I just ended up on this tangent
in the first article read from the "japanese occupation" bit on, about half way down
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korea
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korean_War
there's some real history there and you can see why the Japanese are most worried about all this
they call it the forgotten war and I knew hardly anythign about it except hawkeye, klinger and hotlips hulahan worked in the medical tent there
actually reading over that history and hearing Kim jong Illin' calling sanctions an "act of war" makes me wonder if he isnt actually planning another invasion akin to June 1950 - reasoning the US is pre-occupied elsewhere and the Nukes will stop them interfering
You can guarantee "re-unification" is never far from his mind
maybe he thinks now is a good time
if you read over that history the whole taiwan issue is never far away either
china got involved later on then - would they this time?
Harry S Truman worried then that the Korean war was WW3
maybe what wasnt finished in 1953 has waited until now
the crazy thing is the figures of the dead and the enourmous cost of that war and it hardly ever gets mentioned
I had no Idea there were nearly half a million US troops sent, 63, 000 British and 17, 000 Australian - in proportion of population compared to Britain at that time that is a huge relative number of Australian troops for an Australian citizen to have never heard of - we're always reminded of WW1 and 2 and vietnam
the war was never resolved and ended in stalemate, with N. Korea left with a grudge against the Japanese and US and still a strong desire to reunify, along with the memory that the US/UN couldnt defeat them last time and the knowledge the US is tied up in a complete mess in Iraq with the possibility of expansion of the conflict there, whether they or the Israelis spearhead it
just saying