[Rushy]

keep misconstruing my argument if you like.  you are manufacturing some good zingers.  my argument was that the opportunity-cost to abandoning the korean peninsula is probably greater than saving 0.06% of yearly spending.  i know you're smart enough to understand fractions.

"It's just a few billion dollars, man, no big deal." If we look at every budget constraint and say "well, gee, it's only 0.06% of the budget" then surprise! The budget never changes and we go into debt.

"seoul is an invaluable financial and political asset for the us.  guaranteeing its security is a no-brainer.  there's probably an interesting conversation to be had about the best way to go about that, but that conversation will never involve trump, a candidate serially committed to not being even remotely interested in whether or not the things he's saying are true."

Guaranteeing security for whom against what? Are we trying to intimidate someone into doing or not doing something?

i don't really give a shit that he wants to change our foreign policy toward south korea.  i care that he has any clue at all what our foreign policy toward south korea currently is, and i care that he's completely willing to pretend that he does without any apparent self-motivation to fill those gaps in his knowledge.  he just says a bunch of shit that isn't true, gets corrected, says a bunch of new shit that isn't true, gets corrected again, and on and on and on.  but whatever as long as it's super populist and angry then that's cool.

It's pretty clear you don't know anything about what's going on in Korea, either, which is why you're confused about:

you started by saying that north korea is a joke, and no one could support the argument that we stay because north korea is a threat, and then ended by saying that North Korea is an existential threat to Seoul.  i dunno how to reconcile those two things.

North Korea is theoretically an existential threat, yes, in the same way that China, Pakistan, India, Israel, Russia, UK, etc. are also existential threats to the world. North Korea could vaporize all of its neighbors. However, the DPRK is not verging on a murder-suicide, no matter how many times you read about it on whatever garbage it is you get your news from. They are a joke and do not warrant the absolute waste of human and materiel resources in the country.

[garygreen]

"It's just a few billion dollars, man, no big deal." If we look at every budget constraint and say "well, gee, it's only 0.06% of the budget" then surprise! The budget never changes and we go into debt.

you're still misunderstanding my argument.  i'm not saying that any amount of spending on anything is fine.  i'm saying that the net value of this spending is positive because it secures our access to an economic asset that is worth more to our budget than we spend to secure it.

North Korea is theoretically an existential threat, yes, in the same way that China, Pakistan, India, Israel, Russia, UK, etc. are also existential threats to the world. North Korea could vaporize all of its neighbors. However, the DPRK is not verging on a murder-suicide, no matter how many times you read about it on whatever garbage it is you get your news from. They are a joke and do not warrant the absolute waste of human and materiel resources in the country.

lol if you insist.  sounds like you've got it all worked out.  tbh you read more and more like trump everyday.  i'm incompetent, whatever i read is written by incompetent people (personal fav), the dprk is incompetent, everyone involved in us foreign policy toward korea since the war is incompetent, etc.  yawn.

like i said, i do not share your confidence in your ability to predict the future of relations on the peninsula over the next 10, 20, 30, etc. years.  that the dprk does not have a death wish is hardly sufficient in an of itself to prevent conflict.  see: world history.

also, the dprk is not china, pakistan, india, israel, russia, or the uk.  i'm surprised you made the comparison.  among the virtually endless supply of differences is that those nations are allies, and we cooperate with them on not blowing each other up, both diplomatically and materially.  if the dprk ever decides to behave toward us in a manner even remotely resembling those allies, then yeah, i'll probably agree that we don't need to house our own reaction forces on the peninsula anymore. 

or whatever russia != threat therefore dprk != threat that's probably right

[Rushy]

you're still misunderstanding my argument.  i'm not saying that any amount of spending on anything is fine.  i'm saying that the net value of this spending is positive because it secures our access to an economic asset that is worth more to our budget than we spend to secure it.

The net impact of the actual money being sent to South Korea is extremely small (going in line with you noting it's only a few billion!) North Korea isn't staying out of South Korea just because the US has people there, since they could easily kill all of those people. North Korea is staying out of South Korea because North Korea knows North Korea will stop existing if they ever do happen to invade South Korea.

The world avoids North Korea because it is a political disaster, not a military threat.

russia != threat therefore dprk != threat that's probably right

Russia is much more of a threat than DPRK is. Russia could theoretically strike out at other nations and still remain a stable nation. You seem to have swallowed some fantastical "North Korean bogeyman" garbage.

[TheTruthIsOnHere]

North Korea is the bad guy because they aren't involved or in bed with any central zionist controlled banking infrastructure. Same way Gidaffi was a bad guy all of a sudden and got nixed. Assad is a bad guy for the same reasons.

[George]

TheThorkIsOnHere

Gaddafi was only "all of a sudden" a bad guy to people who were weren't paying to world affairs and/or didn't know their history.  He was very bad news and had been for many years.

