Seriously, why are you saying you are more okay with American deaths than with North Korean deaths? How do you reconcile that? There will be deaths if there is a war. The only thing we can do is ensure they are THEIRS not OURS. How can you possibly be against that?
American Soldiers. North Korean civilians.
Try and understand the difference.
Every U.S. soldier is a citizen as soon as he takes off his uniform. His life is NOT worth less than that of a civilian. THAT'S what your problem is. You think our troops are some kind of robo-cops or something. Have you ever lost a friend in the service? You didn't feel like it was justified because he had a uniform on, you just felt like you lost a FRIEND who also happened to be a HUMAN BEING. and you didn't lose him for a good reason. You lost him because he was standing guard over a useless village that if it had just been DESTROYED by the tanks wouldn't have been able to house any bad guys to kill him with.
And you act like YOU are the morale one here? But you are ok with our troops DYING for no reason when they didn't have to? You sicken me.
@ Valerian
War sucks. No matter how you look at it. PEOPLE DIE, it doesn't matter if they're soldiers or whatever. And many times there's not even a good reason for it.
Theres a difference between a soldier who signed up to fight and is trained to fight and a child who gets killed becuase he just happened to be born in the wrong place.
@ Truejedi
I just showed you where every single NK citizen is a trained soldier, who is ACTUALLY in the army reserve.You can drop the "NK Citizens" line right now.
No, becuase children, the elderly and the infirm are still outside of that. Nor is there any suggestion that we'd have to fight the entire population. For one thing there simply wouldn't be enough guns for them all.
are you serious? You are talking about standing back and letting South Koreans DIE for no reason, and you try to act like I'M the monster here?
How heartless can you be?
Go **** yourself. You're casually throwing around suggestions of mass genocide and you dare to question my morality. Heres an idea: Go to a hospital or a courthouse and try to understand how much damage a single death causes and then try and come back and tell me that we should be slaughtering millions over what is essentially a giant pissing contest.
Every U.S. soldier is a citizen as soon as he takes off his uniform. His life is NOT worth less than that of a civilian. THAT'S what your problem is. You think our troops are some kind of robo-cops or something. Have you ever lost a friend in the service? You didn't feel like it was justified because he had a uniform on, you just felt like you lost a FRIEND who also happened to be a HUMAN BEING. and you didn't lose him for a good reason. You lost him because he was standing guard over a useless village that if it had just been DESTROYED by the tanks wouldn't have been able to house any bad guys to kill him with.
Soldiers die. Thats their job. They knew the risks when they signed up, and when they signed up they agreed to put their lives on the line to due their duty in service to their country. A civilian made no such choice. A soldier dies in survice: He's a casualty of war. A Civilian gets bombed to shit: Thats murder, plain and simple.
And you act like YOU are the morale one here? But you are ok with our troops DYING for no reason when they didn't have to? You sicken me.
The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few. Basic Utilitarianism. Carpet bombing a country will provably cause more deaths than an actual, legal war would. There is no denying it. What YOU'RE ok with is millions dying when the had no reason to. Better still, they will have died just becuase some idiot like you decided they weren't worth the risk in trying to save. That it was much easier to just massacre the lot of them rather than fight a war like a sane individual rather than a frothing madman.
I guess we must agree to disagree then. I cannot even fathom your line of thinking. You seriously are okay with standing back and letting NK's slaughter innocent civilian SK's instead of taking away the NOrth's ability to do such a thing.
WHY is the aggressor's state's civilians more valuable than those of South Korea or the U.S.?
And a soldier's job is to DIE? I'm sorry, that infuriates me.
His Job? Is to Die? you heartless person. that is the most cruel thing i've ever heard anyone say I think. "He died, but its ok, that was his job anyway, no big deal."
Originally posted by truejedi
i'm not saying wipe everyone out, i'm talking about actually subjugating the country. We shouldn't be conquering something and then giving it back. We take Afghanistan and then give it to a government that wants us to leave, have we really won? We need to actually win the war, not play policeman.
Do you have any idea how much money that would cost? Conquering a country isn't as simple as just marching in and destroying their military. It's usually a long, expensive and difficult affair. Plus, this isn't the 13th century, you can't act like Ghengis Khan and expect to get away with it without some serious poltical ramifications.
