It's time to start taking military personnel out of S Korea. The Koreans don't won't to help with the war on terror take the US troops out of their country. I was stationed there in the '70's and the Republic of Korea troops can defend that country just fine against a starved out third world backwater like N Korea. If they can't maybe they don't need to survive as a nation. We can also take the troops out of Bosnia. Didn't Bill Clinton say they would be there for only a year or two? The Euros don't want to help with the war on terror let them at least police their own backyards. Yeah, I know they were failures at it already but it's their backyard, not Americas.

Iraq is not in America's backyard either.

Actually, south Korea is already helping the US by deploying its own forces at the most dangerous border in the world. Pulling the US troops out is a an interesting concept, but one that is likely to encourage north Korea to start "unifying". Even if the south Koreans can withstand north Korea, they will lose Seoul (it can be reached by artillery from north Korea - it will be flattened within days), and at some point nuclear weapons are likely to be used. The repercussions would be a tremendous defeat for the US, and the loss of a staunch ally.

There's not many troops left in Europe, and withdrawing them would certainly please many Europeans. But one of the reasons there are still so many troops in Europe is because they maintain, secure and justify the huge bases that the US needs in order to fight in Iraq in the first place. It could also give the Russians a sign that Europe could perhaps use another Big Friend.

I'm sure that Europe would be happy to withdraw the troops it has in Afghanistan in order to police its backyard.

South Koreans have been less than "welcoming" to our soldiers for a while. They are not happy about American installations in prime real estate areas, and there's some racism, too. I would say that we should draw down 35,000 troops out. That would actually give us better relations with South Korea. It would also force the SK to put the manipulated South Korean college students who periodically protest American soldiers in uniform, where NK troops can play "shave and a haircut" with them with bullets on the DMZ. The SK students are not at the DMZ, so they don't realize that the NK troops are not as "nice" as the infiltrators Kim sends in to stir things up. It's amazing what some experience at the DMZ does to those kids' perspective.

I have friends in Korea. The DMZ can be a hard tour, let the Koreans handle it. They are well prepared, their soldiers are excellent,a nd little military discipline might teach some of the students to stop throwing rocks through American soldiers' car windows.

Koreanize the conflict, in other words. All these benefits can be had by moving the bases away from the DMZ and Seoul prime real estate.

I think it's worth considering, but not until a peace deal has been reached with NK and relations are improving. Otherwise you're just handing your nuts to Kim and hope for the best.

endorendil:

I think it's worth considering, but not until a peace deal has been reached with NK and relations are improving. Otherwise you're just handing your nuts to Kim and hope for the best.

Spoken like a true control freak micro-manager.

o...k... as opposed to telling the chiefs of staff that they should revert 50 years of active support of South Korea in order to pile a few more bodies in Iraq? Funny. Is it because Kim actually has the WMD that Iraq was supposed to have? Thank Bush for letting that happen...

I just don't think the US should be the world's perpetual police force. When is America going to let countries stand on their own?

When is America going to let countries stand on their own?

Either when America no longer needs to rely on military force in order to maintain its status, or when it no longer can pay for it.

Is there anything our troops can do to prevent or stop an artillery attack on Seoul that SK troops or our Navy and Airforce cannot?

We can say to the SK President "Your people don't want us there, and we can use the troops elsewhere. Would you like us to leave?". To sweeten the pot, we can offer to take in any NK refugees they don't want (I read an article a while back talking about their difficulties in that regard)--we can use the farm labor anyway now that we're sending Mexican labor back to Mexico.

That MIGHT work with Bosnia as well, but only so long as fighting doesn't break out again (I don't recall European troops did very well last time).