[TheTruthIsOnHere]

TheThorkIsOnHere

Gaddafi was only "all of a sudden" a bad guy to people who were weren't paying to world affairs and/or didn't know their history.  He was very bad news and had been for many years.

Was it the gold backed currency he proposed for the African Union? Or the Man Made river project (that nato bombed)which was so nefarious?

I don't get the thork reference

[Rama Set]

Yeah, he was not the axe-wielding mad man the US made him out to be. A dictator, yes, but one that did a lot of good things with his power.

[Rushy]

Most middle eastern dictators were the direct result of populations that could only be kept in check by totalitarianism. Their culture is accustomed to brutal, rigid structures. Just walking in, deposing the dictator and saying "be free, people, be free!" has proven time and time again to be a terrible idea.

[Rama Set]

Look in the dictionary at spring, arab

[Rushy]

Look in the dictionary at spring, arab

Hm, yes, protests always accurately reflect the majority of a population and never involve a small yet vocal out-group.

[Rama Set]

Look in the dictionary at spring, arab

Hm, yes, protests always accurately reflect the majority of a population and never involve a small yet vocal out-group.

I was agreeing with you, retart.

[Rushy]

Look in the dictionary at spring, arab

Hm, yes, protests always accurately reflect the majority of a population and never involve a small yet vocal out-group.

I was agreeing with you, retart.

Oh. muh bad

[TheTruthIsOnHere]

Look in the dictionary at spring, arab

Hm, yes, protests always accurately reflect the majority of a population and never involve a small yet vocal out-group.

I was agreeing with you, retart.

Oh. muh bad

There's actually a lot of people who believe the Arab Springs were a direct result of covert American influence. Basically a destabilization of the region, because it doesn't really matter to US Policy who is in control, as long as there is civil war and unrest intermittently.

[Lord Dave]

Look in the dictionary at spring, arab

Hm, yes, protests always accurately reflect the majority of a population and never involve a small yet vocal out-group.

I was agreeing with you, retart.

Oh. muh bad

There's actually a lot of people who believe the Arab Springs were a direct result of covert American influence. Basically a destabilization of the region, because it doesn't really matter to US Policy who is in control, as long as there is civil war and unrest intermittently.

Helps drive up oil prices.

[garygreen]

The net impact of the actual money being sent to South Korea is extremely small (going in line with you noting it's only a few billion!) North Korea isn't staying out of South Korea just because the US has people there, since they could easily kill all of those people. North Korea is staying out of South Korea because North Korea knows North Korea will stop existing if they ever do happen to invade South Korea.

The world avoids North Korea because it is a political disaster, not a military threat.

let's hope that the dprk always assesses the situation exactly as you do from your armchair in tennessee or whatever.  i can't think of any conflicts that ignited over miscalculations, or the ideological obsessions of dictators, or random and unpredictable events, or some other nonsense altogether...can you?

Russia is much more of a threat than DPRK is. Russia could theoretically strike out at other nations and still remain a stable nation. You seem to have swallowed some fantastical "North Korean bogeyman" garbage.

so now we're on to russia = threat therefore dprk != threat?  awesome.  hey dummy: there two things aren't related.  our foreign policy toward russia doesn't have to be the same as our foreign policy toward north korea.  they probably shouldn't be, since, again, russia is an ally.

south korea is also an ally, and a valuable one at that.  we probably shouldn't follow trump's advice to extort them to save a measly 0.06% of our budget.  that's dumb.

[TheTruthIsOnHere]

russia is an ally.

Well, besides that whole pesky proxy war thing in Syria and Ukraine.

[Rushy]

let's hope that the dprk always assesses the situation exactly as you do from your armchair in tennessee or whatever.  i can't think of any conflicts that ignited over miscalculations, or the ideological obsessions of dictators, or random and unpredictable events, or some other nonsense altogether...can you?

All of those events were perpetrated by countries that had reasonable chances of winning the war. If the DPRK attack South Korea, everyone loses, regardless of how many billions or even trillions of dollars we put into South Korea.

What is your argument at this point? Do you believe that an American base in South Korea makes a crazy, unpredictable DPRK less likely to nuke Seoul? We already have nuclear retaliation treaties with South Korea. If they nuke South Korea we nuke them right back. No amount of American troops in South Korea would affect Korean War 2: Electric Boogaloo.

so now we're on to russia = threat therefore dprk != threat?  awesome.  hey dummy: there two things aren't related.  our foreign policy toward russia doesn't have to be the same as our foreign policy toward north korea.  they probably shouldn't be, since, again, russia is an ally.

south korea is also an ally, and a valuable one at that.  we probably shouldn't follow trump's advice to extort them to save a measly 0.06% of our budget.  that's dumb.

