I've been watching Oliver Stone's 12-part "Untold History of the United States" this wknd, and it makes everything being argued about here seem almost quaint. The fact is, for the last 115 years, the military and imperialist actions of America, Europe and Russia have been decimating and exploiting the poorest sections of the Earth for land, resources, and money. There really are no good guys. It's an absolute wonder that we haven't destroyed ourselves completely.
You have to be suspicious of anyone of either side of the debate who throws around loaded words like "militarist" and "imperialist", without a) defining what they mean; b) providing evidence to prove why those terms apply and c) explaining why those things are so bad.
What we need is a messiah... To lead us to hope, prosperity and peace. To unite the tribes of man.
Oh well...
Until that day.
Merry Christmas.
It might be worth pointing out that Jesus preached poverty, not "prosperity".
Jesus preached charity, not poverty. To use your wealth to help others less fortunate of you and love everyone equally, regardless of stature leaving judgement to God.
Read: The Chocolate Wars by Deborah Cadbury to see how this accomplished and how far we are in this day and age.
I've been watching Oliver Stone's 12-part "Untold History of the United States" this wknd, and it makes everything being argued about here seem almost quaint. The fact is, for the last 115 years, the military and imperialist actions of America, Europe and Russia have been decimating and exploiting the poorest sections of the Earth for land, resources, and money. There really are no good guys. It's an absolute wonder that we haven't destroyed ourselves completely.
You have to be suspicious of anyone of either side of the debate who throws around loaded words like "militarist" and "imperialist", without a) defining what they mean; b) providing evidence to prove why those terms apply and c) explaining why those things are so bad.
See: "what did the Romans ever do for us?"
I'd say spending the entire century specifically starting absolutely pointless wars to funnel money to defense contractors and advance the interest of corporations in those countries the definition. The Philippines, the Spanish-American War (famously pushed in the press by William Randolph Hearst), Korea, Cuba, Vietnam, overthrowing leaders across the globe (specifically in Africa, South America, and the Middle East), Iraq. That's really just the tip of the iceberg. The only armed conflict fought in the last century that had even a shred of legitimacy in regards to the world's best interests in WW2. Everything else was a boondoggle.
What we need is a messiah... To lead us to hope, prosperity and peace. To unite the tribes of man.
Oh well...
Until that day.
Merry Christmas.
It might be worth pointing out that Jesus preached poverty, not "prosperity".
Jesus preached charity, not poverty. To use your wealth to help others less fortunate of you and love everyone equally, regardless of stature leaving judgement to God.
Read: The Chocolate Wars by Deborah Cadbury to see how this accomplished and how far we are in this day and age.
This is highly debatable. Matthew 19:23 would disagree with you. So would Luke 14:33, and any myriad of other verses. But this is why arguing about the meaning of a bible verse, and, specifically, trying to use it to dictate modern policy is a folly. You can twist the bible into anything you'd like. I'd argue, for instance, that Jesus would find multi-million dollar pastors of Texas mega-churches abhorrent. Millions of people seem to disagree with me. But I guess that's the point I'm making.
"I'd argue, for instance, that Jesus would find multi-million dollar pastors of Texas mega-churches abhorrent. Millions of people seem to disagree with me." Completely agree with you here.
I believe a certain Christ once said "It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter heaven." So yes, these millionaires aren't exactly practicing what they preach. It is remarkably easy for someone to fall short of the ideal, hence the whole forgiveness aspect of Christianity. One thing to remember is that not all Christians are the same, just like how not all atheists, muslims, etc. are the same either. Many of us look at how our religion is being politicized for personal gain by certain political parties and wealthy individuals with a feeling of disgust rather than support.
What we need is a messiah... To lead us to hope, prosperity and peace. To unite the tribes of man.
Oh well...
Until that day.
Merry Christmas.
It might be worth pointing out that Jesus preached poverty, not "prosperity".
Jesus preached charity, not poverty. To use your wealth to help others less fortunate of you and love everyone equally, regardless of stature leaving judgement to God.
Read: The Chocolate Wars by Deborah Cadbury to see how this accomplished and how far we are in this day and age.
Amazing how good "christians" are at twisting the message to suit themselves. There are books and books and books full of self-justification written on how "give up everything you have" doesn't really mean that.
Proof God does not exist: he hasn't struck down all Christians with lightning bolts for perverting his teachings.
