it doesn't things aren't as good.
I'm in my early 30s. That's OK. You are free to feel whatever you want. You live in a (sort of) free country. I choose to worry about more mundane things like getting run over by a car, getting a heart attack or not being able to pay my mortgage. I understand you rather worry about enemies far away and all, and like I said, you have a right to. However, I do have an issue when that very same irrational fear of the unknown somehow percolates into my government's foreign policy though.
Iraq was more like a mob hit because we invaded it. Who invaded and started the Korean war? You have a very poor argument here.
Well, at least you do use the word "invade". That's a start. As far as the Korean War goes... yes, I too agree with you on this! It's not that NK did nothing wrong when it invaded SK. It did... sort of. It's the US INVOLVEMENT in the war I do not understand. I do not friggin get why our government must be the one running out toward an armed conflict as though it is our business to mess around everyone else's internal affairs.
North and South Korea are the same country. They've been trying to reunite ever since they got split apart. It's external actors, external forces, that keep preventing that from happening. Am I making sense?