China is our ally... Russia is our ally... but DPRK is a multi-billion dollar threat and we can't afford to not have troops stationed on its border 24/7!

Good god, man, at least tell me you're just trolling.

[Rushy]

Okay, so garygreen got me in my own thread. Haha. Good one guys.

We all know its Trump vs Hillary now. Bernie is setting himself up to tear the DNC convention apart. I give it a 80% chance of having violent riots.

[garygreen]

All of those events were perpetrated by countries that had reasonable chances of winning the war. If the DPRK attack South Korea, everyone loses, regardless of how many billions or even trillions of dollars we put into South Korea.

right.  events that were beyond their control motivated them to start wars they thought they could win, even though at least 2 of those conflicts (both germanys) were almost certainly completely un-winnable by the instigators and lacked internal consensus that war was the appropriate course of action.

your whole argument rests on the bizarre premise that kim jong un and the dprk are always going to assess things the way you do and could never be motivated by irrationality or external forces.  that's asinine.

What is your argument at this point? Do you believe that an American base in South Korea makes a crazy, unpredictable DPRK less likely to nuke Seoul?

my argument is that trump is a retard with a retard proposal to extort our allies our of some petty cash, and no one should take seriously the inane ramblings of someone who isn't even really interested in learning who pays for what, or what we get in return, or any other fact that will impede on his bloviating on what an idiot everyone else is.  it's actually kinda beautiful in its way.

i think it's exceedingly unlikely that north korea will ever nuke anyone.  but yeah, nuking us soldiers is obviously going to elicit a stronger response from the us than nuking south korean soldiers.  it's more about deterring conventional conflict.  we deter north korea, but also we exert control over south korean forces that are also capable of starting a conflict.  as a bonus, we get to deter north korea from conflicts with other neighbors besides south korea simply by having a strong presence in the region and establishing those neighbors as us interests.

china and russia and the dprk

i'm loving this.  keep going.  i only want to hear more about how comparable our relationships with russia and china are to the dprk.

fair enough, china and russia aren't technically allies.  if you actually think that the level of cooperation we have with russia and china is an any way indicative of our level of cooperation with the dprk, even confined solely to the subject of "let's not war with each other," then you're hopeless. 

i don't even get why we're talking about russia and china since i don't think i ever said anything like "anyone with a strong military force or nuclear weapons requires a us military presence as close to them as possible no matter what the cost."  i mean, you keep pretending that i do, but i've not actually said anything like that.

oh and add "north korea is the most terrifying and powerful hegemon on the planet" to the list of shit i haven't said at all.

[Rushy]

right.  events that were beyond their control motivated them to start wars they thought they could win, even though at least 2 of those conflicts (both germanys) were almost certainly completely un-winnable by the instigators and lacked internal consensus that war was the appropriate course of action.

your whole argument rests on the bizarre premise that kim jong un and the dprk are always going to assess things the way you do and could never be motivated by irrationality or external forces.  that's asinine.

A rational actor would not attack South Korea at all. An irrational actor would attack South Korea regardless of US presence. Tell me, what exactly is the US presence supposed to be doing if Kim Jong-un is just a nutter who is willing to get himself and his country destroyed regardless of the consequences?

my argument is that trump is a retard with a retard proposal to extort our allies our of some petty cash, and no one should take seriously the inane ramblings of someone who isn't even really interested in learning who pays for what, or what we get in return, or any other fact that will impede on his bloviating on what an idiot everyone else is.  it's actually kinda beautiful in its way.

i think it's exceedingly unlikely that north korea will ever nuke anyone.  but yeah, nuking us soldiers is obviously going to elicit a stronger response from the us than nuking south korean soldiers.  it's more about deterring conventional conflict.  we deter north korea, but also we exert control over south korean forces that are also capable of starting a conflict.  as a bonus, we get to deter north korea from conflicts with other neighbors besides south korea simply by having a strong presence in the region and establishing those neighbors as us interests.

Asking people to pay for a service provided isn't extortion. Other countries can afford extravagant social and education programs because a completely different country is absorbing their defense costs. It's time they pay up a few billion dollars at a time. I mean, it's just "petty cash," right?

i'm loving this.  keep going.  i only want to hear more about how comparable our relationships with russia and china are to the dprk.

Oh, please. This is just embarrassing.

fair enough, china and russia aren't technically allies.  if you actually think that the level of cooperation we have with russia and china is an any way indicative of our level of cooperation with the dprk, even confined solely to the subject of "let's not war with each other," then you're hopeless. 

We'd "cooperate" with North Korea too, if they actually had anything worth having.

i don't even get why we're talking about russia and china since i don't think i ever said anything like "anyone with a strong military force or nuclear weapons requires a us military presence as close to them as possible no matter what the cost."  i mean, you keep pretending that i do, but i've not actually said anything like that.