@jjstraka34: The other examples may be different, but the U.S. most certainly did not start the Korean War. Even Soviet and Chinese documents confirm that the war began when Kim Il-sung, then-leader of North Korea, launched an unprovoked invasion on South Korea. He asked Stalin and Mao for their thoughts on the matter, and they offered no objections. The entire war was Kim's idea. The idea was to reunite the Korean peninsula under a northern flag.
Long story short, when the far weaker South Korean military crumpled and North Korea took over most of the peninsula, the U.S. intervened and pushed the North Korean military back to the border and then further north. We were actually poised to liberate the entire peninsula from the communist Kim regime.
Unfortunately, General MacArthur, over-ambitious anti-communist general that he was, believed that this was America's chance to overthrow the communist Mao regime in China as well, and install a Nationalist regime in mainland (the Chinats only controlled Taiwan, having lost the war with the Chicoms in 1949). Against China's warnings, MacArthur crossed the border into China, triggering a massive counterattack that pushed U.S. forces back down into North Korea.
The Chinese kept fighting until the war ended in a stalemate, with the Kim regime controlling the peninsula north of the 38th parallel and the Rhee government controlling the south--just like before the war began. MacArthur demanded that Truman authorize the use of nuclear weapons to win the war, but Truman refused.
When MacArthur pushed the issue, Truman dismissed him. MacArthur was one of America's most celebrated war heroes and a prominent figure in the Republican party--a lot of folks actually wanted him to run for president--but MacArthur said he would simply "fade away," in keeping with America's long tradition of civilian control of the military. I'm actually quite proud of both of them: MacArthur for defending South Korea, Truman for choosing restraint, and MacArthur again for accepting the dismissal without complaint. All three decisions were in keeping with our values. The only mistake was invading China--that single decision destroyed half our success in the war.
According to North Korean history books, the United States launched the invasion, and the North simply resisted the attack. The Chinese remember it as an invasion of China first and foremost, and also think of the U.S. as the aggressor--which is true, though MacArthur did not exactly have permission to invade China. But the historical record confirms that Kim Il-sung started the war.
To this day, we still do not have a peace treaty with the DPRK (Democratic People's Republic of Korea); we just have an armistice. Technically we're still at war. The North Koreans want a treaty, but the U.S. has refused--we still have some hope that someday that the peninsula will be reunited under a southern flag, and a peace treaty would take away one means of accomplishing that.
But no one at home is rooting for a war with North Korea, because the last time we conducted an estimate, we found that 3,000,000 Koreans and 30,000 Americans would die in the first 24 hours of combat. This is because North Korea has weapons of mass destruction aimed at Seoul, the South Korean capital, and we do not have a means of stopping those weapons from firing. Even if we flat-out nuked Pyongyang, it would not stop WMDs from hitting Seoul.
@jjstraka34: The other examples may be different, but the U.S. most certainly did not start the Korean War. Even Soviet and Chinese documents confirm that the war began when Kim Il-sung, then-leader of North Korea, launched an unprovoked invasion on South Korea. He asked Stalin and Mao for their thoughts on the matter, and they offered no objections. The entire war was Kim's idea. The idea was to reunite the Korean peninsula under a northern flag.
Long story short, when the far weaker South Korean military crumpled and North Korea took over most of the peninsula, the U.S. intervened and pushed the North Korean military back to the border and then further north. We were actually poised to liberate the entire peninsula from the communist Kim regime.
Unfortunately, General MacArthur, over-ambitious anti-communist general that he was, believed that this was America's chance to overthrow the communist Mao regime in China as well, and install a Nationalist regime in mainland (the Chinats only controlled Taiwan, having lost the war with the Chicoms in 1949). Against China's warnings, MacArthur crossed the border into China, triggering a massive counterattack that pushed U.S. forces back down into North Korea.
The Chinese kept fighting until the war ended in a stalemate, with the Kim regime controlling the peninsula north of the 38th parallel and the Rhee government controlling the south--just like before the war began. MacArthur demanded that Truman authorize the use of nuclear weapons to win the war, but Truman refused.
When MacArthur pushed the issue, Truman dismissed him. MacArthur was one of America's most celebrated war heroes and a prominent figure in the Republican party--a lot of folks actually wanted him to run for president--but MacArthur said he would simply "fade away," in keeping with America's long tradition of civilian control of the military. I'm actually quite proud of both of them: MacArthur for defending South Korea, Truman for choosing restraint, and MacArthur again for accepting the dismissal without complaint. All three decisions were in keeping with our values. The only mistake was invading China--that single decision destroyed half our success in the war.
