BG> Que? To the north, we had the North Koreans and the Chinese,
 BG> and to the south, we had Aussies, Poms, Yanks, Kiwis, and John
 BG> Wayne. 

 BG> Not to forget the occasional South Korean as well... 

 KR> i do seem to recall, although i wasn't that old at the time,
 KR> that it started off as a korean civil war with the south
 KR> getting the rough end of the stick. the un cavalry charged in
 KR> and turned the tide, and that would have been that if mcarthur
 KR> had left well alone at the border,

 BL>   You have it slightly wrong...

 BL>   Historically, northern Korean falls iunder the influence of China, 
 BL> southern Korea under Japan.

the koreans that i have known seemed quite fiercely nationalistic. they
dont borrow much from any of their neighbours, with their own language and
writing. they neither seem to like china or japan (the latter being quite
understandable given the japanese national sport of invading korea).

 BL> Northern Korea went communist and would have swept through all of
 BL> Korea. The Yanks saw a communist Korea as a threat to Japan, a way
 BL> for the Russians to get into the Pacific through Vladivostok. Look at
 BL> the map. The UN set the 38th Parallel as the notional border, beyond
 BL> which communism must not cross. They crossed. 

i dont quite see what it had to do with vladivostok, i think that the yanks
were using the same thinking as in vietnam of the domino theory.

 BL>   The UN charged in to stop the communists and were basically driven
 BL> into the sea. Seoul hung on. At that stage, the West had lost all of
 BL> Korea except for two beach heads at Pusan (far south) and Inchon (near
 BL> Seoul). The MiG15 was knocking the shit out of Mustangs and that dopey
 BL> Lockheeed jet whose name escapes me. Tough times in Asia.

 BL>   This is what I meant when I said that Koreans were tough soldiers.
 BL> At that stage is was Communist Korea v. The World and the score was
 BL> one-nil. This was winter.

 BL>   Come summer, the Americans invaded Korea in a large way with better
 BL> equipment instead of WWII surplus, and drove the Korean Communists 
 BL> beyond the 38th parallel. Then Macarthur had a brain fart as you
 BL> describe, drove the Korean Communist armies up to the Yalu River (the
 BL> border with China), and tried to take China too. When Truman asked him
 BL> to please stop he told him to go root his boot, so he did, starting
 BL> with Macarthur's size 9's.

i've never had much time for mcarthur, he didn't match up to patton's
soldiering or ike's organisational ability, even if he did wear cool shades
(:

 KR> but he decided to chase the red menace back across their own
 KR> territory, and, at that point, the yellow peril swarmed down
 KR> from china, and it all went distinctly ovoid. a lot of fighting
 KR> ensued, many wacks were copped, and a fine old time was had at
 KR> the 4077th, in the end, the whole thing sort of ground to a
 KR> halt and the armed standoff that we have come to know and love
 KR> started.

 BL>   I think the Chinese would have invaded anyway, willing to settle for
 BL> half or anything they could get. Korea has always been basic to the
 BL> balance between China and Japan, north and south.

i dont think so, they laid it out ahead of time - stop there or we join in,
mcarthur didn't so they did. several thousand people may much longer lives
if not for a nutty us general seeking glory.

 BL>   I still wonder what would have happened if the US had tested the new
 BL> H-bomb on Peking rather than Bikini atoll, the way Macarthur wanted.

several large areas of the us and russia may have started glowing at night.

 BL>   The powers in the world today are the same as they have always been:
 BL> England, Germany, France, Russia, Islam, China, Japan, and USA. Spain
 BL> fell off the board, and Holland, and it looks like England may go
 BL> next, but we see the main players as Europe, Russia, Islam, China,
 BL> Japan, USA. To me, China is the most dangerous of all, Communist and 
 BL> growing rich besides.

china is less and less comunist, just despotic, and that may change with
the riches flooding in, it is historically difficult to dominate a rich
country, indeed it may get more and more difficult to keep china as one
country.

 BL>   I think in 20 more years we may be saying that Macarthur could have
 BL> stopped it. 

you have a strange sense of morality, vapourising several hundred thousand
chinese to ensure commercial advantage 40 odd years on.

                         keith
@EOT:

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