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On the other hand
Joined: 19 Apr 2003
Location: I walk along the avenue
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 Posted: Mon Sep 03, 2007 6:40 am Post subject: |
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| If Korea benefits from a U.S alliance as in its armed forces preventing a North Korean invasion, then it could be argued that the U.S has a similar claim on the South Korean army. |
Well, no. Because the US is already benefitting from the alliance, by checking the expansion of a nation(or nations) that it regards as being hostile to American interests.
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| The North Korean army on the other hand was not a threat (then or now) to the American homeland... |
One country doesn't have to threaten another country's homeland in order to threaten its interests. Canada sent troops to Gulf War I, even though Saddam almost certainly had no territorial designs on Canada.
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| As for those other countries (France and Germany?). France has no U.S contingent in it defending it to my knowledge and Germany is more than capable of defending itself. |
Yes, but as you imply, Germany has had US troops stationed there, some of whom have even lost their lives to pro-Soviet terrorists.
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BERLIN (AP) -- A former Red Army Faction member who was convicted in the 1985 murder of a U.S. soldier and the subsequent bombing of an American air base has been freed on parole after 21 years in prison, a judicial official said Monday.
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Haule, who was released on five year's probation, was arrested in 1986 and convicted two years later for her role in a failed 1984 attack on a NATO training school in Bavaria.
In 1994, a Frankfurt court found her guilty of participating in the murder of a U.S. soldier and the bombing of the U.S. Rhein-Main air base and sentenced her to life in prison. She was convicted on three counts of murder and causing an explosion.
Spc. Edward Pimental, a 20-year-old U.S. Army soldier, was killed after he left a discotheque in the western German city of Wiesbaden, on Aug. 7, 1985.
Authorities said the terrorists used Pimental's ID card to enter the U.S. base in Frankfurt. The following day, explosives packed in a Volkswagen rocked the parking lot behind the base headquarters.
Two Americans were killed in the bombing and 23 people were injured.
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And I'm just guessing that the US is more indispensable to the survival of NATO than Germany is. So it could be argued that they are the ones doing the "heavy lifting" in that alliance as well. Yet, I take it you agree with me that that does not obligate Germany(or any other NATO country) to participate in every American scheme that isn't part of the alliance.
http://tinyurl.com/23nvjx |
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Kuros
Joined: 27 Apr 2004
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| Posted: Mon Sep 03, 2007 2:34 pm Post subject: |
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| On the other hand wrote: |
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| If Korea benefits from a U.S alliance as in its armed forces preventing a North Korean invasion, then it could be argued that the U.S has a similar claim on the South Korean army. |
Well, no. Because the US is already benefitting from the alliance, by checking the expansion of a nation(or nations) that it regards as being hostile to American interests.
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Under your interpretation of alliances as business transactions, that is ultimately for the parties of the transaction to decide, or for a mutually appointed arbitrator to resolve.
If an alliance is a business transaction simply, then it is open for re-negotiation and re-interpretation at any time, unless there is a governing statute in the jurisdiction to judge it and hopefully some power to enforce it as well. For international business transactions, signatories of the GATT, now envelloped under the authority of the WTO, do have recourse to regulating statutes. For international alliances, there is no guaranteed recourse, since the UN acts as a forum for member-states, and not as a governing body over which it may enforce its will.
The problem with your theory of alliances as business transactions is that in Western society we have developed complex legal structures to govern codes of transactions. In the Anglo-American tradition, which I believe includes Canada, there can be no compulsion in relations unless it is spelled out in a contract.
Perhaps before I continue, I should request documents regarding the US-Korea alliance. But I'm guessing that it won't be spelled out as explicitly as business contract since there is no high court of the Global Leviathan to resolve such disputes anyway.
I guess what I'm trying to say is, there's lots of room for debate on this one. |
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Gopher
Joined: 04 Jun 2005
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| Posted: Mon Sep 03, 2007 2:52 pm Post subject: |
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| Kuros wrote: |
| ...there's lots of room for debate on this one. |
Indeed. Even regarding contracts. Someone once told me, that with respect to "implied contracts," the rumor that judges were gods was true: for they had the power to create something out of nothing at will -- and then enforce it.
In any case, international affairs, even relations between "allies" (in quotes because allies, enemies, or what-have-you, are not static relationships over time), everything is in flux: we constantly redefine our relationships according to changing power structures and enforcement or perceived ability to enforce -- just like business contracts. Not only is there a lot of room for debate on this, then, but I would be surprised to hear that there had ever not been debate about it. |
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The_Conservative
Joined: 15 Mar 2007
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| Posted: Mon Sep 03, 2007 8:11 pm Post subject: |
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| On the other hand wrote: |
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| You seem rather literate so surely you've heard of the Holodomor? |
Yes, the Ukrainian famine. (Though I will admit that until a few days ago, I was unaware that it went by that name.) There is in fact a monument to its victims in my hometown, which has a sizable Ukranian population.
Still though, your original point was...
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| But Russia then instituted a corrupt and brutal regime every bit as bad as the Nazis. |
I understood this to mean postwar.
It did mean postwar...which is why I specified that I was referring to an event that took place before the war, to show the kind of leadership that ran Russia and therefore add credibility to the reports of these claimed atrocities.
As regards postwar the article states that these atrocities apparently lasted until 1949....about five years or so after the war had ended in Europe. Some more notable postwar events are East Berlin in '53, Hungary '56, Prague '68 and Afghanistan in '79. Not to mention all the purges and arrests of political dissidents and the establishment of forced labor camps...
I take your point about Hungary though. But I'd be interested to know, given what you apparently regard as the moral equivalence between Nazism and Stalinism, if it would have been just as well to allow Hitler to win the war.
20 million Ukrainians vs six million Jews, not to mention the other casualties of the war...which is worse? I think one would be hard pressed to make an argument in favor of one being worse. I would say the moral equivalence is about the same. The only difference though is that Stalin was on our side. Just as well to allow Hitler to end the war? No, just as it not would have been as well to allow Stalin to attain a position of supremacy over all of Europe.
I really don't understand your question. In wartime it is not a question of morality but tactics. If you have to support one dictator in order to counter a greater threat from another dictator then you hold your nose and do so. Nobody's going to care about your moral superiority if by not supporting said dictator you lose and die.
At that time Hitler was the greater threat. Near the war's end he not only had the V-1 and V-2 rockets but there was a widespread belief among the Allies() that he was close/r to obtaining a nuclear bomb.
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Anyway we are kind of hijacking this thread aren't we? For those of us that are interested in this side topic, maybe for courtesy's sake we should start a new thread...? |
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