According to North Korean history books, the United States launched the invasion, and the North simply resisted the attack. The Chinese remember it as an invasion of China first and foremost, and also think of the U.S. as the aggressor--which is true, though MacArthur did not exactly have permission to invade China. But the historical record confirms that Kim Il-sung started the war.
To this day, we still do not have a peace treaty with the DPRK (Democratic People's Republic of Korea); we just have an armistice. Technically we're still at war. The North Koreans want a treaty, but the U.S. has refused--we still have some hope that someday that the peninsula will be reunited under a southern flag, and a peace treaty would take away one means of accomplishing that.
But no one at home is rooting for a war with North Korea, because the last time we conducted an estimate, we found that 3,000,000 Koreans and 30,000 Americans would die in the first 24 hours of combat. This is because North Korea has weapons of mass destruction aimed at Seoul, the South Korean capital, and we do not have a means of stopping those weapons from firing. Even if we flat-out nuked Pyongyang, it would not stop WMDs from hitting Seoul.
This is correct, but the entirety of the 1950-1988 foreign policy of the US was it's self-fulfilling fear. We created the bomb, and when the Soviets inevitably got their hands on their own, we projected our own feelings on it towards them, convincing ourselves they were bent on world domination in every corner of the globe, inventing a threat big enough to justify the weapons we were creating. As you mentioned yourself, Stalin and Mao offered "no objections". The overwhelming feeling among the American public was that Soviet and Chinese hands were pulling strings in every corner of the globe.
What we need is a messiah... To lead us to hope, prosperity and peace. To unite the tribes of man.
Oh well...
Until that day.
Merry Christmas.
It might be worth pointing out that Jesus preached poverty, not "prosperity".
Jesus preached charity, not poverty. To use your wealth to help others less fortunate of you and love everyone equally, regardless of stature leaving judgement to God.
Read: The Chocolate Wars by Deborah Cadbury to see how this accomplished and how far we are in this day and age.
Amazing how good "christians" are at twisting the message to suit themselves. There are books and books and books full of self-justification written on how "give up everything you have" doesn't really mean that.
Proof God does not exist: he hasn't struck down all Christians with lightning bolts for perverting his teachings.
There pretty much has to be a cottage industry preaching the "prosperity gospel". It's a necessity for the racket of people like Franklin Graham, John Hagee, Rick Warren and Joel Osteen to not fall apart at it's seams. Some of these people are worth more than 50 million dollars. It's not a new idea, John Calvin figured out this little game out centuries ago.
I'll see your Calvin and raise you Geoffrey Chaucer.
I know we read at least portions of "The Canterbury Tales" in high school, but it was sadly very abbreviated, as I'm pretty sure our English teacher realized that trying to get the entire class to get through the whole book would have been an impossibility. It reminds me of a time in 8th grade English (different teacher) where she assigned 90% of the class S.E. Hinton's "Tex" but had me and 3 others read "All Quiet on the Western Front" instead. Even as a 14-year old, I was grateful for what was essentially the biggest compliment a young student could get.
For all the exploitation that supposedly built the United States, the wealthiest nations in the world are those that have the closest relationship with America, and use systems similar to ours. America's most profound impact is on the nations we've worked with most closely, and they are doing far better than their neighbors. The poorest nations, without fail, are the ones we have had the least contact with: distant countries in Africa most of all, but also the Middle East, Eastern Europe, and Latin America. The richest nations, without fail, are the ones we and our allies have worked with most closely: democratic states in Europe and East Asia most of all, but also diverse places like China, Israel, South Africa, and Australia.
America's wealth comes from high-tech trade with advanced economies like Japan and Germany, not stealing bananas from poor folks in the jungles of Latin America.
The wealthiest nations in the world are the United States, China, and Japan, in that order. China isn't close to America. Neither China or Japan have economic or political systems similar to Americas (China is a one-party theoretically Communist dictatorship, Japan is a de-facto one party oligarchy whose economic system is drastically different than the US, which explains both its past successes and its current doldrums).
