Who 'won' the Korean War? Should the U.S. get out of Korea?

[TahitiNut]

As many know, the Viet Nam War was patterned after the Korean War - supposedly to keep the 'free' people of the South from falling under the rule of the 'totalitarian' Communists of the North. Just as Viet Nam had it's DMZ, Korea is currently divided by a DMZ, heavily salted with land mines (and the primary reason cited for the US opposition to the Land Mine Treaty), and guarded by a force of more than 44,000 U.S. military personnel - even though South Korea's military has 'stood up' and their government is firmly in control.

So, did the U.S. 'lose' the Korean War?

[evlbstrd]

1. Nobody won.

And nobody will.

[file83]

9. War is like the game of Tic-Tac-Toe...the only winning move is NOT to play.

I learned that from WarGames.
:thumbsup:

[TahitiNut]

13. A little study of game theory is useful.

Learning about zero-sum, plus-sum, and negative-sum games can be enlightening. The Prisoner's Dilemma is also a useful study.

[MethuenProgressive]

2. China won the Korean War.

And that's a fact, Jack.

[sweetheart]

10. ditto, was looking for the 'china won' option

Korea was a valuable lesson for the cold warriors, that they did not have the
political capital to lose the kind of lives it would take to fight china in a
land war. 250,000 regular chinese died in korea at the very minimum, a war
between china and america fought on korean soil after the yalu river pusch,
so incredibly ill advised by foolhardy generals who did not respect china had
already been attacked via the same peninsula a few decades earlier.

USA forces should stay in korea and japan, so that the financial drain of the
wasted deployment, so weakens militarist society, that they are withdrawn anyways,
much like how roman centurions just walked off hadrians wall when they stopped
getting paid. Bankruptcy looms, and wars of adventure postit notes are pinned
all over the earth, where to cut, where to cut.

[IndyOp]

3. Other. No one has won. No one can win an occupation, so no one will win.

We lose. They lose. The losing just continues with no end in sight.

:thumbsdown:

[wuushew]

4. The Amerikan presence on the Korean peninsula is an impediment to peace

yankee go home.

[Alexander]

5. Nobody won, yet.

Life is hell for citizens of North Korea - anyone with internet access can figure that out. They are suffering and starving while Kim Jong Il lives in splendor.

Madeline Albright had the right idea, though - talk to the governments, even the crazy-ass ones, and you'll help the situation. Stories about families reuniting after 50 years were in the press, largely because of the successful diplomacy used to bring this about.

Ideally the North Korean government will collapse and the peninsula will be re-united, but that's not a strategy for helping Koreans, many of whom have family members on both sides of the line.

The US initially was repelling an NK invasion at the start of the Korean War. Since the NK goal was to take the entire continent, which they clearly didn't do, you could say the US "won" in that respect.

Then again, the US had 75-80% of the Korean peninsula under control when MacArthur made those crazybatshitinsane statements about how China was "next". So of course the Chinese troops poured across the border, and fought the US back to the 38th. So as for whether or not the US "won", it's a half-full/half-empty question. If NK's government collapses and it joins SK's pro-Western, capitalist government, then I guess the US will have "won" the war, 50 years afterward.

So far, Korea has lost. And that's really what matters.

[Ignacio Upton]

6. It was/still is a stalemate

Neither side has won. And yes, I feel we should stay. Korea is not Vietnam or Iraq, and Kim Jong Il really is a threat.

[madrchsod]

7. no one won and never will until

the cult in northern korea dies away and korea unifies again. we are there because the south koreans and the japanese want us there. it`s the reality of the situation that will not change no matter who is president

[upi402]

8. Cold war over, now Global Economic Interdependance

Let Rome retreat before Rome breaks the long, thin, brittle branch we've climed out onto.

Which is the neocon Pnac goal, of course.

[Disturbed]

11. South Korea wanted to open the Border but

the Bushoini Regime pressured hard to veto that notion.

If NK citizens were allowed to cross over and vica versa perhaps the NK Regime would change for the better.

[upi402]

12. The China/HK paradigm.

We should at LEAST talk with all parties about that. But Republicans would rather put us at risk and use the issue to political advantage.