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From: clewis@mnetor.UUCP (Chris Lewis)
Newsgroups: can.politics
Subject: Re: Arming our Forces
Message-ID: <2135@mnetor.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 11-Sep-85 09:25:15 EDT
Article-I.D.: mnetor.2135
Posted: Wed Sep 11 09:25:15 1985
Date-Received: Wed, 11-Sep-85 10:15:23 EDT
References: <1371@utcsri.UUCP> <2043@mnetor.UUCP> <1280@ubc-cs.UUCP>
Reply-To: clewis@mnetor.UUCP (Chris Lewis)
Distribution: can
Organization: Computer X (CANADA) Ltd., Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Lines: 75
Summary: 

In article <1280@ubc-cs.UUCP> ludemann@ubc-cs.UUCP (Peter Ludemann) writes:
>In article <2101@mnetor.UUCP> clewis@mnetor.UUCP (Chris Lewis) writes:
>>
>>You have entirely forgotten Korea.  Even though I've raised it several
>>times.  That was a full-scale war and we were in it in a big way.
>
>So, why were "we" in Korea (I wasn't born when the war started)?

The Russians got peeved in the UN over something or other, and they
stomped out.  Then, the situation in Korea got bad enough (frankly,
I'm not quite sure what the situation was) that the
UN decided to send peace-keepers in, to help South Korea because
it appeared to the UN that the North were the aggressors.  Since
Russia was not in the UN at the time, they were not present to
veto aid to the opponents of the North (which were friends of China,
and sorta to Russia at the time.  China of course wasn't in the UN 
either.).

So, then we have a multi-national UN force in South Korea, which
included Australia, Belgium, Canada, the US, UK etc, etc, etc.  (even
Luxembourg if I recall correctly).  This is probably the only
occasion where the UN managed to produce a peace-keeping force
with teeth, according to the original idea of the UN (neglecting, 
for the time being, the issue whether it was right thing to
do under the circumstances)

The UN forces managed to push the North Korean forces well back into 
North Korea.  Then all hell broke loose - China sent WAVES of troops 
in...  The UN forces were then pushed back thru South Korea and almost 
off the continent.  Finally they rallied and after very hard slogging 
managed to push things back up to the current DMZ.

>The Americans think it was their own war anyway (just like they
>forget the War of 1812 when they claim that Vietnam was the
>first war they'd lost).

So what?  We know they're wrong.  The US just happened to be the biggest
participants in Korea, but hardly the only ones.

>The results of "winning" the war are unclear.
>North Korea is certainly not a nice place.  But neither is
>South Korea.  I've been there - the police/army are everywhere,
>there is much poverty and very little freedom (letters to
>and from were routinely opened).  Lots of corruption too.
>The government gets away with this because everyone is afraid
>of the Communists to the north.

This has nothing to do with the original reason for our being there.
Nor does it have anything to do with the original topic (level of
military preparedness desirable in Canada)

>So, why did we get involved in the war?

Like I said, because the UN thought it was a good idea, and Canada
(and lots of other countries) decided to participate.

I mainly brought Korea up as an example of where we were heavily
involved in a major conflict, even when we weren't threatened
by the conflict and weren't attacked or part of the original
combatants.

People should realize, that with the Middle East as it is, if every
country in the world became really fed-up and worried about the
situation spreading, that, maybe, just maybe, the UN (with Russia
and/or China concurring) will try it again, and place a serious
peace-keeping force in the Middle East rather than just a couple of
rifle-carrying platoons.  By serious, I mean "keep the peace at all
costs" ("stop the current conflict").  That probably means lots of
heavy equipment and lots of troops.  If such were to come to pass, I'd
like Canada to participate - if only to prevent the US and USSR from
screwing it up - and they would if they were given free rein.
-- 
Chris Lewis,
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