Any argument that relies on saying the US has little contact economically or politically with the Middle East (where American boots and American bombs have been ubiquitous for a decade and a half, and where half the regimes are propped up by American money and military hardware) or Latin America (which has been primarily composed of American client states for centuries, and America has a long history of overthrowing governments it dislikes) is an argument I find hard to swallow.
Stealing primary resources from third world countries is the absolute underpinning of the luxurious lifestyles we in the first world lead. Pay everyone in the world what their labour is worth and virtually everything you own and consume will shoot up in price with no concurrent increase in salary. It could be done, but the West (and the Asian Tigers, to an extent) would have to consume less as a result.
(So, don't look for the World Bank to help, say, Nigeria achieve prosperity for its people - as opposed to Western corporations - anytime soon. China ain't gonna help either, they know how the game is played.)
The world's first world nations are overwhelmingly those who were the beneficiaries of colonialism (and extraction of primary resources for cheap is one of the main features of colonialism). Japan and Israel are propped-up states by massive American favouritism and gifts. China is an economic behemoth despite the West (most certainly including America), not because of it. Hence, for instance, the complaining about their currency manipulation.
On the flip side, you can't say "friends of America end up prosperous and wealthy" and ignore that countries like Pakistan and Saudi Arabia were some of America's best friends for decades (and so was Iran, pre-revolution). Also, America can frequently do great economic harm to countries it is not "close to" (Cuba being the star example).
With the US being so rich, it's a wonder that social security is supposedly going broke and needs to be privatized and we can't afford universal health care like the poorer countries.
@jjstraka34: The other examples may be different, but the U.S. most certainly did not start the Korean War. Even Soviet and Chinese documents confirm that the war began when Kim Il-sung, then-leader of North Korea, launched an unprovoked invasion on South Korea. He asked Stalin and Mao for their thoughts on the matter, and they offered no objections. The entire war was Kim's idea. The idea was to reunite the Korean peninsula under a northern flag.
Long story short, when the far weaker South Korean military crumpled and North Korea took over most of the peninsula, the U.S. intervened and pushed the North Korean military back to the border and then further north. We were actually poised to liberate the entire peninsula from the communist Kim regime.
Your synopsis is generally accurate to the best of my knowledge, but I noticed two interesting points here:
1) "Reunite the Korean peninsula under a northern flag" and "liberate the entire peninsula from the communist Kim regime". Here, let me reverse them: "liberate the entire peninsula from the murderous, undemocratic Rhee regime" and "reunite the Korean peninsula under a southern flag".
To put it another way, the two are functionally identical (if opposite) aims, but one is described more positively. At the time of the Korean War, it would not be unfair at all to describe "liberation" as what the North was trying to do. Unlike today, in 1950 it was not easy to say "North Korea bad, South Korea good" unless you define those terms as "Communist" and "anything but Communist".
2) The US did not start the war, but the US was in the main responsible for setting the conditions for it to happen. Starting the story at the point where the North invaded, and not at, say, the point which led up to there being two Koreas in the first place, makes the US look like an uninvolved bystander intervening to laudable reasons - which is decidedly not a fair summation of events.
The Rhee government wasn't the high-quality democracy we have in South Korea today, but it was still an improvement over the Kim government. Some 20th-century communist leaders were better than their anti-communist counterparts--like Ho Chi Minh compared to Ngo Dinh Diem--but that was not the case in Korea.
Incidentally, the division between North and South Korea was not America's preferred solution. The U.S. wanted the government of Korea to be chosen via democratic elections, but the Soviet Union said that wasn't fair because the American-influenced South had more people. The division was chosen as a compromise to avoid a proxy war over the peninsula.
The Rhee government wasn't the high-quality democracy we have in South Korea today, but it was still an improvement over the Kim government. Some 20th-century communist leaders were better than their anti-communist counterparts--like Ho Chi Minh compared to Ngo Dinh Diem--but that was not the case in Korea.
With all due respect, again, unless your only qualification relates to "Is he Communist or not?", Syngman Rhee was far, far worse than Kim Il Sung in 1950. Rhee was a bloody-handed monster who left mass graves all over the country. Jeju Island is just one example (one watched by the US forces, who declined to intervene as literally tens of thousands of civilians were murdered because, after all, they judged it was a "red island" anyway). There are literally dozens more.
