Army Bob: Is Korea the ‘Land of the Morning Calm’?

Folks will call Afghanistan our longest war, but it’s not true. It has been repeated so many times most believe it.

The Korean War has been ongoing for 68 years. The president of South Korea, Moon Jae-In, and the Supreme Leader of North Korea, Kim Jong Un, announced the end of the Korean War, well sort of; will that change things? Probably not.

“South Korea is a technologically advanced developed country driven by a highly educated and skilled workforce, having the world’s eighth highest median household income, the highest in Asia. Globally, it ranks highly in personal safety, job security, ease of doing business and healthcare quality, with the world’s third highest health adjusted life expectancy and fourth most efficient healthcare system. It is the world’s largest spender on R&D per GDP, leading the OECD in graduates in science and engineering and ranking third in the Youth Wellbeing Index. Home of Samsung, LG and Hyundai-Kia, South Korea was named the world’s most innovative country for 5 consecutive years.” — Wikipedia.

The South Koreans embraced American capitalism, wrapping their arms and legs around capitalism, and out of total destruction in the Korean War they developed a nation that is set to out perform the Japanese. The North established a socialist economic system.

Both nations started from the same point, essentially zero, and in 68 years the most advanced nation in Asia is found in the South. If one wishes to compare capitalism to socialism, just look to the two Koreas. Many of my left-wing friends are in denial when it comes to socialism; most of the educational elite will continue to trumpet the unshakeable belief in the nobility of national socialism. Senator Bernie Sanders’ showing in the primary election attests to the belief that common sense and history be samned. Socialism is a glorious system.

I was stationed in South Korea for three years and got to know and understand the people. In my opinion, the Koreans are the finest group of people on the planet. Industrious, intelligent, hardest working, and so very thankful for the opportunity to improve their lives they actually believe in hard work and loyalty to an employer.

The idea of reunification of the two Koreas, artificially split by the allies after World War II, would be an enormous benefit for the North Korean people, but not the power structure in North Korea. North Korea has many natural resources that, coupled with the economic power of the South, would make an even more prosperous reunified nation. The opening of relations between the North and South will help move the people of the North toward capitalism; however, the move will not be rapid.

The North has limited the people’s access to reality. The Northern leaders and media constantly tell the people the South is a bastion of poor underprivileged people who are starving and living as animals. They trumpet the glories of socialism that makes the North a shining light of progressive government.

The Union of the Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) fell apart in the 1990s for many reasons; one was the introduction of western television, in particular the popular program “Dallas,” the story of a Texas oil family. After viewing western television, the folks in the Soviet Republics marveled that western nations were not the backward, poor, starving masses, all victims of a Capitalist system, as painted by Soviet socialist propaganda. Opening South Korean television to the North may have the same effect.

The big question is, will the North fully and honestly relinquish their 20 to 40 nukes? Muammar Gaddafi gave up his nukes (they are in a bunker in Tennessee) for a guarantee that we would allow him to live out his life unmolested. And then, President Barack Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton had him killed.

No third world despot will ever truly denuclearize. Kim Jong Un may be a lot of things, but stupid is not one of them. The Supreme Leader giving up his nukes would be a wonderful thing for world peace, but thanks to our dishonesty with Gaddafi, the Mad Dog of the Mideast, I would be surprised if it happens.