Author Topic: Pattern Recognition  (Read 10444 times)

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BT

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Re: Pattern Recognition
« Reply #45 on: June 27, 2010, 11:49:05 PM »
Re: The World Court

The World Court opened its doors in 1921 after the Covenant of the League of Nations was ratified by forty-two nations (sixty-three governments would join the league before its demise in 1946). President Woodrow Wilson, despite his passionate efforts, failed to convince the Senate to ratify the treaty; therefore, the United States would not be a member of the league or the court. Ironically, Germany joined the league in 1926 and the Soviet Union became a member in 1934 (only to be expelled in 1939).

http://www.nps.gov/archive/elro/glossary/world-court.htm

Xavier_Onassis

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Re: Pattern Recognition
« Reply #46 on: June 28, 2010, 11:57:23 AM »
Chinese died in Korea to prevent the takeover of a fellow socialist state by American imperialism. 

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It is pretty hard to justify anyone dying to defend Kim Il Sung in Korea. First off, North Korea invaded South Korea. They did this because the understood that the US would not retaliate, based on statements from the US government that should never have been made.
Second, Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il have to be among the least competent rulers on the planet of any ideology. They make Mugabe look good: at least Zimbabweans can flee his incompetence.

The PRC soldiers may have been told that they were defending a workers' state, but the reality is that China did not want any capitalist state on its border. They had to put up with Hong  Kong and Macau, but they were not going to put up with a capitalist Korea, which was a threat from both a military and a political view.

South Korea was a wreck in 1950, after the Japanese occupation, as was the North, but by 1990 it had passed out of the "developing world" status" and now it is clearly first world. In North Korea, they are still eating grass and weeds, if they are not starving. The North Korean Army could overthrow Kim, but the officers know that they would lose their prestige and could only hope for driving cabs in Seoul at best. It will take North Korea around 30 years at least to approximate the development standards of the South. East Germany was already pretty well developed, but North Korea sucks at every level.

I don't see any way anyone can defend North Korea as a society or as a country, compared to what it could be after unification.
"Time flies like an arrow; fruit flies like a banana."

Plane

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Re: Pattern Recognition
« Reply #47 on: June 29, 2010, 12:50:47 AM »
well said .


The Koreans I have met do not consider North and South Korea to be two nations , but one nation unfortunately divided , they didn't like a map I had that showed the DMZ as a bold line as if it were a real border.

Xavier_Onassis

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Re: Pattern Recognition
« Reply #48 on: June 29, 2010, 11:36:55 AM »
Of course, in 1952, both Koreas were run by dictators who were heavily influenced by foreign powers. It was certainly not obvious that South Korea would evolve into another Japan. It was not clear that Japan would become what it has become.
"Time flies like an arrow; fruit flies like a banana."

Plane

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Re: Pattern Recognition
« Reply #49 on: June 29, 2010, 09:07:43 PM »
Of course, in 1952, both Koreas were run by dictators who were heavily influenced by foreign powers. It was certainly not obvious that South Korea would evolve into another Japan. It was not clear that Japan would become what it has become.


It was clear to General McArther.

He was the hero of the peace .

Xavier_Onassis

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Re: Pattern Recognition
« Reply #50 on: June 30, 2010, 12:47:00 AM »
I really doubt that McArthur would have predicted that by 2010, the Japanese would have cornered the US luxury car market with the Lexus, Acura and Infiniti. McArthur was a military genius, but his idea of nuking the Chinese was a very bad idea, and we are lucky Truman fired his ass.

I recall the Republican Convention of 1952, when some Senator from Oklahoma nominated MacArthur for the Republican candidate. I told my father and he snickered and said that Eisenhower was better, because he wasn't nuts.

And so it came to pass.
"Time flies like an arrow; fruit flies like a banana."

Plane

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Re: Pattern Recognition
« Reply #51 on: June 30, 2010, 01:30:17 AM »
I really doubt that McArthur would have predicted that by 2010, the Japanese would have cornered the US luxury car market with the Lexus, Acura and Infiniti. McArthur was a military genius, but his idea of nuking the Chinese was a very bad idea, and we are lucky Truman fired his ass.

I recall the Republican Convention of 1952, when some Senator from Oklahoma nominated MacArthur for the Republican candidate. I told my father and he snickered and said that Eisenhower was better, because he wasn't nuts.

And so it came to pass.

What makes his idea of nukeing the Chineese a bad idea?

If he had been given the chance to write the constitution of China , he might have done just as good a job as he did in Japan*.



 




*Actually he deligated this task to his staff , but the national treasures preservation was his idea.

Xavier_Onassis

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Re: Pattern Recognition
« Reply #52 on: June 30, 2010, 01:44:01 PM »
What makes his idea of nukeing the Chineese a bad idea?

If he had been given the chance to write the constitution of China , he might have done just as good a job as he did in Japan*.



 




*Actually he deligated this task to his staff , but the national treasures preservation was his idea.
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I hardly think that MacArthur would have been authorized to CONQUER China with nuclear weapons. Nor would the US have been able to have occupied China the way it occupied Japan. Occupying Japan was easy to do, being as nearly all the men between the ages of 15 and 60 had been killed in the War. It was largely a nation of women and children, and a few old men. China is exponentially larger than Japan, and of course, there already was a Nationalist Constitution that is really rather well done. It is the Sun Yatsen Constitution, which is still in force in Taiwan, and far more in harmony with China and its people than anything that MacArthur could write.

Japan is a society which values its heritage far more than the US. I really doubt that its national treasures were likely to be endangered by Japanese.
"Time flies like an arrow; fruit flies like a banana."

Michael Tee

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Re: Pattern Recognition
« Reply #53 on: June 30, 2010, 01:58:09 PM »
<<What makes his idea of nukeing the Chineese a bad idea?>>

In all seriousness, don't you think the idea of nuking the U.S.A. is a bad idea?

If you're not a racist, how come you can plainly see why nuking the U.S.A. is bad but seem to think that nuking the Chinese might not be bad?

Xavier_Onassis

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Re: Pattern Recognition
« Reply #54 on: June 30, 2010, 02:48:33 PM »
If the US were nuked, Plane might be one of the nukees, though this is doubtful, I do not think here he is is all that strategic. If China were nuked, he would not be a nukee for certain.

MacArthur's plan was to nuke the major invasion routes of the Chinese forces at the Yalu River. He did not plan to conquer China, or at least that was not part of his proposal. It would have stopped the Chinese advance, and then the UN troops would have mopped up the North Korean Army and Korea would have been unified, separated from the Chinese by a border that glowed in the dark.

No doubt there would have been some dolts in Congress who would have wanted him to conquer China by whatever means and return it to Chaing and his Dragon Lady wife. But I do not think that this would have happened.
"Time flies like an arrow; fruit flies like a banana."

Plane

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Re: Pattern Recognition
« Reply #55 on: July 01, 2010, 12:16:00 AM »
Once you burst an A- bomb on their territory , but you don't really destroy their strength , can you then simply stop?

If China had been so directly attacked, how could they refrain reciprocation?

I think that the Yalu could have been made more of an obsticle by planting minefeilds deeply on the southern bank , blowing up the south end of the bridges and pumping water over the roads to glaze them with ice .

But I could come up with many possible preparations from my perch in the future here and now, I have the advantage of hindsight. Could the massive cristmass attack have been forseen soon enough to prepare in any way at all?