Standing Up against Fascism

Stephen Green at VodkaPundit has a good long fisking of Ronald Asmus's troop realignment story. McQ over at QandO is talking about a similar story in The New Republic.

Here is the long and short of their points. Moving our troops out of the middle of Germany is a good idea. Their positions have been outdated since the fall of the Berlin Wall and the Reunification of Germany. The free world controls both sides of the Fulda Gap now. The Russians have moved their tank forces back from East Germany into Russia proper, so the response time of our heavy forces is much less critical. Time to bring the boys home. The only reason a lot of those folks put up with us over there is that they like the color of our money.

The plan also calls for pulling some troops out of South Korea. After all the South Koreans don't want us there say McQ and Stephen. They have a point, however I think this is a very short-sighted idea. To explain, let me tell you a little story.

Once upon a time a great man died. He had been out of the public eye for a long time because of illness, but none of that mattered. He had plotted the course that vanquished evil and saved the free world. Anyone with any sense thanked him for it, prayed for his soul, and revered his memory. That man was Ronald Reagan.

One of the things Reagan taught us were that freedom is better than oppression and tyranny. Its more efficient and far more powerful in the long run. Likewise he taught us that evil can and should be opposed instead of tolerated. The agents of freedom can defeat tyranny, possibly without violence, by application of pressure of their superior efficiency.

Why am I talking about this? How different is the situation in North Korea from the old situation that we faced with the Soviet Union? North Korea might be able to lob WMDs at the West Coast. So what? The Soviets could vaporize the world multiple times over. We still opposed them and we were right to do so. We should at least be willing to do the same thing now. Haven't we learned our lesson? Obviously not.

If it were not for the War on Terror, I would advocate ramping up our troop levels in Korea. As it is, we need to maintain them. North Korea is on its last legs economically. Were it not for help from China and the Clinton Administation, they would be gone already. All we need to do is apply pressure and they will fold. They can do nothing else because both sides know that they can't challenge us. The time is coming when the agents of freedom must once again oppose the forces of tyranny.

As an aside, we should look at our relations with North Korea (and possibly China too) and re-evaluate the Reagan Legacy. I heard many people proposing that the Soviets would have fallen without Reagan's policies. Perhaps, but North Korea is still here. So far the NKoms seem much happier to attempt to extort money from the free peoples with threats of force. That never would have happened to Reagan. I don't see too many people talking about the inevitability of their downfall now either.