Rhee also openly talked about invading the North, had dismissed peace offers from it (they weren't genuine, but he didn't know that) and South Korean forces had frequently instigated skirmishes on the border (there is actually apparently some Western scholarly belief the South Koreans DID attack first based on recovered communications from the time, providing the pretext the North was going to manufacture, although that seems just a bit too convenient).
Beyond that, Sung was a legitimate hero of the guerilla resistance against the Japanese (not as much as NK propaganda would have him, of course) while Rhee spent the conflict safely in other countries.
While the Sung regime had already begun moving towards the leader-worship that would later become its most notable feature, without the benefit of hindsight it is very difficult to make the case that Rhee and his regime was in any way ethically superior to the north. Or an improvement in any way, to be honest. Most of the flaws of the North Korean government we've all come to know and love came during and after the war (and North Korea still did much better than South Korea economically until after a) Rhee was deposed by revolution, and b) the US provided huge amounts of economic aid and opportunity due to the Vietnam War).
Incidentally, the division between North and South Korea was not America's preferred solution. The U.S. wanted the government of Korea to be chosen via democratic elections, but the Soviet Union said that wasn't fair because the American-influenced South had more people. The division was chosen as a compromise to avoid a proxy war over the peninsula.
"Democratic elections" that don't actually include communists or, indeed, any left of centre parties, are not democratic elections. This is what actually happened when the US/UN/South Korea held these elections. Many South Korean politicians boycotted the US/UN's so-called "fair" elections.
Prior to this, the US administration in South Korea had already banned strikes in December of 1945, then outlawed the People's Republic of Korea Revolutionary Government (the first post-Japanese Korean government) and PRK People's Committees a few days later (for suspected Communist sympathies, which totally makes one think that mayyyybe the US would never have allowed fair elections that any "suspected Communists" might win). Shrewdly, the US administration then tried to put the Japanese colonial administrators back in charge (this didn't go over well with the locals, as it turned out).
To say that the division was not America's preferred solution is true. To say that is because America's preferred solution was for the entire peninsula to be unified under a mass-murdering right-wing regime that they were propping up is true. To say this was never going to happen because a large chunk of Korea would never follow a corrupt tyrant like Syngman Rhee is also true, and thus they defaulted to following their own, seemingly preferable tyrant. Both sides wanted One Korea - our Korea.
All of this is without even getting into, for instance, the fact that the division between the two halves of Korea was entirely due to the US negotiating to get from the Soviets what they couldn't reach on the ground before the war ended (Russian troops waited three weeks at the 38th parallel for US ones to reach them).
America was not a disinterested bystander. Their actions were and are in large part responsible for the division of Korea. Never once was the US interested in an actual democratic solution, because that offered the chance that Korea would not end up being a compliant client state to the US, or - even worse! - actually becoming Communist. Much better to parachute in their own pet leader that had lived in America (just imagine what would be said about Kim il Sung if he had spent the war living in Russia instead of fighting the Japanese!), turn a blind eye to or aid and abet whatever he did to ensure he took and kept power, and then pretend you're somehow better than the Russians as your soldiers watch the mass graves fill at Jeju.
Jesus was one of our greatest teachers. He taught to love love each other and God.
Splitting hairs over charity, poverty and prosperity is being small minded... But theological debate would be sparse if you just took Jesus by his word.
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Although he is still behind my favourite teacher of all time. Aristotle. He believed all peoples' concepts and all of their knowledge was ultimately based on perception.
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And we seem to all have different perceptions here!
Today Trump is taking credit for Sprint apparently sending 5000 token jobs back to the US because of the "hope" he has created. Get ready for a repeating pattern: American corporation looks to make a totally cynical show by bringing a tiny fraction of jobs back to the US, so Trump can manipulate the media coverage and the corporation itself can pretend they actually aren't off-shoring nearly everything. Check back a few months later when the media isn't covering it anymore and (like the Carrier deal in Indiana) find out the the amount of jobs actually brought back was a total lie, yet it won't matter, because the perception of reality will be all that matters.
And secondly, it's very normal to see Presidents take credit for economic accomplishments on THEIR watch. It's an entirely new paradigm when they start taking credit for the economic situation when the previous administration is STILL IN OFFICE!!!