And what would we gain from conquering Afghanistan? Make it a Territory? What would we do with a backwards tribal country of opium farmers? What do we gain from that?
Yes, we have invaded these countries, but the cost is spent.
Sunk cost. Its done, gone, spent. You can't get it back... so why spend even more money on something that isn't going to produce viable returns?
I can understanding putting NK down, because NK is obviously a dangerous rogue state with nukes, but conquore them? Again, what do we gain from that?
Just to fill in the stats. for any spectator. Courtesy of Wiki:
Korean People's Army
North Korea is the most militarized country in the world today, having the fourth largest army in the world, at about 1,106,000 armed personnel, with about 20% of men ages 17–54 in the regular armed forces. It also has a reserve force comprising 8,200,000 personnel. It operates an enormous network of military facilities scattered around the country, a large weapons production basis, a dense air defense system, the third largest chemical weapons stockpile in the world, and includes the largest Special Forces contingent (numbering 180,000 men).
Conscription: 17 years of age.
Available for military service: 5,851,801 males, age 17-49 (2005 est.).
5,850,733 females, age 17-49 (2005 est.)
Fit for military service: 4,810,831 males, age 17-49 (2005 est.),
4,853,270 females, age 17-49 (2005 est.)
Reaching military age annually: 194,605 males (2005 est.),
187,846 females (2005 est.).
Korean People's Navy
There are some 708 vessels including 3 frigates and 70 submarines: approximately 20 Romeo class submarines... 40 Sang-O class submarines... and 10 midget submarines including the Yono class submarine.
The North Korean navy is considered a green-water navy and operates mainly within the 50 kilometer exclusion zone. The fleet consists of east and west coast squadrons, which cannot support each other in the event of war with South Korea. The limited range of most of the vessels means that even in peacetime it is impossible for a ship on one coast to visit the other coast.
The KPN has 20 bases split between the two coasts (East Sea and Yellow Sea).
Korean People's Army Ground Force
The KPA has positioned massive numbers of artillery pieces including some fakes, especially its longer-range systems, close to the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) that separates the two Koreas.
Total tank inventory amounts to 4,500 units or less.
Korean People's Army Air Force
It possesses between 1,600 and 1,700 aircraft of different types, mostly of Soviet and Chinese origin.
The KPAF is estimated to possess a total strength of 110,000. Personnel for the KPAF are obtained through voluntary enlistment, conscription and assignments from other branches of the KPA. The selection criteria for the KPAF are higher than for the ground forces or navy. This has resulted in a force which is qualitatively above the national average in the level of education, technical proficiency, political reliability and ideological conviction. In general, Non-commissioned officers and privates of the KPAF are required to serve three years and those with technical specialisations serve four years.
Officers serve for 20–30 years and are usually discharged only for physical disability, illegal activities or political reasons. All pilots are believed to be members of the Korean Workers' Party..
I doubt anything's going to come of this border skirmish, but should it come to full on war with the North invading, then the amount of firepower that will be needed to subdue that tiny country and it's massive military, is going to leave scores of civilian bodies. In the 1990's, Wiki says, air force pilots received 950 calories a day. And that was a luxury compared to the typical infantryman. Imagine what the civilians get. Introduce a full-scale war, and the rations of the People will be sliced even further. Hundreds of thousands will die from starvation and reprisals. Even more by the inevitable Western backlash.
Civilian deaths in a new Korean war will be unavoidable. And in the great scheme things, they'll be a necessary evil. But by no means should we pull a Carthage and "salt the earth". If the South and U.S./NATO play it right, they can be welcomed as liberators and heroes by the civilian populace. For that to happen, a blitz will be required to neutralize the KPA quickly. A drawn out conflict and occupation of acquired territories will hurt that effort, and only open the nuclear possibility to DPRK leaders.
Think about all the crimes you don't commit. Heck, think about all the crimes you didn't commit today. Why didn't you commit them?If your answer is something other than "fear of being caught and punished," consider the possibility that other people might be like you in this respect, and threatening to punish you might not be the most cost-effective way to keep them from committing crimes, also.