Opinion: Time to Remove U.S. Troops From South Korea

This is the second of a two-part Op-Ed piece by Matt Horween, CPA, FSO (retired). To read the first part, please click here: U.S. Lacks Instinct For Self-Preservation

South Korea is my first example of our total disregard of any strategy in deploying 20,000-30,000 troops in a country that does not allow most of our products to be imported and where a large part of public opinion is unhappy with us for various reasons dating back to our support of the dictatorship of Syngman Rhee.

Not satisfied with our present untenable situation in Korea, with our troops held hostage to the fear of a massive North Korean surprise attack, our Department of Defense now wants to send the dependents of our troops that were formerly at the DMZ in South Korea to live with the troops in South Korea. Of course, this would lead to more balance of payments deficits and deprive the domestic U.S. economy of the spending the dependents now make in the USA.

If North Korea decides to move against South Korea our troops would immediately become hostages since there is no way the South Koreans and our small contingent of troops could contain them without using nuclear weapons. Therefore, our troops would become prisoners. Having the dependents of our troops there would only make the North Koreans even more likely to attack since we would be frozen by indecision as to how to react to the attack without harming the dependents who would for the most part would be women and children.

The only way to stop a North Korean attack by its huge 4.7 million man army (including reserves) would be for the U.S. to use nuclear weapons. If we have, tactical nuclear weapons in Korea they will be captured along with our troops unless we use the weapons. Does anyone believe that we would do this? I do not think we would use the weapons but instead would be forced to mount World War III to save our troops or let them just rot there as we did under Carter in Iran or a better example the Philippines in World War II.

I wonder what is the strategic value of the Korean peninsula to us now that the domino theory in Asia has been totally discredited and we are being bankrolled by China, which is an ally of North Korea. Does any of this make sense to you? I think we must want to protect our access to Korean cars from Hyundai , electronic gizmos from Samsung and flat panel screens from LG.

It might also surprise you to know that for more than thirty years the USA has, off and on, been feeding North Korea with free food. The North Koreans were then free to spend all their money on arming their regime and developing nuclear weapons and now helping other nations and terror groups to obtain nuclear weapons.

The media has acted in concert with our leaders by running heart-breaking stories of how the people of North Korea will die by the millions this or that winter if we do not feed them. Our government/ media complex has repeatedly told us that by giving the North Koreans, free food things will be better and South Korea will like us better.

Our leaders have told us repeatedly that Russia and China -- which fought alongside the North Koreans against us in the Korean War and again in the Vietnam War, where they fought against us by supplying Vietnam -- will somehow control the North Koreans and make them want to join the family of man, etc.

None of this has happened because Russia and China have no interest in stopping our financial bleeding related to the cost of our forces in Japan and South Korea. I will discuss our massive air, sea and ground troops in Japan in my next missive.

It is obvious to anyone who thinks about it, that what the U.S. government is doing now and proposing to do in the future in South Korea is not a good plan. So what would be a good plan? We could withdraw all of our troops, close all our bases, and bring all our assets back to the USA.

The troops would be with their families and we would benefit from their economic impact here. More importantly, our military could train them to be an instant deployment force. They could train in the southwest desert area of our country, where they would be on the spot in case Mexico implodes or their drug war spills over into U.S. territory. We would tell South Korea that it is time for them to take over their own defense and to go to the United Nations if North Korea invades their territory.

It is obvious that we should deploy an anti-ballistic missile system to protect from a launch against us from North Korea. Of course, our current president is against our having an anti-missile defense. I guess after North Korea destroys part of Hawaii, he might change his mind or we will not reelect him. The production of the anti-missile system could provide good jobs in the USA for the likes of Raytheon(RTN) and Northrop Grumman(NOC).