Today Trump is taking credit for Sprint apparently sending 5000 token jobs back to the US because of the "hope" he has created. Get ready for a repeating pattern: American corporation looks to make a totally cynical show by bringing a tiny fraction of jobs back to the US, so Trump can manipulate the media coverage and the corporation itself can pretend they actually aren't off-shoring nearly everything. Check back a few months later when the media isn't covering it anymore and (like the Carrier deal in Indiana) find out the the amount of jobs actually brought back was a total lie, yet it won't matter, because the perception of reality will be all that matters.
And secondly, it's very normal to see Presidents take credit for economic accomplishments on THEIR watch. It's an entirely new paradigm when they start taking credit for the economic situation when the previous administration is STILL IN OFFICE!!!
Trump's a king everyday in his own mind. He doesn't do the one president thing.
I'll see your Calvin and raise you Geoffrey Chaucer.
I know we read at least portions of "The Canterbury Tales" in high school, but it was sadly very abbreviated, as I'm pretty sure our English teacher realized that trying to get the entire class to get through the whole book would have been an impossibility. It reminds me of a time in 8th grade English (different teacher) where she assigned 90% of the class S.E. Hinton's "Tex" but had me and 3 others read "All Quiet on the Western Front" instead. Even as a 14-year old, I was grateful for what was essentially the biggest compliment a young student could get.
I haven't read it all the way through either. I studied The Pardoner's Tale as part of my O level Eng Lit (9th or 10th grade equivalent?) and seen several of the other tales as plays. Yeah, and the movie! My wife has read it all, as she is a Literature major.
I get the impression teachers in the US tend take English Literature more seriously than the subject is treated in the UK.
The report is a little vague. Mandiant, a private security company, published a more in-depth explanation of how security experts can pin down hackers in a report on Chinese hacking here. I'd post the document here (I read it when it came out), but they're asking for signups now before downloading the report, which I think means I can't post the document without permission.
Long story short, tracing hackers involves looking at similarities of code, similarities of attack patterns, similarities of timing, and similarities of targeting, among other things, to figure out who the hackers are and where they're operating. It takes a long time to track them down. Security experts have been tracking APT1 (a Chinese hacker group) and APT28 and APT29 (Russian hacker groups) for years now, collecting data on their methods.
Pinpointing hackers can be very precise if you invest enough time in it. Mandiant actually traced APT1 to Unit 61398 of the People's Liberation Army (China's military), in a 12-story building in Shanghai, at Datong road 208 in the Pudong New Area. The building likely still stands; the images in the Mandiant report were taken only a few years ago (2006-2008).
Obama took the step of closing two Russian embassies and expelling 35 Russian diplomats, who (irony of ironies), like Trump, took to Twitter to respond like petulant children. The fact is, Obama could have released this information during the election, but (and this, in my mind, is his fatal flaw) he tried to rise above it, as he knew it would be painted in the media as him trying to put the thumb on the scale for Hillary, when it was just the truth. And then of course, the FBI performed their sabotage as well, rendering his entire viewpoint moot. If Obama could go back and change one thing, I believe (and hope) it would be his naive approach to just how far Republicans will go to attain power. You can't make the argument Democrats would do the same (much as I wish they would). Because they had the opportunity to and didn't.
Malware that is linked to the Russian Election hacks has now turned up on a laptop at a Vermont utility company that is responsible for running a power grid. It's going to be nice when, in some alternate reality many, many years from now, people start taking the things liberals say seriously.
Malware that is linked to the Russian Election hacks has now turned up on a laptop at a Vermont utility company that is responsible for running a power grid. It's going to be nice when, in some alternate reality many, many years from now, people start taking the things liberals say seriously.
that is nothing new, and usually how malware works. It hops from machine to machine looking for what it is suppose to effect then activates it malice code to wreak havoc. Some malware have a broad application, others, like the one the U.S. hacked Iran with have a very specific target in mind.
Comments
Oh well...
Until that day.
Merry Christmas.
See: "what did the Romans ever do for us?"
Read: The Chocolate Wars by Deborah Cadbury to see how this accomplished and how far we are in this day and age.
Proof God does not exist: he hasn't struck down all Christians with lightning bolts for perverting his teachings.
Long story short, when the far weaker South Korean military crumpled and North Korea took over most of the peninsula, the U.S. intervened and pushed the North Korean military back to the border and then further north. We were actually poised to liberate the entire peninsula from the communist Kim regime.
