Monday, June 12, 2006
The 55- 56-year (and counting) "exit strategy"
Left I on the News, October, 2005, in a post with the same title as this one:
U.S. troops entered Korea in 1950; the Korean War nominally ended (without a peace treaty, but with a truce) in 1953. There are still 37,000 American troops in Korea.New York Times, stenographer to the Bush administration, June, 2006:
And is Korea a fully sovereign nation even now? Consider this:"Despite a desire by officials here to assume greater responsibility for the defense of their country, the United States and South Korea agreed [Ed. note: yeah, sure] Friday to leave a U.S. commander in charge of their combined armies in the event of a war on the Korean peninsula.
"With steady improvements made by South Korea's military and the nation's emergence as an economic power, South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun said recently that his country was ready to take on more control of its armed forces, and suggested altering the current arrangement that put South Korean forces under U.S. command during wartime." [Ed. note: his suggestion was duly noted, and round-filed.]
Mr. Bush on Friday made clear that the American commitment to the country will be long-term. Officials say the administration has begun to look at the costs of maintaining a force of roughly 50,000 troops there for years to come, roughly the size of the American presence maintained in the Philippines and Korea for decades after those conflicts.
