Originally Posted By: pbm
Originally Posted By: rshaw125
If we did not have troops there this would not have happened. We should have pulled out 20 years ago.
Do you think South Korea would still exist if we left there in 1997?
South Korea would no longer exist simply because they would have taken over North Korea.
There would today only be Korea.
South Korea has double the population of the North and has the eleventh largest economy in the world.
North Korea has the 125th largest economy in the world.
Were a war to have happened twenty years ago, please tell me how the North wouldn't have been destroyed?
South Korea has been both babied and crippled by the presence of the US.
Were US forces not present in Korea, the South Koreans would have had to invest more money and manpower in defense.
Instead, they're free to invest these resources in cheap cars, tires, appliances and phone handsets sold in the US.
South Korea was more than able to stand up for itself twenty years ago. Too bad we didn't make it do so.