Unfortunately, General MacArthur, over-ambitious anti-communist general that he was, believed that this was America's chance to overthrow the communist Mao regime in China as well, and install a Nationalist regime in mainland (the Chinats only controlled Taiwan, having lost the war with the Chicoms in 1949). Against China's warnings, MacArthur crossed the border into China, triggering a massive counterattack that pushed U.S. forces back down into North Korea.
The Chinese kept fighting until the war ended in a stalemate, with the Kim regime controlling the peninsula north of the 38th parallel and the Rhee government controlling the south--just like before the war began. MacArthur demanded that Truman authorize the use of nuclear weapons to win the war, but Truman refused.
When MacArthur pushed the issue, Truman dismissed him. MacArthur was one of America's most celebrated war heroes and a prominent figure in the Republican party--a lot of folks actually wanted him to run for president--but MacArthur said he would simply "fade away," in keeping with America's long tradition of civilian control of the military. I'm actually quite proud of both of them: MacArthur for defending South Korea, Truman for choosing restraint, and MacArthur again for accepting the dismissal without complaint. All three decisions were in keeping with our values. The only mistake was invading China--that single decision destroyed half our success in the war.
According to North Korean history books, the United States launched the invasion, and the North simply resisted the attack. The Chinese remember it as an invasion of China first and foremost, and also think of the U.S. as the aggressor--which is true, though MacArthur did not exactly have permission to invade China. But the historical record confirms that Kim Il-sung started the war.
To this day, we still do not have a peace treaty with the DPRK (Democratic People's Republic of Korea); we just have an armistice. Technically we're still at war. The North Koreans want a treaty, but the U.S. has refused--we still have some hope that someday that the peninsula will be reunited under a southern flag, and a peace treaty would take away one means of accomplishing that.
But no one at home is rooting for a war with North Korea, because the last time we conducted an estimate, we found that 3,000,000 Koreans and 30,000 Americans would die in the first 24 hours of combat. This is because North Korea has weapons of mass destruction aimed at Seoul, the South Korean capital, and we do not have a means of stopping those weapons from firing. Even if we flat-out nuked Pyongyang, it would not stop WMDs from hitting Seoul.
Any argument that relies on saying the US has little contact economically or politically with the Middle East (where American boots and American bombs have been ubiquitous for a decade and a half, and where half the regimes are propped up by American money and military hardware) or Latin America (which has been primarily composed of American client states for centuries, and America has a long history of overthrowing governments it dislikes) is an argument I find hard to swallow.
Stealing primary resources from third world countries is the absolute underpinning of the luxurious lifestyles we in the first world lead. Pay everyone in the world what their labour is worth and virtually everything you own and consume will shoot up in price with no concurrent increase in salary. It could be done, but the West (and the Asian Tigers, to an extent) would have to consume less as a result.
(So, don't look for the World Bank to help, say, Nigeria achieve prosperity for its people - as opposed to Western corporations - anytime soon. China ain't gonna help either, they know how the game is played.)
The world's first world nations are overwhelmingly those who were the beneficiaries of colonialism (and extraction of primary resources for cheap is one of the main features of colonialism). Japan and Israel are propped-up states by massive American favouritism and gifts. China is an economic behemoth despite the West (most certainly including America), not because of it. Hence, for instance, the complaining about their currency manipulation.
On the flip side, you can't say "friends of America end up prosperous and wealthy" and ignore that countries like Pakistan and Saudi Arabia were some of America's best friends for decades (and so was Iran, pre-revolution). Also, America can frequently do great economic harm to countries it is not "close to" (Cuba being the star example).
1) "Reunite the Korean peninsula under a northern flag" and "liberate the entire peninsula from the communist Kim regime". Here, let me reverse them: "liberate the entire peninsula from the murderous, undemocratic Rhee regime" and "reunite the Korean peninsula under a southern flag".
To put it another way, the two are functionally identical (if opposite) aims, but one is described more positively. At the time of the Korean War, it would not be unfair at all to describe "liberation" as what the North was trying to do. Unlike today, in 1950 it was not easy to say "North Korea bad, South Korea good" unless you define those terms as "Communist" and "anything but Communist".
2) The US did not start the war, but the US was in the main responsible for setting the conditions for it to happen. Starting the story at the point where the North invaded, and not at, say, the point which led up to there being two Koreas in the first place, makes the US look like an uninvolved bystander intervening to laudable reasons - which is decidedly not a fair summation of events.
