This is just another attempt to pain anyone who disagrees with the war as a Coward, which my my accounting seems to be a slur you are quite fond of for people who disagree with your politics.

I wrote: How has so many of our generation became so gutless?

Did I call you a coward or do you take personnally everything someone writes that you disagree with? I talked about my generation, the Baby Boomers, as a whole. Too damned many of us ARE gutless. That statement transcends politics to include the lawsuit mentality, the tiresome self-importance, the decades long adolescence and failure to accept individual responsibility, and the sad fact that so many people put their own well being as more important than anything else. My parents' generation had a different mindset, but then, overcoming hard times forces most people to mature faster.

Fortunately, there are a lot of good people in both mine and succeeding generations that aren't gutless. These include people like the firefighters, police, and Transit Authority personnel who ran into the burning WTC towers in an effort to save others. It includes the people on board Flight 93 who rose up to stop their hijackers, and the countless emergency workers (cops, firefighters, paramedics, etc.) who go out every day and face things most of us couldn't bear. And, it includes the people of today's military.

If NK marched on the DMZ, there would be a lot of American dead. A lot. Like Vietnam/WWII numbers. You wouldn't hear me complaining if we fought NK. You wouldn't hear most of the left complaining.

From what I've read, there are some 25,000 to 35,000 American military personnel stationed in South Korea, with several thousand more American civilians. Many of them would be killed should the North invade the South again. There would be even more Korean dead. Seoul is within artillery range of the DMZ and reports indicate the North has a lot of tubes in hardened locations. Some estimates say that as many as 500,000 Seoul residents could be killed on the first day.

One size doesn't fit all situations, which is why the way we handle North Korea has to be different than how we handle Iraq or other countries.

BTW: You mentioned that most of the left wouldn't complain, but that implies that some of them would. Why would ANY of the left complaining about protecting South Korea from an attack?

If China took on HK and if we actually fulfilled our moral and at least implied treaty obligations (which recent rhetoric by the WH leaves me wondering if we would) to defend a partner democracy against a tyranny, we are talking about several million dead. I would mourn them, but if China goes 1930's in asia, we're the only power that could check them (and even that is dubious).

But of course, you'll deny that. It doesn't fit with what you want to believe.

Hong Kong was a British colony until a few years ago. Our treaty obligations are with Taiwan, not Hong Kong. Do try to keep up. Now, if China attacks Taiwan, we've pledged to come to their aid. This could be a very tricky proposition given that both we and the Chinese have nuclear weapons. Still, I think we'd try to come to the aid of Taiwan. Given how we're stretched around the world right now, it might be hard to mount sufficient forces in the area in time to do anything. It'd have to be primarily Navy forces although long range bombers could be effective, should China try to mount an actual invasion. Other than that, we could be facing the prospect of going nuclear or not doing anything. Dangerous stuff.

The American Left led us to and through WWII, through the great depression, and laid the groundwork for resisting the Soviet Empire. They also led us, unfortunately, into vietnam. Calling the American Left gutless is just about the same sort of Bullshit rhetoric that would have us call bona-fide war heroes gutless who resist a senseless started unilatertally by a chickenhawk little rich boy who (somehow) made it into the national guard to avoid real military duty. Its politically motivated historically ignorant convinient rhetoric for distorting whats really going on. (Hey, don't you think the term gutless might apply, Larry? Hmmm?). Theres been a lot of that going on from mad-dog partisans...

And I praised the men like FDR who led the US against the Axis (as a separate issue from his leadership and policies during the depression, which some economists say actually prolonged the misery). I praised my parents' generation (which, by implication, includes their leaders like Truman), for making the sacrifaces to contain the spread of communism during the Cold War.

Look at the actions and words of men like FDR, Truman, and JFK and compare them to the current American Left. It's debateable that such men would even be in today's Democratic Party. Take this one quote by JFK during his inauguration speech and tell me, what current day Democrats do you hear sounding like this?

Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, in order to assure the survival and the success of liberty. This much we pledge—and more.

Do you hear any modern Democrats who talk like that today, with the possible exception of Zell Miller, who many Democrats consider a traitor? Today's Left is far different from the men like FDR, Truman, and JFK. There's simply no comparison.

One thing you can't see about the american left in your blind partisanship is their overwhelming desire to see 'Social Justice' at work. Thats why they are glad to go to war against marauding tyrants, but are loath to see us start wars unilaterally. Interesting that they tend not to refer to the American Right as gutless cowards despit the fact that the American Right was the main opposition to entry into WWII, WWI and Vietnam.

And in YOUR blind partisanship, you think Saddam's past doesn't put him into the maurauding tyrant category? He started a war with Iran that killed about a million people. He gassed both the Iranians and the Kurds. He invaded Kuwait and was close to going into Saudi Arabia back in 1990. He killed countless thousands of his own people. Sounds pretty tyrannical to me. But then, I'm just a blind partisan, not some "enlightened" soul like you.

Maybe your going to get all poopy with me because I'm not treating you with the respect you think you deserve? Take a deep breath and think about YOUR rhetoric for a second.

You seem to think that your opinion of me actually matters? Sorry, but I only care about the opinions of people I respect. You're not one of them. I doubt you ever will be, given the intellectual lameness of your posts.

Now if your going to go into you usual insult mode, in the spirit of Detente, go over to Flame. I'll gladly play with you over there, Larry.

Let's see, you've called me a coward but in your narrow mindset, I guess that isn't namecalling. Typical.