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288 points Bezod | 2 comments | | HN request time: 0s | source
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petcat ◴[] No.46199273[source]
Can we back up and just recognize how insane North Korea is? I think that future generations will look back on our history and wonder why nobody ever did anything about the incredible atrocities that took place in that country for decades.
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VWWHFSfQ ◴[] No.46199321[source]
It will definitely go down as one of the biggest failures of mankind. Especially since it was so easily preventable if MacArthur was permitted to just take the whole peninsula.
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timschmidt ◴[] No.46199545[source]
China was already sending troops and material to the front lines when MacArthur was ordered to stand down. Pushing further would have meant a hot war with China.
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petcat ◴[] No.46199680[source]
A hot war with China in 1950 was going to end quickly with the firepower USA had on-hand.
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timschmidt ◴[] No.46200064[source]
There is no way we could match them in numbers on the ground. Such a conflict would have inevitably led to us nuking them as a result. Which is probably the reason decision makers chose not to.
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petcat ◴[] No.46200149[source]
And maybe that's really the humanitarian failure. That USA didn't nuke China in 1950 or 1951. Would have solved a lot of problems for generations of people.
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yongjik ◴[] No.46200203[source]
Wow, just half a dozen comments from why we're not saving North Koreans to "we could've nuked China and solved a lot of problems."

Some Hacker News threads are on their own level.

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petcat ◴[] No.46200249[source]
Well we know what happened to North Korea after China "won". And it's pretty fucking god-awful for 10s of millions of people for 80+ years.

USA dropping nukes probably would have been the better outcome for humanity.

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nl ◴[] No.46202671{5}[source]
Wait - you think the solution to some people having a lower standard of living and others being persecuted is to kill them all?
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1. lkbm ◴[] No.46206018{6}[source]
Nukes usually don't wipe out entire countries, especially tactical nukes.

I'm far from convinced that using nukes in the Korean War would've been a good move, but equating it with "kill[ing] them all" is completely dishonest. What's your goal in this debate, and is it served by dishonest rhetoric?

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2. nl ◴[] No.46213255[source]
My comment is in the context of:

> That USA didn't nuke China in 1950 or 1951. Would have solved a lot of problems for generations of people.

> USA dropping nukes probably would have been the better outcome for humanity.

Both of which I read as an expansive campaign of "nuking China"