Incidentally, the division between North and South Korea was not America's preferred solution. The U.S. wanted the government of Korea to be chosen via democratic elections, but the Soviet Union said that wasn't fair because the American-influenced South had more people. The division was chosen as a compromise to avoid a proxy war over the peninsula.
Rhee also openly talked about invading the North, had dismissed peace offers from it (they weren't genuine, but he didn't know that) and South Korean forces had frequently instigated skirmishes on the border (there is actually apparently some Western scholarly belief the South Koreans DID attack first based on recovered communications from the time, providing the pretext the North was going to manufacture, although that seems just a bit too convenient).
Beyond that, Sung was a legitimate hero of the guerilla resistance against the Japanese (not as much as NK propaganda would have him, of course) while Rhee spent the conflict safely in other countries.
While the Sung regime had already begun moving towards the leader-worship that would later become its most notable feature, without the benefit of hindsight it is very difficult to make the case that Rhee and his regime was in any way ethically superior to the north. Or an improvement in any way, to be honest. Most of the flaws of the North Korean government we've all come to know and love came during and after the war (and North Korea still did much better than South Korea economically until after a) Rhee was deposed by revolution, and b) the US provided huge amounts of economic aid and opportunity due to the Vietnam War). "Democratic elections" that don't actually include communists or, indeed, any left of centre parties, are not democratic elections. This is what actually happened when the US/UN/South Korea held these elections. Many South Korean politicians boycotted the US/UN's so-called "fair" elections.
Prior to this, the US administration in South Korea had already banned strikes in December of 1945, then outlawed the People's Republic of Korea Revolutionary Government (the first post-Japanese Korean government) and PRK People's Committees a few days later (for suspected Communist sympathies, which totally makes one think that mayyyybe the US would never have allowed fair elections that any "suspected Communists" might win). Shrewdly, the US administration then tried to put the Japanese colonial administrators back in charge (this didn't go over well with the locals, as it turned out).
To say that the division was not America's preferred solution is true. To say that is because America's preferred solution was for the entire peninsula to be unified under a mass-murdering right-wing regime that they were propping up is true. To say this was never going to happen because a large chunk of Korea would never follow a corrupt tyrant like Syngman Rhee is also true, and thus they defaulted to following their own, seemingly preferable tyrant. Both sides wanted One Korea - our Korea.
All of this is without even getting into, for instance, the fact that the division between the two halves of Korea was entirely due to the US negotiating to get from the Soviets what they couldn't reach on the ground before the war ended (Russian troops waited three weeks at the 38th parallel for US ones to reach them).
America was not a disinterested bystander. Their actions were and are in large part responsible for the division of Korea. Never once was the US interested in an actual democratic solution, because that offered the chance that Korea would not end up being a compliant client state to the US, or - even worse! - actually becoming Communist. Much better to parachute in their own pet leader that had lived in America (just imagine what would be said about Kim il Sung if he had spent the war living in Russia instead of fighting the Japanese!), turn a blind eye to or aid and abet whatever he did to ensure he took and kept power, and then pretend you're somehow better than the Russians as your soldiers watch the mass graves fill at Jeju.
Splitting hairs over charity, poverty and prosperity is being small minded... But theological debate would be sparse if you just took Jesus by his word.
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Although he is still behind my favourite teacher of all time. Aristotle. He believed all peoples' concepts and all of their knowledge was ultimately based on perception.
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And we seem to all have different perceptions here!
And secondly, it's very normal to see Presidents take credit for economic accomplishments on THEIR watch. It's an entirely new paradigm when they start taking credit for the economic situation when the previous administration is STILL IN OFFICE!!!
I get the impression teachers in the US tend take English Literature more seriously than the subject is treated in the UK.
They will be publishing an additional, more detailed report in three weeks.
Long story short, tracing hackers involves looking at similarities of code, similarities of attack patterns, similarities of timing, and similarities of targeting, among other things, to figure out who the hackers are and where they're operating. It takes a long time to track them down. Security experts have been tracking APT1 (a Chinese hacker group) and APT28 and APT29 (Russian hacker groups) for years now, collecting data on their methods.
Pinpointing hackers can be very precise if you invest enough time in it. Mandiant actually traced APT1 to Unit 61398 of the People's Liberation Army (China's military), in a 12-story building in Shanghai, at Datong road 208 in the Pudong New Area.
The building likely still stands; the images in the Mandiant report were taken only a few years ago (2006-2008).