Why do we still have Military at the Korean DMZ?

[Bill]

China is one of our main trading partners now. North Korea has nothing we need, the South Korean people don't want us there.

Aren't we wasting military power we need to control the Middle East and the Islamofascists?

[Mr. Blue]

Bush greatly scaled back the amount of troops in the DMZ, a lot of people criticized him for this move. The problem is how big of a threat is N. Korea to S. Korea?

At the moment I think there has to be some U.S. forces to stabalize the area a bit. S.E. Asia can become volatile quickly, even though I agree that China wouldn't do anything against the US, there's so many players in that theater right now that it would be remiss for us not to have some troops at the DMZ.

There's a bunch of scenarios that can very easily and realistically happen in that area of the world...while I don't believe the U.S. should be policemen to the world, we have a vested interest in keeping the region stable.

[Bill]

Yes, but Russia is an ally now, China is an ally now, NK is their next door neighbor, not ours, shouldn't NK and SK be their problem and their responsibility?

Would we be happy if China had troops in central america?

The planet has changed - we need to adapt. And we need the troops and the money to continue the war against the terrorists in Iraq, Iran, and Syria.

I think the fact that Bush didn't drop a cruise missle on that recent missle test by NK proves, without a doubt, that NK is no longer of any interest to us.

Let Japan, China, and Russia worry about that idiot. He's only a danger to them, not to us.

[Simon]

I think it would be interesting to see if we could make an agreement with Japan, China, and Russia to replace our troops on the Korean DMZ on at least a 1-to-1 basis. It would be nice to be out of there, that's for sure, but 'lil Kim would need to be shown that there still are plenty of (someone's) boots already on the ground there.

[Mr. Blue]

Problem is i wouldn't rank China as an ally, I wouldn't rank Russia as an ally, and I'm pretty sure that there should there will be a U.S. military aspect there for as long as the region is unstable.

China, even though they're our trading partner, still wants Taiwan back. The U.S. supports Taiwain independence. That's a potential problem in the region.

China hates Japan, they have student protest regularly against Japan, and Japan doesn't exactly like China. With the N. K problem, Japan wants to expand its military, the only reason they haven't expanded their military is that they have the U.S. there to keep any trouble off their shores. Don't for a minute think though that if the US pulled out that Japan wouldn't create a strong deterrent against attack.

NK vs. SK, very much a problem...if you see some documentaries on NK you realize that it has concencentration camps, they do test biological weapons on its own people, and they Kim Jong-Il is as screwy as they come. SK has a very healthy economy, in a global market if they were to suddenly be attacked and overrun, it would send shockwaves through the financial markets. So we do have a vested interest in keeping them free.

So in that region, we should still keep troops...now in Europe, wtf, why do we have troops there? Sorry, it's time for us to get out of Europe completely and let them handle situations there as they arise (even if they messed it up a bunch of times before).