Korean War Grinds Into its Sixth Decade

In case you were wondering what happens when we don't leave.

I've posted this before but it bears repeating as the media focuses on protesters during the fifth anniversary of the Iraq combat operations. Here Donald Rumsfeld provides perspective on Iraq by pointing to the Korean experience.

Many of you may be aware that I keep a photograph on my desk under glass. It's a satellite image taken at night of the Korean peninsula. And I think they're going to put one up, if they have one. It's powerful. I often give it to foreign dignitaries when they visit my office. It's evidence of Bob Bartley's vision.
And as you can see, in the south, below the Demilitarized Zone, the land is bright with energy and life. In the north, that one pinprick of light is the capital -- of Pyongyang in North Korea. The same people in the north and south, the same resources in the North and the South -- no difference. The difference is that in the south, they have a free political system and a free economic system -- and that that freedom has unleashed the power of human ingenuity to the great benefit of the South Korean people.

In the North, with a repressive dictatorship, a command economy, the people suffer starvation. They are taking people into the North Korean military that are four feet, 10 inches high and less than a hundred pounds because of malnutrition in that country.

Originally posted in UNCoRRELATED Mar 20, 2008