RE Buchanan's essay on US defending South Korea against North Korea)
Buchanan asks:
What are the U.S. Interests.. [emphasis added] that we should be willing to put at risk... tens of thousands of U.S. troops in Korea and... Asia... in a war that would otherwise be confined to the Korean Peninsula?
The answer seems to be found further down in the same essay
2 words (underlined)
Buchanan:
… what Americans fear most, and the one thing that deters them, is nuclear weapons.
Obviously, both the hawks and doves have to be very careful dealing with a country that has (is working on getting) nuclear weapons AND has an unstable ruler/oppressor.
Who wants war? Not many. But that is why we have to be strong and defy NK, which involves protecting S Korea, our ally from their aggression/ambition.
It is called “Peace through strength”
It seems like a no-brainer that we cannot let North Korea have South Korea, which is apparently what NK wants. To allow Kim Jong Un to take over the South (and if we withdrew our presence, that is what would happen) means losing a big “interest”—South Korea.
Do we really want S Korea to be ruled by Kim Jong Un? Heck, we don't even want the N to be ruled by him.
Do we need another country in the world that is anti-democracy? Anti-freedom, anti-human rights? Tyrannical? (not to mention: starving)
We cannot turn our backs on S Korea, which country, to say the least, does not want the kind of government N Korea has.
We let (1956) the people of Hungary down (and elsewhere).
I say: Let's not do that again!
It just stands to reason that the more countries in the world that are, or that lean, communist and/or are oppressive/tyrannical... the less freedom the USA will also have... I hate globalism but you have to admit that at this point in time, we pretty much have to live in a global economy, a global community (although, thankfully not to the extent we would be doing had “Ms Thing” won the US presidency)
Don't we have enough enemies in said world community already—I think of the UN
We need more?
God knows what the future will be like when/if more and more countries become anti-democracy, anti-freedom, anti-human rights... ruled by a self-absorbed tyrant (or even just a plain old tyrant).
It is like watching someone drop poison (say, napalm) into your swimming pool and doing nothing because it is at the other end of the pool and will not affect you (right away)...
As Martin Luther King Jr said “A threat to justice anywhere is a threat to justice anywhere”